Dear Great–Great–Grandfather
Letters Between Past and Future
Book no. 2 of the Franzen-Trilogy
By
Bodil Brændstrup
Smashwords Edition
copyright
2012 Bodil Braendstrup
The Franzen-Trilogy:
1. Frederik
2. Dear Great-Great-Grandfather
3. The Heavens above Borglum
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Contents:
Letter
from the Future I
Fate of your diaries
Gjeraa, key to the family history
What is not written in the diaries?
Tell me about your daughters!
Letter
from the Past I
A young couple at the school of Gjeraa
A long, cold and sad winter
Small girls in the house
Our boys arrive
Kirsten Marie – the rock solid
Sine – the live wire
Such great expectations
Kirsten Marie and Peder
New adventures for Sine
Sine and Soren
My first grandchild
The fatal year of 1858
Where is God in this?
Letter
from the Future – II
Developments since your time
Letter
from the Past – II
Life moves on!
Hanne and Berthel
Problems at Ulstedlund
A man–to–man–talk
History repeated
The hard winter and spring 1878
More Goodbyes
A new life in America
Letter
from the Future – III
Your diaries are all–inclusive
Keeping yourself going
Have they fulfilled Sine's dreams?
Ulstedlund
The Tailor–Farm
Norre Batsberg
Can they embrace Sine?
Hanne and Berthel's American family
“Simon died in America”
The
Franzen Family–Tree
Preface
This English version of my second book in the Franzen–Trilogy has been written, since I was contacted by one of the American descendants of my Great–Great–Grandfather, Anders Jensen Franzen. She had never learned Danish.
Having lived in Canada and the United States for some years when I was young, it was not a problem for me to communicate in English. I even became an interpretor and translator. This edition, however, is not a translation. I have rewritten the book rather freely with a view to the information that might be useful to the American part of the family. And anyone else, who would like to join in.
I hope that many descendants of the Franzen family will find joy in reading, what our common ancestor has so meticulously written down from 1828 until very shortly before his death in 1880.
Do
not hesitate to contact me for further exchange of
information.
Copenhagen, April 2011, Bodil Braendstrup
Letter from the Future – I
Dear
Great–Great–Grandfather!
Are you surprised to hear from a great–great–grandchild in the 5th generation after you? Probably not, since you wrote your ”Astronomy and the Franzen Family Calender” and gathered all your writings and notes in two large leader–bound volumes. You probably did not do it only for your children and grandchildren. You must have had the thought of reaching further out.
And
you did! I am sitting here in the year 2011 – more than 130 years
after your death, and I have read your work! It was quite a task,
since you wrote in the Gothic script by hand. Although I had learned
to read Gothic script in print – we called it the curly letters –
I had not learned to read the Gothic handwriting, let alone your
hand. I knew that people who were seriously searching family records
have to know the Gothic handwriting in order to understand the old
documents, but I had left that part of my search to others. Now
there was no excuse. I had to know what you had written.
Fate of Your Diaries
After your death, Hans Peter as your eldest son inherited the diaries and important documents, and he continued your writings, beginning with this note:
On the 30th August 1880 I followed the rightful owner of this book to his last resting place at the graveyard of Dronninglund.
I, Hans Peter Franzen, inherited it as his eldest son, and I intend to continue his writings, if God gives me his support and help to carry it through.
Ronholtshave, 30th August 1880
Hans Peter did write – although with long intervals of silence, sometimes for years – until the sudden death of his wife, Kirsten Marie, in 1911.
As you will know it was not easy to decipher what Hans Peter had written, first of all because of his bad spelling. However, I had the advantage that my maternal grandmother came from a village, Øster Hassing, close to Hans Peter's home in Ulsted. Although she lived most of her life in the city of Aalborg, she never gave up her dialect, and as I loved my grandmother, I would gladly listen to her and got to understand her dialect. So, if I read Hans Peter's writings aloud to myself, I would know what he meant and could translate it into contemporary Danish.
Hans Peter was my great–grandfather! His oldest daughter, Helene, was my paternal grandmother. I read in your diary that when she was 6 years old, she lived with you for some time to learn to read, as did all of your grandchildren. So Helene is a person, we have both known, and I have also known her younger sister Andrea, her brother Anders, and her sister Ingeborg. Two more sisters were born after your death, Jensine (also called Sine like your daughter) and the youngest, Kirsten.
In 1911 Hans Peter must have handed both the diary and your other documents to your daughter Hanne and her family, who kept and took care of them until this day. That was probably a very good thing, as otherwise they might have been lost. My father, the son of Helene, owned nothing from the family at Ronholtshave – apart from the name of Ronholt, the village, which became my father's name and still is part of my own name. My father had very few pictures or items from the Franzen family, but his older sister kept a lot of photoes, among others of the whole of Hans Peter's family in front of Ronholtshave at Easter 1905. My father was born later that year, so we see his pregnant mother and her three daughters. My aunt's daughter, who is still living, kindly gave it to me together with several other photos to be kept in my family, since she and her sisters and brother have no descendants.
