dual personalities

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them: the same became mighty men, who were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)

Leif Erikson was a Norse explorer who is regarded as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

In 1929 the Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill to make October 9 “Leif Erikson Day” in the state. That date was not chosen to commemorate any event in the life of the explorer, but rather, it marked the first organized immigration from Norway to the United States. The ship carrying these first immigrants arrived in New York Harbor on October 9, 1825. In 1964 the United States Congress authorized and requested the president to proclaim October 9 of each year as “Leif Erikson Day”.

My best friend in graduate school was a young woman whose father was a Lutheran minister and college professor at Augustana College. She was half Swedish and half Danish and a descendent of those 19th century immigrants who settled in the Midwest. She looked a lot like Loni Anderson. Many of my fellow (female) historians hated her because she was so gorgeous. (She was smart too.) I never held her looks against her.

She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and her parents drove down from Rock Island, Illinois to attend the festivities. They gave me a very Swedish-looking trivet which I have used ever since in all my kitchens. It reminds me of my friend and her Scandinavian parents every day.

Trevlig dag!

* Sometimes spelled Ericson; sometimes spelled Erickson. Zut alors! Someone please make up your mind!