JUST ONE PORTRAIT PLEASE

We are very lucky these days that we through the media can see instant photos of our families, no matter how far away they are.

As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I have joined Facebook is to be able to see photos of my family who live so far away and most of them I don’t get to see for years. When you see a photo of somebody with a few words, it feels like you have contact with them.

It is very modern these days to pay a professional photographer to come and take photos at your wedding. Yesterday my granddaughter Sarah placed numerous photos of her wedding on Facebook. They were beautiful and I enjoyed them very much.

PHOTO OF ME, SARAH AND DAYLEN

It has made me contemplate about some translation of some old letter from around 1880-1882 – Danish to English – that I am doing for a lady in Sacramento, California.

It is a young Danish man – Christian Nelson - who immigrated at the age of 19 from the Nakskov area -on Fyn in the Maribo County - to Belton, Missouri, United States (at that time called North America).

He is renting two rooms from a relative – Jørgen.  One room to run a little “shoemaker business” and one room for sleeping.

He is an ambitious young man but is single and lonely and it takes a long time for letters – from his parents – and other relatives and friends to cross the Atlantic Ocean – on the ships.

One thing that strike me is that he writes in almost each letter is: “I am longing to have a portrait of you”. Christian writes in one letter: “I have been waiting so long time now for Father’s portrait, that I have given up.  I wrote to you that if you don’t have money to pay for it, then I would send it – and I will now if that is the problem.

Apparently, his parents must travel to Nakskov from Vesterskov to get a “Professional portrait” done. It is not just the travel with horse and buggy that is the problem but having a portrait done at that time was extremely expensive. Not everybody could afford to have a portrait done.

I must admit that it not only brought tears to my eyes but made me realize how we take so many things we for granted these days. I also live far away from my two living children and have not seen them for two years and some days I get extremely depressed from not seeing my children more often, but at least in today’s world we can communicate on phone, letters and the internet.  Email, Facebook, Instagram etc.

A professional PORTRAIT - with the photographer's name and place of my grandmother Kristine Rasmussen

Vibeke Lindhardt

July 10, 2019

vibekesonja.blotspt.com