As we spent a few days in Denmark on our way home from Zambia, we were again privileged to add to our knowledge of the members of the family, and of Dad's early years. The tragic deaths of his parents when he was but eight years old, created a crisis in my dad's family. The eldest son, Johannes was but twenty, but he was ready to fend for himself. He was posted to work, and later found himself invited to Farup to work on the farm of the local vicar, Ellith Hauvinkel. Hauvinkel was one of the uncles so judiciously selected by our great grandmother, the widow Cecilie, in her boarding house in Copenhagen. Now that father & mother were gone, these uncles played an important role in the family survival. It seems another of these uncles was instrumental in the success of Aase in Copenhagen, and there is speculation that the assignment of my dad at eight years old, and his even younger brother, Viggo, to the Edvard Mundt family of Sorø as also through the uncle connection! Cecilie's daughter Marie was married to Peter Kromann who attended school in Sorø. The Mundts, a childless couple from Sorø were the ones who took them in. Dad seemed to question and be concerned about why they had to go there. He did not seem to have a good childhood there. Still, he gave me Edvard as my second name, and we had a picture of Edvard Mundt on our living room wall.
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Sharing my experiences, thoughts and opinions serves enjoyable and therapeutic purposes for me. I hope you will enjoy or in some other way benefit from my scribbling!
1 comment:
WELL - I do wish to appreciate your digging and sharing . . .and the good trip to Zambia as well . . .
I guess much of the history to some degree is a "best guess" but again, it seems a GOOD GUESS . . .and that is valuable in gathering history . . .especially the part of weighing both sides of a question . . .as we look back to our own childhood on the cold plains of Saskatchewan, we can well see two sides of many coins and guess at which was good or bad . . .but they are all history. Things DID change when we left and the hills were much smaller when we returned . . .so maybe the "take" on childhood memories needs to be put thru that pair of glasses - but we always need BOTH - the awe of childhood and the softening of later insights . . .I think Dad did that with his childhood to some degree especially in his last years . . .the verner who loves YOU - unconditionally and permanently
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