Thursday 6 September 2018

Throwback Thursday


I guess this isn't your typical Throwback Thursday...

This picture is from circa 1896. The woman is Marie, my great-great grandmother. The man is Kristen, my great-great grandfather. The boy on the right is my great grandfather Lars Peter. There is a street named after him to this day in the city where this picture was taken. We know he was born in 1893, so we think this picture is some years older than 1896 since he looks about 8.

It's funny how dominant those heavy upper eyelids are in my family!

(The link seems to be a bit fussy, so here is to the article containing the picture)

4 comments:

  1. Ida, this is awesome, thank you for sharing a part of your history!

    If you don't mind and if it's not too personal, would you tell us why there's a street named after your great grandfather?

    Best,
    Buchfreundin

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your interest! :)
      Of course I'll share: The TL;DR version is that he was a big fish in a small pond.
      The longer version is that you first need to know that this region of Denmark has been very poor and had very bad soil, so people mostly lived off fishing. (Also, this is one of the most beautiful areas in Denmark if you ask me. Well worth a visit if you're into the "rough" nature of an ice age landscape and ocean. Lots of history and important finds there too, like a bronze age sun chariot. The region is called Odsherred) My great-great grandfather Kristen started a small horticulture and it managed to grow very well through Lars Peter's time too. I guess today it's very hard to understand how big an impact this could have on a small community. But when you see pictures from farming back then, they used horsepower well up into the 50es (Imagine that!) so I guess they were more dependent on getting the *right* plants that could survive the harsh climate and poor soil. Once the industrialization of farming really kicked in, the horticulture lost it's importance and value. It was sold off some time during my mothers childhood. The buildings still stand to this day, and my family left their fingerprint on this little corner of the world :)
      I actually ran into this some years back when I visited a museum of psychiatry, where they had a exhibit on how the patients used to work "household chores" to rehabilitate, and the trees and plants used for the hospital garden came from... Yep, my family's horticulture. Small world!

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  2. How awesome...thanks for sharing!

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  3. Oh and they aren't smiling either...so it's genetic when the camera is around! ;-)

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