California Dreamin or The American Dream

As long as I can remember my mum have told me about the man and his wife who moved to America a long time ago. What's so speciall with that, you may think? But for me, or for her it was speciall.

This man, who I don't really know whos relaive he where, but I suggest that he was a brother to my grandfather (on my mothers side) or a cousine to either my grandmother or my grandfather. He might have been something else but some kind of family band there where.

He and his wife moved to California and didn't (as far as we know) get any children. The man (or both) came back to visit and fell in love with my mum who was just a little girl. He asked, or should I say beged my grandparents to let him take her with him to California. He thought that since my grandparents had nine children they wouldn't mind. As I know he was kind and they liked him a lot. He was rather wealthy (we've heard) and he probably thought that he could give my mum a better life "over there" than my grandparents who lived on a farm here in Sweden. And of course, he and his wife would get that child that they wanted so much.

My grandparents said no to his suggestion. They couldn't even think about leaving one of there children. If they had been poor, which they we'ren't, this story might have ended in a different way.

For several years they sent my mother postcards from different places in the US. Unfortunately there's no letters left, they are all gone. I think that when my grandparents moved from the farm they didn't understand what they thrue away.

Now when both my parents are gone I've had the opportunity to go thru all those postcards. Sorry to say that there's only one photo of the man infront of their house in California. On a Christmas card I managed to figure their adress out and that made me so happy.

Now I've been looking at Google earth and I almost got tears in my eyes when I found out that I could actually see the house where they once lived! I did zoom in and looked through a camera shot and it's the same house as in my picture! Repainted but I'm sure, that's where they lived!

Now I wonder, is there anybody out there who knowes how I'm going to find out if they ever got any children? If there's purhaps anyone alive today in America that's part of my family?

That would bring me so much joy since my mum always wondered what happened to them after that they, somehow, lost contact.

When my parents travelled to the US she told me that she really would have liked to know and purhaps being abel to visit some relatives.

So do you have any tips, please let me know!