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A Tribute to the Swedish American Line | ||||||||
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A Tribute to the Swedish American Line | ||||||||
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The Sandholm Family
Page 1
One more page follows.
These pictures have been contributed by
Kenneth R. Sandholm,
who sailed with his parents on the Gripsholm in 1966.
Many thanks for these great photos.
| Please email us if you can identify persons whose names aren't noted below the pictures. If you recognize yourself or a relative, and in any way are offended by the picture being published, please send an email and the picture will be removed. |
| My parents, Ruth and Kenneth M. Sandholm emigrated to the United States in the early 50's from Sweden. though they were ethnically Swedes, they were both born in western Finland . As a teen, my father's family moved to Stockholm - and my dad became a Swedish citizen. While they were in America, I was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1958. Their stay was not intended to be permanent, so in 1966 we booked one-way passage to Gothenburg on the Gripsholm. My mother still has our expired passports, and tells me we arrived in Gothenburg on June 30 - and because the passage took nine days - she believes we departed on June 21. I recall that we left in the afternoon, and a photo I have of the NY skyline from the Hudson River on departure shows the sun in the western sky. But I also have a photo of a midsommar celebration on board while underway- that could possibly be a belated event that occurred the following day. I didn't take the trip too well. Besides bouts of seasickness, I was also homesick. In my 8 years of existence, I had only been to Sweden/Finland once when I was 5. Despite being able to speak Swedish fluently (to this day), I've always considered myself to be American. My mom tells me that each table at mealtime had a choice of displaying either a Swedish or American flag. They were kind enough to allow me to decide- hence the Stars and Stripes on our table. But my parents had become too Americanized. We returned the following year, and in 1968 both of my parents became American citizens. My father passed away in 1982, but mom is 85 and living in Florida. She has a baggage tag from a prior trip on the Drottningholm in 1948 that I will get and scan in. I am now a mechanical engineer living the Washington DC area. My father was an avid photographer who shot mostly Kodachrome slides. They have been painstakingly stored in a metal container and kept in zero light in a cool, dry bedroom closet. As a result, the colors are incredibly vibrant considering their age. |
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Ruth and Ken Sandholm. |
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 On the bridge. | |
 S-150. The Children's Party. | |
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 A memory shared by so many passengers. | |
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More than 250 web pages developed and maintained by Lars Hemingstam ©1998-2023
Hasse Gustafsson and Tommy Stark have interviewed crew members and contributed many of the stories.
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