Going Home Lennart Pearson

Swedish American Genealogist Volume 26 | Number 1 Article 10 3-1-2006 Going Home Lennart Pearson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag Part of the Genealogy Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies Commons Recommended Citation Pearson, Lennart (2006) "Going Home," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 26 : No. 1 , Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol26/iss1/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center at Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swedish American Genealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Going Home A young boy’s experiences onboard an Atlantic liner BY LENNART PEARSON In the late fall of 1946, when I was of the entire pier – twenty-six letters twelve. Nanny was a professional in the eighth grade, my mother repeated in blue, green, and red. It cook. She had provided Scandinavian decided to take me with her to was a scene of noisy confusion. cuisine for some of the finest families Sweden to visit her aging father. The Outside, taxicab drivers were blow- in New York such as the Vanderbilts war was over and the Swedish-Amer- ing their horns, porters with hand and Hattie Carnegie, the fashion ican Line was once again carrying trucks were hustling those who had queen. Coming to the United States passengers across the Atlantic, so she just arrived, and hot dog vendors for the first time in 1910, Nanny had put her name on a long waiting list were hawking their indigestibles. returned almost every summer to for tickets. After some months, she Inside the shed, policemen helped Sweden to see her relatives. This was was told that space would be avail- newcomers make sense of the signs to be her twenty-eighth trip; she able on the S.S. Gripsholm, sailing as people shouted across barricades would cross the Atlantic thirty-four Friday, December 6th, and arriving in various languages. Parents were times in all before she retired. She in Göteborg (Gothenburg) ten days tugging at cranky children, teen- had an imperious way about her, and later – just in time for Christmas. agers were eyeing other teenagers, perhaps her instincts about human My recollections of packing are officials were stamping anything nature had been too much shaped by hazy. I recall my mother putting handed them, travel agents were the hard hand of experience. She things rather ingeniously into a selling tickets, and wispy old ladies knew well, for instance, that much wardrobe trunk of the type that in hats and gloves were protecting could be accomplished by a well would have been standard equip- their handbags from purse snatchers placed “tip.” Not everyone appre- ment for transatlantic travelers a and pickpockets. Just beyond the ciated Nanny as much as I did, but decade earlier. We also had a steamer commotion, through the open walls certainly, everyone who knew her trunk, a couple of suitcases, and a of the shed, I could see the portholes also respected her. 16mm movie camera that my father of the gleaming white ocean liner and Two other passengers that turned had bought in 1941. gangplanks leading into the ship. up on deck were religious celebrities, A number of people from church Gustaf Landmer and Einar Ekberg. Leaving New York had come down to the dock to see us Landmer was an evangelist and Ek- The S.S. Gripsholm, which to my off, including the pastor who consid- berg was a gospel singer. Whether eyes was simply enormous, was ered it his Christian duty to say fare- they traveled together regularly as docked at Pier 97, at the west end of well to members of his flock but who a Swedish version of Dwight L. 57th Street on the Hudson River. The also enjoyed the excitement of such Moody and Ira D. Sankey, the nine- pier itself was a long drafty shed in departures. We were all properly teenth-century American evangel- which several thousand people were dressed for the occasion. I even had ists, or whether they found them- all trying to figure out what to do a hat with a brim which I wore un- selves together on this particular next. There was baggage every- der protest since I always hated hats sailing purely by coincidence, I do not where. Movable picket fences sepa- (and still do). We were not the only know. On board ship, however, they rated passengers according to wheth- passengers from church. There was did team up to hold religious services er they were traveling First Class Nanny Paulson, a redoubtable wom- in Swedish on several evenings in one (blue tags), Cabin Class (green tags), an in her sixties, and a good friend of the lounges. Ekberg sang and or Tourist Class (red tags). Trunks of my mother. Although she had Landmer preached to a generally and suitcases were to be checked in never married, she had a surprising- receptive audience. by last name, under large letters ly good instinct for things that were Once on board, we all posed for strung on overhead cables the length of interest to a boy just about to turn pictures on the upper deck and Swedish American Genealogist 2006:1 17 engaged in the customary bon voyage sation of the ship’s engines. The in Swedish (gaffelbitar) and in Ger- rites of hugs and goodbyes. water was calm and beautiful, and man (gaffelbissen), were really quite through the windows of the dining similar. My mother confirmed that The ship sails room, we could see the shoreline of the Swedish language was closely At 12:30 p.m., thirty minutes before Long Island perhaps four or five related to German, but was not able the ship was due to sail, the ship’s miles off the port side. to come up with a Swedish cognate horn signaled visitors to disembark. for rollmops. Clearly, there was more It was an unforgettable sound, ear- Delicious food! to be learned about Germany than I shatteringly magnificent as it echoed The table steward began to bring out had picked up during the war years, back across the Hudson River from the various luncheon courses, includ- when all Germans without exception the New Jersey shore. With a pang ing Scandinavian delicacies that had been regarded as “the Enemy.” of sadness I said good-bye to my fath- were familiar to me from home: an Later in the afternoon there was er, not realizing that the moment was assortment of cheeses, pickled her- a lifeboat drill. We were each as- far harder for him than it was for me. ring, and lingonberries. Scandina- signed to a particular lifeboat, which A few moments later, I could see him vian cuisine – Swedish, Norwegian, meant that when the alarm sounded, and the pastor emerge on the obser- Danish cooking – is unique, in the everyone gathered at designated vation platform at the end of the pier, same way that there is something points on one of the upper decks. In waving. In those days it was custom- special about Chinese, French, and our group there were perhaps twenty ary to throw rolls of narrow stream- Greek cuisine. Not everyone is fond people. I was puzzled by the fact that ers from the ship to those on shore, of smoked eel, cheese made from I could see no lifeboat from where we the thin strip of paper being the last goat’s milk, head cheese, or lutfisk were standing. It was explained that link broken as the ship was slowly (boiled stockfish previously soaked in the lifeboat was immediately above nudged from the dock by the at- lye), but almost everyone can find us, and that in an emergency it would tending tugs. The ship began to move something to savor at a smörgåsbord be lowered by the crew for access very, very slowly backing out into table, especially when it is followed through an open window. This was the Hudson River. The figures on the by coffee and Danish cookies or a slice not reassuring. I had read all about pier grew smaller and smaller until of raspberry tårta (cake) covered with the Titanic, and I could almost hear they were no longer identifiable. As real whipped cream. a ghostly band playing in the back- the tugs withdrew and the ship’s own Nothing that was served up during ground, “Nearer My God To Thee.” screws began to turn, a faint vibra- the ten days of this crossing was too tion indicated that the ship was exotic to be sampled, and the greater Our temporary home moving under its own power. Then the variety, the better I liked it. Some Our particular cabin was on D-deck, the pier slipped behind us, and the portly German people seated at a which was about at the waterline bow of the ship pointed east out nearby table commented very favor- since I could hear water sloshing on toward the Atlantic. ably on the food, and one grand- the other side of a porthole that had I was fascinated! The harbor was motherly traveler pointed out to me been tightly closed with an inner alive with barges, ferries, garbage that the words for “herring tidbits” metal cover. There were two decks scows, tugboats, oil tankers, freight- ers, and everywhere, sea gulls. The sun was bright and the air chilly, and I was reluctant to leave the upper deck. Fortunately, all meals on board were served in two sittings, and we had been assigned to the second sit- ting.

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