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Week 4 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge brings us to the theme of "My favorite photo"....
How on earth do you pick a favorite photograph out of hundreds and hundreds on both sides of your family? There are so many memories and stories to choose from. I have had this photograph of my grandfather, Harold Hansen, in my favorites file on my computer for some time. I spent this last summer going through photographs that he took, or were taken of him, on his trip to Norway in 1930. Later in his life he wrote his "Life Story", which my Aunt transcribed, and I added it to the blog (April, 2020). I especially loved the stories of his trip to Norway. Most of the pictures he took on his trip were in a house fire in 1950; many were rescued, but were burnt or had singed edges. As I was going through other files and boxes, I discovered a manila envelope with "Norway" written on the front. Inside were many more pictures of my grandfather on his trip, taken by family members. This picture was in that envelope. I did not include this picture in my summer posts, so this seems like a perfect place to add it.
I remember looking at it for the first time and thinking about his face. This must have been at an early stage in his trip, perhaps before he left the dock from San Francisco. His clothes look brand new, not like in other pictures where you can tell he was dirty and disheveled from working off his passage. I can imagine his father taking this picture before he left. His face had such a look of youthful exuberance and expectation!
He was a young man, out of high school, looking for adventure and possibly a vocation to take up in life. His father John Hartwig Hansen was from Norway and still had close family living near Oslo. He was a sailor in his youth. John Hartwig Hansen wrote to his brother-in-law Harald Klemmetsen who ran a shipping business and got Grandpa on the ship Balboa to Norway. Grandpa was to work off his passage and in the process see if sailing might be a good future vocation. He figured out pretty fast that sailing was not the life for him, but had a wonderful adventure none the less and got to connect with his Norwegian family and heritage. It was a trip that provided a life time of memories.
I received a packet of letters from my mother this summer that my grandfather had written home while on his trip. I have been in the process of transcribing them. I am sharing a letter he wrote after his arrival in Norway. It is a long one, but it describes his trip from San Francisco to Norway and everything in between. I think my favorite part might be his last line before he signs off as "Heine H.".
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