Gjeraa,
Key to the Family History
As a consequence of my interest in my family roots I visited Gjeraa and met a woman, Thyra, attached to the local archive, who had a picture of you, and she made me a copy which is now hanging on my wall. By the way your picture can also be seen, along with the line of teachers, at the new Gjeraa school built in 1944. Thyra gave me some information about you and your family, among other things that you were born in Borglum. That gave me the opportunity to seek more information about our ancestors before you.
Just before Christmas in 2007 I received a letter from Thyra with a newspaper clipping of her local paper. The heading was: ”Schoolmaster Franzen of Gjeraa was my Great–Great–Grandfather”. Thyra knew that you were also my great–great–grandfather, so she asked whether I knew this other great–great grandchild mentioned in the article. I did not.
The article revealed that this distant ”cousin” and his wife had been to Dronninglund to hand over an old document to the local archive. It was a copy of the original instrument of foundation for the schools started by Princess Sophie Hedevig, owner af Dronninglund Castle, in 1719 – among them Gjeraa school. This document, possibly copied by you, had been in the possession of Hanne's family, and her great grandchild thought it should be placed in the local archive of Dronninglund.
In my story about Frederik, I mentioned this event, which became the start of my adventure with your diaries. As mentioned in ”Frederik” I came into contact with this other great–great grandchild, descendant after Johanne Methea – Hanne – and her husband Berthel Thomsen, and we decided to consider each other as cousins.
When we met, I gave him all the data I had found about our family back to your great–grandmother, Karen Michelsdatter, the mother of your grandfather Anders Frantzen. My cousin knew nothing about this, but on his part he arrived with something of a goldmine: Your two big leader–bound volumes – ”Astronomy and the Calendar of the Franzen Family” – as well as your original documents including recommendations from the Reverend Lund in Rubjerg and Reverend Gunst in Skallerup, whose children you had been teaching. Your exam–papers from the Teachers' College in Snedsted 1823, and the document appointing you teacher of Gjeraa School in 1826, signed by Bishop R. Jansen of the Aalborg Diocese, were there as well.
However, neither of us could decipher what was written in Gothic letters apart from a few words and especially the names. My cousin left all the material with me in the hope that I might find out what was written. I simply had to find out. So I started studying the Gothic handwriting and in particular your hand, so that I could eventually make a list of each letter compared to contemporary letters.
And an adventure started. I was completely lost to the world sitting at the dining table with the lamp drawn down and a magnifying glass. As the books are now very fragile, the only way to copy the text was to copy it by hand and later type it out on my computer. How technical developments have brought us to this stage, you may have followed from your personal star in the Milky Way! And how you will decipher my way of writing will be the challenge of the wise schoolmaster Franzen!
What is not Written in the Diaries?
Now I want to hear from you all that is not written in your diaries. If you have read my small story about Frederik, you will know that I do not give up easily. I am not for nothing your great–great–grandchild, so you may expect a certain persistence on my part, and the rough sides of life will not frighten me. In your diaries you consistently stick to what happens, and only very rarely what you think or feel about the events. Now you must tell me everything without reservation.
Tell
me about your Daughters!
Since I have just told the story of Frederik, which took quite a lot of research on my part, I hope that you will tell me about your daughters.
I was in tears when in connection with the story of Frederik's illness I read about Kirsten Marie, who died not very long before Frederik.
I wondered when you wrote about Sine suffering from ”the same unholy passion as her mother”, and I only understood when reading about the birth of Frederik.
I liked Hanne, who took care of you and the household and lived with you at the school in a very long period.
After the death of your wife, your daughters must have been a special joy to you – and a challenge, and I would like you to tell me about them. I will not promise to keep it as a secret, since all the members of the family who might get shocked, are long dead. And I will take care of the living!
Hoping to hear from you!
With love from your
Great–great–granddaughter
Letter from the Past - I
My
dear Child!
No, I am not surprised to hear from the future. I have never believed in magic or the super–natural, which I have always considered an escape from reality, but I have great faith in the human imagination and ability to explore nature, to learn from its wonders and then use the gift of intuition.
You are right in assuming, that I did not merely write my notes and diaries for my contemporaries. As a matter of fact my own children did not show much interest in my writings. But I could not just let my thoughts, discoveries and observations disappear in the blue air, or become scattered knowledge in the heads of my brighter pupils at the school. I had to write it all down, and in the later years of my life I took the time to gather all the sheets and folders and get them bound into the two leather–bound books. Otherwise they might have been spread to the wind or ended up in the oven to complete a thorough tidying up after me. I have myself burnt a great deal in my later years, because I did not want my children and grandchildren to know everything. Now, however, I do not feel I need to protect my descendants against the harsh realities of my family's life.
I must admit that I had not quite imagined that my writings would reach so many years ahead. There must among my descendants still be individuals – maybe not so surprising, after all – who share my enthusiasm and wonder about life and what it brings us to enjoy and to endure.
Well, back to your question. You wanted to know the truth about my daughters, and I shall eventually give it to you.
A
Young Couple at the School of Gjeraa