Transcribe
Translate
May Tangen Christmas Letters, 1961-1974
Tangen Tribune Christmas Greeting Page 1
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
Tangen Tribune 1970-71 GREETINGS TO YOU this raining April night. FIFTEEN MONTHS before my 65th birthday I felt the delightful temptation to retire for one year and do nothing but sit, read, write and whatever. WHERE to do it? In a big city, where the impersonal throngs would not be curious about a lone woman; in a big city, where there is much to see if the old soul feels the urge to stir languidly about. American cities abound, but no, after considering several I wanted Oslo, Norway, for it has everything. IT SEEMED sinfully posh to go abroad to live, but the Lord did not seem to object. In fact, he was the one who gave me what I thought of as good luck: I got a good room immediately, complete with a delightful landlady who became my good friend, Gudrun Rimstad. If God had objected I could have landed in something deplorable or expensive. But he kept my cup full to the brim and running over: my writing went well (for me), I read some good books, I saw much beautiful scenery, I ate much good food but lost weight by choice and with much abstemiousness, I lived well within my budget, I went on tours, I made some friends. I SUPPOSE he didn't make my new-found relatives just to suit me, but oh, such FINE PEOPLE, such deep friendships. they showed me our old homes in FEIRING, the Kokkeby farm where my mother's people were born and had lived for generations and where Jorgen Fagernes now lives, the old Tangen farm a few miles away on the shore of the lake called MJOSA where my grandfather had "run about in his little-baby shoes", as Svanhild said. David, who now owns Tangen, showed me the tiny spruce-covered tangen (which means the peninsula) from which the farm Tangen and the people therefrom got their name. I looked at the lake where Mom had swum and skated and washed clothes, I looked at the ridge of solid-rock hills that separate Feiring from Hurdal and from Toten and promised myself a walk there sometime to see where the girls from both sides of my family had tended cattle, where Cousin Marie had read Iowa's Decorah Posten with which they had papered the saeter walls. There in those hills lay the ruins of the old iron works where my one non-Norwegian ancestor, an Alsatian) worked when he wasn't courting our ancestress. BUT I didn't walk there, as snow still lay there in my last visit to Feiring in May. And so I MUST GO BACK (in about three years) and see that, AND ALSO to see the Midnight Sun country with its reindeer herds and wild lonesomeness of the far north. In my traveling I got only as far north as Trondheim, but what I did see was very satisfying, the valleys, the mountains, the fjords, the railroad which ran past glaciers, the bus route on the curving, scenic roads to Bergen. Gudrun let me experience her hytte (cabin) life at Helgeroa on the south lip of the Oslo fjord. THE SUMMER had its delights: the fascination of twilight all night, the whole city a display of rock gardens. A short walk of three or four blocks in the city would present varieties of scenes -- vistas, forests, rocks, moss, falls, homes, gardens, orchards, even a barley field. THE WINTER was a panorama of Christmas-card scenes. Toddlers with red and yellow plastic pants over
Saving...
prev
next
Tangen Tribune 1970-71 GREETINGS TO YOU this raining April night. FIFTEEN MONTHS before my 65th birthday I felt the delightful temptation to retire for one year and do nothing but sit, read, write and whatever. WHERE to do it? In a big city, where the impersonal throngs would not be curious about a lone woman; in a big city, where there is much to see if the old soul feels the urge to stir languidly about. American cities abound, but no, after considering several I wanted Oslo, Norway, for it has everything. IT SEEMED sinfully posh to go abroad to live, but the Lord did not seem to object. In fact, he was the one who gave me what I thought of as good luck: I got a good room immediately, complete with a delightful landlady who became my good friend, Gudrun Rimstad. If God had objected I could have landed in something deplorable or expensive. But he kept my cup full to the brim and running over: my writing went well (for me), I read some good books, I saw much beautiful scenery, I ate much good food but lost weight by choice and with much abstemiousness, I lived well within my budget, I went on tours, I made some friends. I SUPPOSE he didn't make my new-found relatives just to suit me, but oh, such FINE PEOPLE, such deep friendships. they showed me our old homes in FEIRING, the Kokkeby farm where my mother's people were born and had lived for generations and where Jorgen Fagernes now lives, the old Tangen farm a few miles away on the shore of the lake called MJOSA where my grandfather had "run about in his little-baby shoes", as Svanhild said. David, who now owns Tangen, showed me the tiny spruce-covered tangen (which means the peninsula) from which the farm Tangen and the people therefrom got their name. I looked at the lake where Mom had swum and skated and washed clothes, I looked at the ridge of solid-rock hills that separate Feiring from Hurdal and from Toten and promised myself a walk there sometime to see where the girls from both sides of my family had tended cattle, where Cousin Marie had read Iowa's Decorah Posten with which they had papered the saeter walls. There in those hills lay the ruins of the old iron works where my one non-Norwegian ancestor, an Alsatian) worked when he wasn't courting our ancestress. BUT I didn't walk there, as snow still lay there in my last visit to Feiring in May. And so I MUST GO BACK (in about three years) and see that, AND ALSO to see the Midnight Sun country with its reindeer herds and wild lonesomeness of the far north. In my traveling I got only as far north as Trondheim, but what I did see was very satisfying, the valleys, the mountains, the fjords, the railroad which ran past glaciers, the bus route on the curving, scenic roads to Bergen. Gudrun let me experience her hytte (cabin) life at Helgeroa on the south lip of the Oslo fjord. THE SUMMER had its delights: the fascination of twilight all night, the whole city a display of rock gardens. A short walk of three or four blocks in the city would present varieties of scenes -- vistas, forests, rocks, moss, falls, homes, gardens, orchards, even a barley field. THE WINTER was a panorama of Christmas-card scenes. Toddlers with red and yellow plastic pants over
Campus Culture
sidebar
