Page 6 and page 7

Page 6:

During the summers he'd walk around in white linen pants and in the winter he'd wear pants made from deer hides. He had a pair of long trousers that were tied off near the ankles. He also had a pair of shorts that went down to just below his knees where they were fastened using a leather strap and a large metal clasp which was positioned on the outside of the leg. In the summers he'd wear shoes with a large white metal buckle attached to the instep. He also wore long stockings that went above the knees and were secured with woven or braided garters that in turn were made from red and white wool. These garters were long enough to reach 2-3 times around the leg and to make a bow that was placed right by the abovementioned buckle. He also owned two pairs of long boots that went up to just below the garters. The idea was that the garters were to be visible in the space between the top of the boots and the bottom of the short pants. I was a little more than nine years of age when my father died and even though I can picture him clearly in my head, I don't recall him being very active or enterprising. However, he wasn't home much because he was, for his time, a rather

Page 7:

renowned veterinarian. I remember accompanying him to Taagerup where he cured a sick horse as well as a sick cow. In that place there was also an old woman who sought his advice. She was very constipated and he told her to roast apples on the top of the woodstove as well as heat some beer. She was then to go ahead and consume plenty of both. A few days later we were back in said town and the old woman informed him that his advice had helped a lot. One time my father had some candy and he would give it to the one of us kids who could run the most times around the courtyard. Brothers and sisters were lined up barefoot in the snow, but I just stood there and cried. However, if I remember right I ended up getting my share of the candy in the end. Another time I attended a party in Orup, I think it was for the baptism of Jens Johansen. Afterwards we gathered in the house of Johan Hylsenberg's neighbor, the same exact house I would later receive when I got married. We played with the children that lived there, and among them was a little girl of about 2-3 years of age. I paid no special attention to her but it was this girl who after 18 more years would become my wife. As we were driving home    

Page 4 and Page 5

Page 4: Grandfather (father's side)

     In the old days it wasn't at all common for families to employ uniform family surnames which is why the son always received his father's Christian name as a surname. It kept switching like that and this is how I ended up with my grandfather's last name, which will be our family's surname from this point on. My grandfather's name was Jørgen Hemmingsen. He was born in or around the year 1750 and passed away around 1825. My mother often times brought up that he was already an old man when she married my father and they took over the farm from him. My grandmother, on my father's side, her name was Karen Olsdatter but about her I know practically nothing because she passed away before my mother married into the family.

     Those old ladies with their names ending in datter (daughter) that was still part of the old customs. This is also why my sisters, Sophia and Maria have Hemmingsdatter as their last name rather than the Hemmingsen that we now use. It was around the year 1850, during the reign of King Frederick VII that a new law went into effect. It stated that all children should be baptized and be given their father's surname. However, those who had children before this new law were still allowed to bestow upon their children the same surname that they had given to their children in the past.

Page 5: Father

     My father's name was Hemming Jørgensen. He was born in the year 1797 and died on the 1st of August 1845 at the age of 48. He was a rather tall, slender man with black hair and a black beard. He combed and kept his hair in the same manner as employed by the women of his time. Split down the middle and then tucked behind the ears. It was so long that it went past his shirt collar and down to his shoulders. His head - his hat was a homemade red cap which he used on an everyday basis and even at night as a nightcap. Perhaps he owned other hats as well. He did own two black felt hats that were both taller and pointier than the hats you see nowadays. When ever he had to go on the road he wore a homemade coat which had a high collar and white metal buttons. The arms and the chest section of the coat were lined with homespun linen. However, the parts of the coat below the waistline had no lining. The coat was probably homemade because there were no tailors born yet. His vest was made out of hat yarn with a collar that stood up straight, with metal buttons and lined with a white linen back.  

    

Page VIII and Page 3

     On page VIII we're introduced to his notations relating to the various units of measurements that were used in Denmark. While this actually is quite interesting it also presents me with somewhat of a problem. There are some things in the Danish language that can't, and to some degree shouldn't be translated. So here I was trying to figure out whether or not I should be trying to translate terms that might not have a translatable counterpart in the English language. So what I think I'll do here is translate as much of the text on this page as possible but keep the various terms denoting the units of measure in their Danish form. At the bottom of the page I'll include a link to a list of terms and how much their corresponding metric values might be.

