Happy 110th Birthday!
Today, if my memory serves me correctly, is the 110th anniversary of the birth of my maternal grandmother, Emma Hansen Nelson. Always friendly and with a smile on her face, Grandma Nelson is especially remembered for her wonderful, sugar-sprinkled, chocolate chip cookies, which were not to be duplicated, mainly as they were baked without a recipe. I often asked my mother to bake some cookies along the lines of Grandma Nelson's, but they never were the same. Grandma, being a Dane at heart, also enjoyed her morning and afternoon coffee, laced with some sugar cubes and real cream. (Young Chris enjoyed his first real sugar buzz popping those cubes when the old folks weren't looking.)
A first generation Danish-American, Grandma Nelson's lifetime, spanning the years from 1898 to 1986, saw the rise of the United States as a global power, beginning with the Spanish-American War through the triumphs of both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and going almost to the end of the Cold War. She was born before airplanes and lived to see man walk on the moon, as well as the Challenger blowing up. She saw the old way of horsepower and handpower pass to that of gasoline engines and electricity. And Grandma was the first of her lineage to speak English, as her parents, much to my mom's dismay, could only speak Danish, or as they say among the rolling hills between Exira and Elk Horn, Iowa, "Dane".
So, in the tradition of our Viking ancestors, I raise my mead horn this day to my Grandma Emma Nelson. May your memory live forever! Skål!
A first generation Danish-American, Grandma Nelson's lifetime, spanning the years from 1898 to 1986, saw the rise of the United States as a global power, beginning with the Spanish-American War through the triumphs of both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and going almost to the end of the Cold War. She was born before airplanes and lived to see man walk on the moon, as well as the Challenger blowing up. She saw the old way of horsepower and handpower pass to that of gasoline engines and electricity. And Grandma was the first of her lineage to speak English, as her parents, much to my mom's dismay, could only speak Danish, or as they say among the rolling hills between Exira and Elk Horn, Iowa, "Dane".
So, in the tradition of our Viking ancestors, I raise my mead horn this day to my Grandma Emma Nelson. May your memory live forever! Skål!
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