Midsummer's Day and Riana
If you will indulge me, I am taking a side trip. Today Riana and I spent the day at Gammelgarden, which is a Swedish Old Farm Museum about 45 minutes from here. Each year they have a typical Midsummer's Day celebration, and this year there were somewhere between 500 and 1,000 Swedes and "adopted" Swedes attending.
Riana volunteers each year, and she goes in her "replicated" Swedish costume. This year she was assigned to teaching Swedish songs and dances to children. Riana has attended Concordia College's Swedish Language Immersion Camp for the last two years, and will go again this summer.
Riana
Midsummer Parade at the start of the Midsummer Celebration
Ring dancing.
Those seated closest to the camera and in black skirts or pants and white tops were part of a large group of Swedish chorus singers from Sweden. One of them told me, "I wish we did this at home -- this is the first time I've been to Midsummer's Day. I know they do this each year in Mora!" Mora is in Dalarna and where our ancestors came from. My mother's family came from Mora.
What you can't see from the photos were the rows and rows of older Swedes, many dressed in authentic Swedish costumes, seated as onlookers behind and to the side of where I was taking the photos from. There were at least 10 - 15 rows of chairs spread across the lawn.
Gammelgarden has on site a Swedish Stuga (summer cottage), the original Swedish barn, the Priest's House that is much like the older houses in Stambaugh and Caspian that I visited as a child, a typical immigrant's first log cabin (probably like those in Homestead), a large new building that has two classrooms and a Swedish boutique, and the first and oldest Swedish Lutheran Church in Minnesota. It's a wonderful place for children's programs and Riana and I have been involved there for the last 7 years. For the past 3 years, I have acted as the minister in the concluding church services in the "Coming to America" programs for children.
If you are interested, here's the website for Gammelgarden:
http://www.gammelgardenmuseum.org/
Tomorrow, we go back to Palmer.
Riana
Midsummer Parade at the start of the Midsummer Celebration
Ring dancing.
Those seated closest to the camera and in black skirts or pants and white tops were part of a large group of Swedish chorus singers from Sweden. One of them told me, "I wish we did this at home -- this is the first time I've been to Midsummer's Day. I know they do this each year in Mora!" Mora is in Dalarna and where our ancestors came from. My mother's family came from Mora.
What you can't see from the photos were the rows and rows of older Swedes, many dressed in authentic Swedish costumes, seated as onlookers behind and to the side of where I was taking the photos from. There were at least 10 - 15 rows of chairs spread across the lawn.
Gammelgarden has on site a Swedish Stuga (summer cottage), the original Swedish barn, the Priest's House that is much like the older houses in Stambaugh and Caspian that I visited as a child, a typical immigrant's first log cabin (probably like those in Homestead), a large new building that has two classrooms and a Swedish boutique, and the first and oldest Swedish Lutheran Church in Minnesota. It's a wonderful place for children's programs and Riana and I have been involved there for the last 7 years. For the past 3 years, I have acted as the minister in the concluding church services in the "Coming to America" programs for children.
If you are interested, here's the website for Gammelgarden:
http://www.gammelgardenmuseum.org/
Tomorrow, we go back to Palmer.
Looks like this was so much fun! I'm so glad that you and Riana could be a part of this, Nancy.
ReplyDeleteIs Riana a tiny, little person or are those cabinets extra big?
ReplyDeleteThose cabinets are extra big! Riana is quite tall. The displays on the top of the cabinets cannot be touched without a ladder.
ReplyDelete