Today’s card in Cecilia Koch’s memory album is from Adèlaide Peijron. I wrote about Adèlaide in 2018 when I was searching for the girls who, like Augusta, lived with the Edgren family in Stockholm. Soon after writing the blog post, I received an exciting email from Adèlaide’s great-great-granddaughter (and our new friend), Kathinka Lindhe. At that time, she was working on a book about Adèlaide’s […]
Axeline Fries was 14 years old in May of 1844. When she sat down to write a card for Cecilia Koch’s memory album, she had already decided on her favorite poem. She knew it by heart. Måtte nya blommor smycka, Hvarje dag du möter än. Intet saknas i din lycka, Helgad utaf vänskapen. (Literally translated as: May new flowers adorn, every day that greets you […]
One of Cecilia Koch’s friends gave her a card with a cryptic message. Charlotte Lindström had drawn a picture of a blue flower – a Forget-Me-Not – and included the text: pas une véritable amie (not a true friend). It doesn’t make sense to me. Or did she copy the phrase and mistook par for pas? The phrase, par une véritable amie (by a true […]
A couple of years ago, Kerstin and I made 1840s bathing costumes. At that time, I remembered a description of bathing costumes in an autobiography by a Swedish young woman. She had visited Charleston, South Carolina in 1854 and described them in a letter to her brother. The other day, I found the book again: Travels in America 1851-1855 by Rosalie Roos (translated and edited […]