This is Part I of the blog for our visit to Copenhagen. As mentioned in an earlier blog, we had the opportunity to meet one of Craig's cousins and his family during our trip - it was amazing! Craig's cousin is Tue, his wife is Elisabeth, their daughter is Johanne and their son is Laurits. Such a warm, wonderful family.
We learned so much about Craig's extended family - which was awesome - there is so much to share I decided to split the blog into two parts. We even learned a little about my mom's family during the visit. Here's the quick story. My mom's dad's dad was Willie Rasmus. Here’s a picture.
His parent's were Erick Rasmus born in 1832 in Gammalstorp, Blekinge, Sweden and Anna Olson born in 1853 in Christianopolis, Blekinge, Sweden. Until this trip I hadn't realized this is only ~100 miles east of Cophenhagen. We learned this area of Sweden was part of Denmark for many years. It was ceded to Sweden in 1658 after the Danish-Swedish wars. Interesting how close our ancestors were geographically so many years ago - and then they immigrated to America and ended up so close again in the midwest. Destiny.
OK, back to Craig's family - first some background. Craig's great grandfather Senius Christensen (his mom's dad's dad) was born in 1888 in Oster Svenstrup Denmark. He was one of 13 children born to Peter Chirstensen and Johanna Neilsdatter. Senius was actually recorded as Senius Kristensen in the original church records - Tue said the different parishes spelled names different ways. One of the other children was Soren Kristensen (Tue's grandfather). Once Senius left Denmark, the family lost touch with him. At some point they received a letter with a small check from the US Government - none of them could read the letter which was written in English. They assumed it meant that Senius had died without children. What is now believed is that it was instead likely for the first son, Christian Christensen, who also immigrated. Senius actually lived until 1969, married and had four children.
Here's a picture of Senius with his wife Bessie at their wedding. A fun story, Bessie had two sisters. All three of them married on the same day. Tue had found a newspaper article about the wedding during his research. We knew the couple on the right were Senius and Bessie but weren't sure about the other two couples - now we know!
And here is a picture of Craig's grandfather Don Christensen whose parents were Senius and Bessie.
A really special picture is this one which has Craig (the baby) with his mom, Betty, his dad, Harlan, and his grandparents Senius and Bessie. The little girl is his aunt Sonja who is just 18 months older than Craig.
For over 25 years Tue has been researching his family history on both his dad and mom's side. His father Vagner was born in 1931 and died too young in 1989. It was a lot of work, especially early on when there was limited information available online. As he pieced together information he would also talk to his aunts, uncles and cousins to see if they could help with connecting the dots. During the research he was surprised to learn that there was a Senius Christensen born on the same date as his uncle who immigrated to the US and lived much longer than the family had believed. There were too many coincidences so he was convinced (rightfully so) that this was his uncle. He then began trying to track down potential relatives in the US. He found a possible address in Mallard Iowa and mailed a letter to "The Christensen Family" in hopes that it would find someone. Unfortunately it was an outdated address and was returned to him. He kept the envelope and letter all these years. He gave them to Craig during our visit.
Eventually there was more information online and he was able to do a lot more research. He also began to look for potential relatives on facebook. Amazingly he ended up connecting to Craig's aunt Sharon this past spring - and Sharon connected Craig and Tue. Our trip was already booked but we were incredibly happy to learn Tue and his family lived near Copenhagen which was part of our trip. Just a month earlier another cousin, Dwayne, from Canada visited Denmark as well with his wife. They were able to travel around Denmark meeting many relatives across the extended family. Tue and Dwayne also stopped by the childhood home of the family - here's a picture of them in front of the home that Craig's great grandfather lived.
An interesting fact Tue learned is that before the last name of Christensen the family name was Ravn (or Rafn). His grandfather actually had Ravn as a nickname. His father had told the story that it came from a time when the family lived in a small village that had three black birds - a raven, a hawk and a crow. The different families who lived in the village each had the last name of one of the birds. He wasn't able to verify that part of the story, but he was able to trace the name back to Ravn - and found the names of Crow and Hawk from the same village. He also was told that prior to Ravn the family was Hawk - he couldn't verify - but it is fun to think that maybe all of us Iowa Hawkeyes have ties all the way back to a small village in Denmark as the Hawk family.
He also gave Craig a picture of his great grandfather when he was younger - so cool.
And here is a picture of Tue's father when he was younger.
It was fun to see Craig and Tue together - and it is now clear this is where Craig got his height :). Tue also is an avid runner just like Craig. They both agreed that Senius and Soren must have been close growing up - you can just feel the connection in our generation.
Tue was so kind to take a couple of days of vacation to spend with us. The other post will have more about the sights we saw over the two days. We had a really special treat when Tue and Elisabeth hosted us at their home for dinner. It gave us a chance to sit and relax a bit as we got to know each other better. We also were able to meet their children. Laurits is 13. He is smart, really talented with computers and very funny - he had us cracking up during dinner. If you ever meet, be sure to grab a Hawaiian pizza with extra pineapples with him :). Johanne is 16. She is bright, witty, beautiful, a talented movie maker (she has made videos of their past family vacations - so cool!) and a great soccer (ok, futbol...) player. Elisabeth is very warm and loving - we both married into the family but she felt like family to me. Tue is also very kind and loving - and such an amazing family oriented person. We told them if we lived closer we know we would all be great friends.
Dinner was really a treat - and incredibly delicious. They made us the traditional foods they would eat at Christmas - roast pork, gravy, potatoes, sweet potatoes (not yams but carmelized potatoes they only eat at Christmas - so yummy!), red cabbage salad and some delicious Italian wine. It was amazing. The dinner was served on china from Tue's parents. We did get a lot of laughs out of the reaction of both Johanne and Laurits to eating their Christmas dinner in September - both of them thought it wasn't quite right :). They were taking pictures and texting their friends - who also were reacting with "WHAT?!" - super cute.
After dinner we had the traditional dessert of rice pudding, cherries and crushed almonds. We also learned about a fun custom. One of the servings has a whole almond - no one knows which one. Whoever finds the whole almond receives the "almond present". Of course you are eating this really yummy dessert when you are already stuffed from the delicious dinner. Everyone wants to be the one to find the almond so everyone has an extra incentive to eat. They said often the person who finds it hides the fact for a bit to allow everyone else to keep eating in hopes they may have the special serving :). They were so sweet and gave both Craig and I special servings with the whole almonds - and then presented each of us with our present - much too kind.
It's impossible to convey how special these two days were with Tue, Elisabeth, Johanne and Laurits. Meeting family we didn't even know existed earlier this year - and feeling like family in the very best sense of the word - was amazing. Our journey has been incredible - but these two days will always be some of the most special and we will always treasure the experience.
Enjoy the Ride!
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