By Cynthia Scott

It wasnít until after her father died that Connie Olson of Rush City really got to know him.
His name was Eric Brostrom, and he was 84 years old when he died in Seattle.

But the father that Olson got to know so well after his death was a bright and determined young man in his 20s who set out for America from his native Sweden in November, 1927.

She made his acquaintance through dozens of letters she found after his death that he had written to his family back in Sweden chronicling his voyage to America and first decade or so after his arrival. Olson, working with translator Wayne Johnson of Dalbo, recently shepherded to completion the translation of the letters from the original Swedish.

Olson and her sister, Karen, stumbled upon the letters when they were cleaning out their fatherís apartment. Brostrom had organized them neatly in a three-ring binder ñ a touch that suggested to Olson that her father treasured the letters as much as she has come to treasure them herself. Olson is not certain how her father came to be in possession of the letters he sent back to Sweden, but she speculates that relatives returned them to him when he went to Sweden to visit family in the 1970s.

The letters begin in November, 1927 as he was preparing to board the Gripsholm, the ship that would bring him to America, and end in 1940, when he was settled in Rush City and married to Bernice Walton. They chronicle his experiences en route and his travels through Canada, Illinois, Pine City and Rush City.

ìI was just amazed,î Olson said. She had been working on a family history since 1979, and found the letters to be a Godsend.
ìIíd been wanting to do my dadís side [of the family], which was difficult because he was in Sweden. But this is about as close as you can get,î she said.

So she took on the task of having the letters translated, which meant, first of all, finding a translator. After several unsuccessful tries, she located one in Minneapolis, who made a modest beginning on the letters. But he died unexpectedly after about a year, leaving Olson back at square one. Eventually she found her way to Johnson, who has been translating immigrant letters since the 1970s.
This project, he said, was his biggest ever ñ and in many ways, the most delightful.

ìWhen I got the first letter I knew I was dealing with something Iíd never dealt with before,î said Johnson. ìIt was immediately obvious that [Brostrom] had more education than earlier immigrants. The letters are in better physical condition, and he used a modern pen with beautiful penmanship,î Johnson said.

ìMy personal view is that theyíre historically valuable because of the detail. The length is unusual. He has a marvelous sense of humor, which Iíve certainly never found in older letters. He was writing these letters to entertain; he knew how to write in such a way as to tell a story,î Johnson said.

Brostromís careful use of language, his exquisite attention to detail, and his humor are hallmarks of an immigrant experience that in many ways was atypical, Johnson said.

For example, in a letter to his brother after arriving in Pine City, Brostrom wrote, ìYes sir ñ your eyes will grow large when you see the name of the place Iím writing from. But the fact is that after seven sorrows and eight setbacks, I find myself at Aunt Mariaís [Dahlstrom] in Pine City.î

Later, when he decided to move on from Pine City, he invited his brother to imagine traveling along with him: ìWe start out in the countryside somewhere between Pine City and Rock Creek one day around June 1. (I hope the country air does you good, because weíll be staying there are little while! Drink it in from full mugs! Yes!!î)

In one letter he sent a photo of himself and warned that the photographer ìseems to have been a little sloppy as to the correct placement of the lamps. The right side of my face is a little blurred, on account of too strong lighting. But what the hell ñ youíll just have to shut your right eye and look at the left half of my face instead.î

As a translator of immigrant correspondence, Johnson is accustomed to working with letters that are two or three pages long. Brostromís, in contrast, are often three or more times that long. He regales his audience back home with lively, often humorous, and unusually detailed accounts of his travels. And in so doing, he revealed himself to his daughter in a way he never did in life.

ìI never really knew my dad,î Olson said. Brostrom married Olsonís mother in Rush City in 1935, but Bernice died when Olson was 5 years old, after the family had moved to Seattle. An aunt from Rush City traveled to Seattle for the funeral, and brought Olson back to live with her family in Rush City.

ìDad came to Rush City to visit, but he was a stranger to me. Reading these letters and looking at the pictures, I got a new perspective on him. He was courageous. I know I wouldnít have had his strength or courage to do what he did. Itís hard living in todayís world, let alone coming into a strange country back then and trying to make it. But he did,î she said.

Olson continues to piece together her family history. She has found all of her motherís siblings except one, primarily through messages on ancestors.com. She corresponds via e-mail with her fatherís family in Sweden, relying on her cousins to translate her letters to Brostromís sister, Lisa, who is now 95.

ìI donít know what motivates me to put together a family history. It just struck me to do it and I started it,î Olson says.
ìConnie deserves a lot of credit for saving these letters,î Johnson says. ìThey could have gone in the trash heap. Sheís spent quite a bit of money getting these translated and then keeping them in such good shape.î

Compiling her familyís history has been its own reward for Olson. Without it, her father probably would have remained a stranger.

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