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Until January 1973 I had 2 living great-grandparents. Then they both died in that month, bracketed by the deaths of Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, the only remaining ex-Presidents.
My father's mother's father, Pa, 1/2 Russian Jew and 1/2 Russian is rumored in the family to be Rimsky-Korsakov's bastard. His photos look rather like Stalin. (A cousin when young asked why Pa's picture was on a news magazine cover.) He met and married Ma in the Ukraine and they emigrated together about a decade before the Revolution. This connection increased my excitement in visiting Russia.
My mother's father's mother, Nana was 1/2 English and 1/2 Swedish.
When her father was called back to Sweden, her mother anglicized their last name and moved her daughters from I think Canada to an an underground prairie house in the US. Though later her mother ran a translating business in New York because she knew something like 16 languages including Sanskrit. Also Tove Janson who wrote the Moomintroll books was Swedish. So I had hopes that Sweden would be cool too.
Sweden was actually kind of a dud. We were in Stockholm for 3 days. I'm sure we insisted on going to the zoo, but the only clear memory I have of anything distinctive is of the Barn Pol.
We were wandering through a park and there was a huge shallow (foot deep maybe) concrete lined rectangular pool with signs that said "Barn Pol" or something similar. It was full of children our age and younger naked or in their underwear splashing away. So of course we undressed and joined them.
My mother seemed a bit disappointed by Stockholm as well, and so we continued on to Copenhagen.
My father's mother's father, Pa, 1/2 Russian Jew and 1/2 Russian is rumored in the family to be Rimsky-Korsakov's bastard. His photos look rather like Stalin. (A cousin when young asked why Pa's picture was on a news magazine cover.) He met and married Ma in the Ukraine and they emigrated together about a decade before the Revolution. This connection increased my excitement in visiting Russia.
My mother's father's mother, Nana was 1/2 English and 1/2 Swedish.
When her father was called back to Sweden, her mother anglicized their last name and moved her daughters from I think Canada to an an underground prairie house in the US. Though later her mother ran a translating business in New York because she knew something like 16 languages including Sanskrit. Also Tove Janson who wrote the Moomintroll books was Swedish. So I had hopes that Sweden would be cool too.
Sweden was actually kind of a dud. We were in Stockholm for 3 days. I'm sure we insisted on going to the zoo, but the only clear memory I have of anything distinctive is of the Barn Pol.
We were wandering through a park and there was a huge shallow (foot deep maybe) concrete lined rectangular pool with signs that said "Barn Pol" or something similar. It was full of children our age and younger naked or in their underwear splashing away. So of course we undressed and joined them.
My mother seemed a bit disappointed by Stockholm as well, and so we continued on to Copenhagen.