-1 Skippund = 20 Lispund
-1 Lispund = 16 pund
-1 pund = 32 Lod
-1 lod = 4 Ounce
-1 ounce = 4 kvintin
-1 kvintin = 4 drachme
-1 dozen = 12
-12 dozen = 1 Gros
-1 Snes = 20
-3 Snes = 1 Skok (60)
-4 Snes = 1 Ol (80)
-5 Snes = one hundred (100)
-6 Snes = a big hundred (120)
Nails, root vegetables and eggs were sold according to their count.
-1 tønde = 8 Skæppe
-1 Skæppe = 4 Fjerding kar
-1 Fjerding kar = 2 Ottingkar
These measurements were used for salt, root vegetables and all kinds of seeds. In regards to fruit you should always pile as much as possible onto a Skæppe when portioning.
You needed 10 Langholmskjærer to a knippe and 20 knipper to a load.
You needed 20 neg in a trave. There were 20 Høbånd in a trave and 3 trave in a knippe.
-Cherries, lingonberries and prunes were all pickled.
-Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, red currant and black currant were eaten directly off of the plants while the rest were left.
-Pears were cut in half, dried and used instead of raisins.
-The hair that was cut off of the horse's mane and tail as well as hair from cow tails and the hair that was harvested during grooming of animals or the butchering of pigs was spun into rope and used in clothing.

Here now begins our journey through the pages of the Hemmingsen text, Page 3:

    "I'm writing this down so that my children might gain a better understanding where I hailed from. Where I was born, reared, educated and raised. How I have attempted a multitude of things. How I've toiled and labored in order to make ends meet. After everything was said and done, I've come to the realization that the old adage; "Stick to what you know," still rings true! It means that one should stick to one craft or profession because by darting from one occupation to another you only end up being a jack of all trades and master of none. It should also be remembered that with every new thing that you attempt always ends up costing you money one way or another. Either it turns out to be a waste of time, or you have a constant need for expensive tools. Not to mention the multitude of ways one might end up loosing out by moving from place to place. However, if worse came to worse such travel could be beneficial. Because he who has the courage and will to engage in any job offered will seldom remain unemployed for long."

So I suppose that I personally would have a hard time trying to sum up Niels Hemmingsen's overall intentions with this text. In his waning years he might have intended to leave a legacy behind in order to leave something behind that would attest to him having been here. When the Danish immigrants came to the New World they came in numbers that were far less than those of their Scandinavian counterparts. So when they got here, their options for marrying someone with their own national makeup were limited. They were therefore forced to intermingle with other nationalities. The Danes began to disappear into the still emerging American identity and perhaps needed reminders such as this text to keep their heritage alive.



https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_m%C3%A5leenheder

Pages VI and VII

     Let's move on to page VI which has something a bit more macabre to offer. Among the lists of information that he decided to copy down here there is one recounting the various places that had experienced major earthquakes along with the year they occurred and the number of people who perished. The other half of page VII also lists the various forms of currency that were being used while Niels still resided in Denmark.
     However, back to the earthquake data. I won't be relisting them here since what they say isn't as interesting as where they came from. The dates span hundreds of years and the locations are litterally scattered all over the world. I sat for the longest time and contemplated why exactly he would have chosen to copy these down. Once again I found myself in the position where I couldn't fully put myself in his shoes but I was certainly capable of attempting to draw parallels between his writing process and my own. When I set out to translate this text I chose to do so by employing pencil and paper. Rather than using a computer, which granted would have saved a lot of time, I told myself that if Niels had taken the care and time to write down his thoughts and memories in longhand then I owed him, and myself to put the same kind of care into my work. I attempted to walk a mile in another man's shoes so to speak. Truth be told I usually try to do any sort of writing related work with pencil and paper. It allows for a better opportunity to connect with the material. While working with this book I enjoyed being able to handle the book. Seeing the places where pages had been earmarked, the flow of the handwriting and even the smell of the paper which had a scent of nostalgia, but I digress. I had for a few years used a leather bound book to jot down certain facts, figure, quotes and ideas that crossed my mind. They were a random patchwork of information that was completely without use to any rational human being, unless they were preparing to be a contestant on Jeopardy. I can of course not be a hundred percent sure as to why he chose to copy this information down, but perhaps it was simply something that sparked an interest in him.
     During my research I was also able to ascertain the source of the earthquake data. He copied it from; “The Standard Reference Work, for the Home, School, and Library, Volume 3,” which was a desktop encyclopedia published by the Minneapolis and Chicago Standard Education Society in 1922. I've attached a link at the bottom of this post in case people want to check it out themselves. Now the fact that I found the source is actually quite interesting. On one hand it underlines the fact that he was a very (self)educated person who was always learning new things. The fact that the book was published in 1922 tells us that he wrote this entire text around or after his 86th birthday. However, what I found really interesting, and what I think speaks greatly to his motivations for writing all of this down is that he is looking at Volume 3 from an encyclopedia series. This volume shares information about many words, starting with DEER and ending with Halifax. The interesting part here, to me at least, is that the D-section also contains a rather detailed description of the country of Denmark.
     I think that he started writing all of these facts down in this book because he found them to be interesting. Then, somewhere along the line something occurred, perhaps he felt that the end was nigh or maybe he began feeling homesick and nostalgic in his twilight years. Whatever his reasons may have been, he switched gears and focused more on creating a written account of things that he remembered from his youth. A simpler time. Back when he still had both feet firmly planted on the dirt roads of Zealand. Maybe he never got to go back to the old country and this literary trip down memory lane was as close as he could get. 

