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Thursday, December 4, 2014

Old letters and photos

I have spent much of my time reading through all the letters my great grandfather wrote to his brother. It's not a complete set, but there are letters from the 1930's to the 1950's. He mentioned, among many other things, that he had written an article about Alsace in a specific newspaper "a couple of years ago". Very disturbing not to get the details, but I actually found it. He had also written down some of his memoirs, mostly relating to his job as a sales director at Swedish Match. He travelled extensively in Europe from 1920 to 1955, and he had friends all over the world. He actually went to the US on business in 1951 and for the first time had a Coca-cola to drink - he liked it. This soft drink didn't make it to Sweden until 1953. It's wonderful to get this much material, but somewhat overwhelming. It requires a lot of research because he mentioned many things; factories, companies, people and places that I know very little about.

I can't explain in words how interesting this project is. This is really my thing - doing research, finding facts and searching for clues in books, newspapers and archive material. If I could have this as a job it would be great. Sadly, there is no money in this kind of work. It's very time consuming.

This past Saturday my father and his girlfriend came to visit. We went to Ikea in Helsingborg. We started out with lunch and then walked through this enormous store. I bought a cabinet to have in the hall. You have to assemble the furniture yourself and my father helped me. I haven't filled it yet, but it's only a matter of time. My father gave me one more box with old photos, so I have been busy scanning them also.

Winter is here. It's fairly cold, just above freezing temperature, dark, cloudy and windy. No snow yet in the south.

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