www.per-olof.dk
| Splint baskets and how they arrived in Denmark
Overview 1-2-3 | Splint basket
gallery1 | Splint basket gallery2 | Splint basket gallery3
Splint basket gallery1
1. The Wolgast-connection.
Per-Olof Johansson,Allerřd, Denmark:
In maybe 1889 my grandfather Per Martin Johansson moved from
Lönsboda, Sweden to Wolgast in Pommern, Germany and stayed there
until the year 1900, when he left with wife and three children.
My grandfather had been the manager of a splint-basket factory in
Wolgast, in those 11 years.
As former told, he then went in co-operation with his brother Carl E. Johansson in Kvistgaard, Denmark to make splint basket for the Danish market.
My father Arvid Johansson was born in Allerřd, Denmark 1906, but his elder brother August was born in Wolgast. Since August expected me to be interested in the story of our family already when I was a child, he gave me a postcard from 1908, posted to my grandfather by Ernst Krüger, Wolgast. In the DDR-period Wolgast seemed very far away. But at the end of the century I suddenly on a trip to Berlin realised, that it was pretty close to Denmark. So together with my brother Lennart and his wife Aase, Marianne and I went to Wolgast in the spring of 2001, to see the place and maybe find the house on the postcard. The person with the baskets on his right side is, as I think my grandfather. On the wall the name of Ernst Krüger.
Wolgast is becoming part of the modern West, but still with many a corner reminding you of the past. It is like a movie in bright colours with big spots in grey-tone or black-and-white. It is close to the beach so in summertime I think it is a really tourists paradise. But this was in springtime, and we were as tourists among the happy few.
We went to the church, as we can guess our grandparents did many years ago, and felt quite at home. We went to the local museum and found it a real modern version and not dusty at all.
And we did find the house! We lived at 'hotel' and the hotel keeper knew the house very well, the family who had lived there recently and so on. It was very exciting to find it, and we took some photos which should look like the one - and here they come, at the corner..........
This was 1908:
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and this 2001
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