Page VII cont.

     The Danish monetary system was made up of 1/2 Schilling, 1 Schilling and 2 Schilling coins that were all made of copper. There were also silver coins which consisted of 3 Schilling, 4 Schilling, 8 Schilling and 16 Schilling. However, 16 Schilling was also called 1 Mark and 3 Mark made up 1/2 Thaler. 6 Mark, which was also two half Thaler, made up one Thaler. 2 Thaler were a Specie but there was also 8 Mark, 4 Mark and 16 Mark, however these last three were German currency. In paper money we had 5 Thaler, 10 Thaler, 20 Thaler, 50 Thaler, 100 Thaler and 500 Thaler. All were printed on blue paper and considered legal tender. 
     For documents to be legal they needed to be written on paper carrying the right stamps and have a wax seal on them.    

https://books.google.com/books?id=V8lGAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT105&dq=Catania+Sicily+1137+15000+Syria+1158+20000&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz1Kbo1dDLAhVEw2MKHRTwB54Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=Catania%20Sicily%201137%2015000%20Syria%201158%2020000&f=false

  

Pages IIII and V

     Our attentions are now being turned to page IIII. It's intriguing to me that he chose to write the Roman numeral for four like that and yet he did. The title of the page is; "Discovered or Invented."
-1487, on the 30th of January the glockenspiel is invented.
-1650, on the 22nd of February the air pump is invented.
-1609, 25th of March, the discovery of the Hudson River.
-1517, the start of the Protestant Reformation.
-1751, on the 30th of December, New Zealand is discovered.
-1791, opening of the first bank in America.
-1551, the first railway in England.
-1833, the first railway in America.
-1441, the printing press is invented.
-1505, Luther entered the monastery.
-1619, first legislative assembly in America.
-1513, discovery of the Pacific Ocean.
-1663, establishment of first printed newspaper.
-1763, Florida is sold to England.
-1460, the art of woodcarving is invented.
-1640, Diet of Worms
-1492, Columbus returned to Spain.
-1550, first English tram.
-570, the birth of Muhammad.
-329, the city of Constantinople is founded.
-970, first ever jury trial.
-1530, Diet of Augsburg.
-1665, England occupies Jamaica.
-1792, France becomes a Republic.
-1775, the start of the revolution in the U.S.
-1765, the Stampact is put into place.
-1767, tea is being taxed.
-1600, the founding of the East India Trading Company.

     Page V is yet another list of facts and figures and carries the title; "Different things."
-1790 The patent law is implemented.
-1780 Riots in London.
-1314 Battle of Bannockburn.
-1750 Corsica is sold to France.
-1690 Bank of England is founded.
-(1650) 1812
-1879 Opening of the Suez Canal.
-1819 Alabama becomes a state.
-1845 Texas becomes a state.
-1837 Michigan becomes a state.
-1803 Ohio becomes a state.
-1870 Virginia becomes a state.
-1899 Cuba is transferred to the U.S.
-1897 Sinking of the USS Maine in Havana's harbor.
-1815 Peace between England and the U.S.
-1840 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are married on the 10th of February.
-1754 On the 7th of April France captures Pittsburg which back then was called Fort Duquesne.
-1788 A group of New Englanders started a colony in Ohio.
-1798 Congress formed the Mississippi territories.
-1818 General Andrew Jackson captured the fort in St. Marks Florida.
-1831 Pedro I of Brazil abdicates.

