remembering one of the many stories my grandmother Dagmar shared with me
My great grandfather Nils had black hair and brown eyes and my grandmother Dagmar always felt that she was in some way his favorite because she did also (as did her brother Finn). Her mother and remaining members of her family were fair, blond or redheaded, and blue eyed.
Nils was a sailor and
then a captain and was often away from home for lengths of time. On
one such trip Nils brought home gifts for his two oldest daughters
from England.
To
Dagmar's older sister Gudrun, petite and blond, he gave a beautiful
blond doll of wax with long flowing curls. To younger Dagmar with
the black hair he laughingly gave a rag doll. A black rag doll with
“wild crazy hair and a crooked stitched smile”. A "black
Norwegian like you", he said. Dagmar was so mad and jealous of
her sister.
In 1909 great grandfather Nils had built a home in Skien for his young family. Their home was only one floor with an unfinished
attic above. The girls would play in the attic on days too cold to go
out. They would play “house” and “school” sitting their
dolls in a window seat pretending they were the teachers etc.
Even
on a Norwegian winters day it can get warm in the attic particularly right by
the window where the sun streams through the glass. One day Gudrun
and Dagmar ran upstairs to play. There sitting in the window were
their dolls. Gudrun’s beautiful blond doll had melted! Melted into
an ugly mess. But Dagmar’s doll? She just sat there with that big
wide crooked smile on her face! Dagmar knew she should feel sorry for
her sister but she had been so jealous of her that “inside she
smiled to herself just as wide and goofy as her silly black doll
smiled”. She loved that doll after that.
In
1988, almost 80 years later, Dagmar laughed and smiled her own wide goofy smile, as she told me the story of her black rag doll given to her
by her father, who like her, was a “black Norwegian”.
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| 1910 - a little girl with her beloved doll |
