Travel

The trip was by far the longest distance outside the state of Iowa that either my mother or father had ever been. My mother had during her schooling at Gustavus Adolphus spent considerable time in Minnesota. And when we as a family went to visit Uncle Serenus in Rock Island (or at least somehwere in the tri-city area of Rock Island, Davenport and Moline) both of them set foot on the soil of Illinois. But with these exceptions I’m aware of no time when they were outside the bounds of the state of Iowa.

My grandparents were in general more widely traveled. My grandfather Peterson had his emigration from Sweden, his trip back and his two trips (at least) to Montana; where else he traveled in the U.S. I’ve no idea. I wonder if her ever got down to Texas where one of his brothers settled.

My two grandmothers had of course their long journey from Sweden, but once they were in iowa they pretty much stayed put.

My grandfather Strand was born in Illinois and sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s he spent winter in the Long Beach, California, area in the company of one of his elderly Gowrie acquaintances. For a long time I kept a picture packet they he sent me while he was there but eventually it was lost or misplaced and I never saw it again.