Even more dates, people and places. He obviously copied this information from somewhere since he wasn't alive for a majority of these events. While this information is very interesting, it seemingly has very little to do with this immigrants story or life as a whole. So why include it and why is it of interest to us now. Perhaps we should not focus on the jumbled collection of information and spend more time thinking about the source of this wealth of information. The where will allow us some valuable insights into who the author was as a person and what motivated him to create his own collection of random knowledge. For now I'll let you ponder where this info came from and rest assured that all will be revealed once the next two pages come around.

Pages II and III

    

     Since I have already read and translated the entire text, I feel confident in saying that this next page might be one of the more telling ones when it comes to trying to get to know the author and his intentions. It's a very intriguing tapestry of individual lines from a multitude of Danish Battle songs and religious hymns which include some of the works of Laurids O. Kock and N.F.S Grundtvig. They are a collections of melodic celebrations of Denmark and what it meant to be Danish. They elicit our connection with the present while simultaneously strengthening our bonds with the past. The songs accomplish this task via the conjuring of familiar Danish imagery. The flowing fields of wheat, the breathtaking shorelines, the near constant proximity to the sea, the deep seeded history and the language interlacing all facets of the Danish experience.

     Talking from my own experiences I found it extremely telling that he chose to highlight these particular songs. My mother has an incredible gift for taking existing traditional melodies of Danish songs that every school child knows and rewriting them in order to use them for sing-alongs at weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. This helped instill in me an appreciation for the good old Danish songs that had been handed down from generation to generation. Even now as I'm typing these very words, I'm doing so wearing headphones and listening to the wonderful music of such great troubadours as John Mogensen and Povl Dissing.

     Having had the opportunities to listen to a multitude of Danish artists has in many ways allowed me to retain much of my "Danishness."A lifeline if you will, tethering me securely to where I came from while still allowing me enough give to go where I'm headed.

     I can't help but wonder if he chose to copy these words for the very same reasons. Music has the uncanny ability to evoke a multitude of emotions! Perhaps having these few lines was enough to elicit a reaction from the author because they held some sort of importance to him. Were they part of his lifeline, keeping him from drowning in the Great American Meltingpot? Or perhaps they were simply stuck in his head. I mean, who among us hasn't been plagued by a single verse from a song at some point in their life.  

     At the bottom of this post I've decided to add several links to the songs that he had copied lines from along with a few links to songs that I consider important staples in my own music library.
      Page III is titled "Explorers," and consists of a list of notable Scandinavian explorations.
-In the year 860, Iceland is discovered by a Norwegian.
-In 982 Erik the Red was banished from Iceland.
 Erik the Red was the first person to settle down in Greenland, and he called his home Brattahlid.
-In the year 1000, Leif Eriksen discovered Labrador and later Nova Scotia. Later on he discovered Nantucket on the New England coast and the area around the Massachusetts Bay which they named Vinland.
-In 1112 Erik Gnupsøn was the Bishop of Greenland. However, in 1121 he traveled to Vinland and from 1121 to 1409 Greenland was without a bishop.
-1570, the Norwegian Priest Absalon Pedersen Beyer published a detailed history of Norway. He died in 1574.
-In 1576, Martin Frobisher was in Greenland on his way to India.
-In 1568 Christian Aalborg went searching for Greenland.
-In 1579, King Frederick II of Denmark sent forth an expedition and on the 25th of August 1579 they found Greenland.
-1581, Mogens sought to find Greenland. He was decapitated (Mogens Heinason) 18th of January 1589.
-1605, James Hall ventured out and found Greenland, he died on the 23rd of July 1612. In 1608, the Norwegian priest Hans Poulsen went to Greenland as a missionary and he died in 1758.
-1219, Dannebrog is implemented in Denmark.
the Latin name for Hazelnut is Corylus Avellana.
-1036, Knut the Great died.
-1688, there's a revolution in England.
Now here's an interesting collection of names, dates and events. Why in heavens name would he have included this seemingly random information in this book? Food for thought. Personally I have a few facts and a whole lot of ideas relating to the issue of why, but there are still several pages like this one before we get to the actual written account of the family history and while I know where the information came from, his motivations for its inclusion will have to remain a mystery for the time being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcZLwuBq35U

http://runeberg.org/nfsgudv/9/0198.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW4gIrImyxc

https://books.google.dk/books?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bctlvz-qpKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th0gdtRMpG0

     

      

Opening the book.

