Revisiting Strömsborg

I’m finally here! I have returned to Strömsborg’s recreational home, north of Stockholm on a peninsula called Rådmansö. A year has passed since I was here last and now, I am here with my family to stay for a whole week. We have been able to rent one of the houses, Sjöhaga, and I am more than happy to be able to spend part of my summer in these beautiful surroundings.

Sjöhaga

Now, I can walk in the footsteps of both my great grandparents and my grandparents as well as their siblings and experience a piece of what they enjoyed as they were spending time on these grounds 100 years ago. The place has not changed that much that it is hard to imagine their summers here. There are still the six houses and the main building where they would meet, have some meals together and enjoy moments of worship.

Some renovations to the houses have of course been made, and a sauna has been installed in the boat house on one of the docks. Otherwise, I believe the grounds are pretty much the same as when  Lotten Hagelin bought the first pieces of land to start her recreational home for missionaries in 1906.

According to the records, Lotten Hagelin started to invite guests to stay with her around 1910. The first family who got to stay in the then newly built house called “Elim” was my great grandparents Dagny and Robert. This was in 1911 and they had six children with them at the time (my grandfather was born in 1913). Dagny and Robert spent both summers 1911 and 1912 at Strömsborg, enjoying the clear and somewhat cold water and the wind rustling through the many trees in the vast forest bordering on the grounds.

It was when they went back to China after this time of rest from the mission, that they had to leave four of their children behind in Sweden, so that they could get proper schooling. Dagny-Edla was 12 years old when she came into the care of Lotten Hagelin, who took care of everything from schooling to room and board.

I was very curious to see if there was more evidence of Dagny-Edla’s life with Lotten in the house where I had been shown some pictures of my relatives last summer. See here: https://thereseamneus.wordpress.com/2022/07/31/revealing-past-summers/

A couple of days into our stay here, I went to the main house “Borgen” to sit down and look through photo albums and loose photographs. And I was not disappointed! So many photos that Lotten left behind show different relatives of mine, from both my grandfather’s and my grandmother’s side.

Many photographs are of the type “everybody standing in front of the main house” but some are fascinating because they are from different everyday activities.

Though this photograph is not the sharpest in the collection, I was happy to see Dagny-Edla (to the right) working with a friend preparing yarn.

To the left, a close friend of Lotten Hagelin, Gustaf Liedbergius, who is helping the girls with their chores.

This photograph shows a typical scene with some people around a coffee table in the garden. Lotten Hagelin to the right, sitting beside her is Dagny-Edla.

I thought I would find more photos of Dagny-Edla, and I did. But in addition to that I found some drawings, that Dagny-Edla made in school. Lotten loved to draw, and she was quite good at it. Her drawings are on display in the house. Dagny-Edla was quite young at the time, but managed to draw some nice leaves at the age of 16, as you can see here:

And a drawing by Lotten Hagelin:

I also found family photos of Dagny-Edla’s parents Dagny and Robert in the collection of photos in the house. It was such an amazing feeling of connection when I saw their faces looking at me from the photographs. They were here, I am here. We connect at Strömsborg. As it is a great sorrow that I don’t feel that I can go to China to see where they lived and worked, this is a very good second home to visit.

A basket on a shelf, contained several photos of my family. Here, Robert and Dagny with all of their children. In this photo, the whole family is gathered, with my grandfather Rudolf on Dagny’s lap. He was the youngest in the family, born in 1913. From the left, Robert, Dagny-Edla, Morris, Rolland, Wille, Martin, Rudolf, Dagny.

I’m still going through the photographs, and I will update with relevant pics here, but there were also other Chinese artefacts in the house. A qualified guess is that they were given to Lotten Hagelin, or the foundation, from the missionaries who were stationed in China. Perhaps even from my relatives. As our family have lost these kinds of artefacts because of challenging times, I was very intrigued to see such things bundeled up in a wowen bag on a shelf in the house.

Amongst different things, were Chinese coins and a shoe used by women, who got their feet bound. The missionaries worked against this tradition as it was very cruel to the women and caused a lot of pain and suffering throughout the Chinese women’s lives.

I am just amazed seeing all of these things.

Chinese coins

A box full of photos where I found this picture of Dagny-Edla and four of her brothers. Lovely!

Sitting on the glass veranda of “Sjöhaga”, I feel very fortunate to be able to write about this. My family is surrounding me in spirit, and I feel it. I am at home. And like a very good friend of mine said – I’m time travelling. And that is a very exciting kind of holiday 🙂