 
     The inside of the cover is bare except for a bit of Victorian die cut. It depicts what appears to be a "horn of plenty" filled with flowers. An interesting side note here is that these sort of die cuts were traditionally something that girls would play with. To find this in a book containing the very detailed family history of an immigrant couple is quite intriguing to me. Did it come with the book when it was bought. Should we look at this along with the picture on the cover and perhaps consider the possibility that the book started out belonging to someone else and was rehabbed for the purpose of compiling this wealth of memories?
     The opposite page, which also is the first page of the book, has no page number but for our purposes, and due to the fact that the pages from this point on carry some sort of numerical value, we'll designate this page with a Roman numeral I. Here we see the simple words; "Memories from my childhood" by Niels Hemmingsen, born on the 3rd of June 1836. Short and to the point. This might as well be the title of a short story or even a novel, and one has to admit that Niels Hemmingsen's penmanship is spectacular. It speaks volumes to whom the author was as a person as well as to the times he lived in.

The Hemmingsen Text: Diary, family history, legacy.

     Some ten years ago when I was still a student at Northern Michigan University where I was pursuing a degree in history I registered for a history class where the overall grade was largely based upon a large research paper that we were to have ready for the end of the semester. As students we were tasked with finding and defining our own research topic which then went to the professor for approval. Many of my peers chose to highlight different aspects relating to what it meant to live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Some of them decided to highlight a specific cultural or social group who had helped shape the area. Furthermore, others focused on individuals or organizations that that had left their mark on the areas history.
     For my part, since I was the proud owner of a Danish passport why not try to call attention to the marks that Danish immigrants had left on the area. When I initially brought this subject matter to the attention of my professor he seemed very interested in the potential of the project but was unsure if I would be able to find enough primary sources that I'd be able to use in order to create a successful paper. So I ventured out into the world and started looking for those elusive primary source materials. When I found those who might possess such information and offered them my ideas I was continuously met with the same response ; "The Danish immigrants that came to the area had left no discernible impact upon the local cultural makeup. Try the Finns instead!" Soooo, I wasn't about to take that laying down and I proceeded to dig deeper. Apparently the only people of Danish descent that were worth mentioning were two Danish immigrants in particular. One was remembered for having opened the first brothel in the city of Marquette, while the other one was known quite well to local law enforcement because he ran a drinking establishment where he was running a slew of illegal enterprises out of the back.
     There simply had to be someone else out there. Then the search brought me to a passing mention of the Hemmingsen text, which was apparently left behind by a gentleman whose family had settled in Negaunee Michigan. There they had started the Danish Sisterhood of America which was an organization meant to act as an insurance company which was to help families with funeral cost that might arise upon the death of the insured.
     Needless to say, my interest had been peaked. So where was this text? Had it been translated before? Could I perhaps be allowed to do the translation? So many questions that needed answering! So my wife and I decided to meet with, and join the local Christine Lodge #1 in Negaunee, and where I'm now currently the president. In my capacity as such I have had uninterrupted access to the text for several years and have all but fully translated the text in its entirety.
     Then, lo and behold, I was able to attend the National Convention for the Danish Sisterhood of America in Denver and I spoke with many wonderful people who weren't just celebrating their Danish heritage through actions but who also were able to still converse in Danish which was a huge treat for me. During the convention the issue of retaining said Danish heritage kept creeping into the conversation and I was becoming more and more convinced that whatever history relating to the organization that might be floating around out there should be shared on a national level.
     So in order for everyone to have access to the translated version of the Hemmingsen text I've chosen to make it available to the general public through this blog. There will be no set schedule for when postings are made public but assume that every couple of days there will be several translated pages made available along with my own commentary, which will consist of thoughts and insights gathered during the translation process. If anyone from the readership comes across something that might spur questions or further insight I would implore any and all of you to contact me because I'd be more than happy to shed light on anything that you might have questions about.
     So, that was a lot of me me me me me, so how about we now switch gears and focus on the translation. Stay tuned.......