Not long ago, I met with my father's cousin Kurt, who is a paternal grandchild of Robert and Dagny, just like my father. He is going on 90, but completely clear-headed and full of interesting stories from the missionaries' time in China. We usually do something cultural together and this time we went to the... Continue Reading →
The Chinese Recorder - I had not heard of this publication until I opened the book gift from dear Karin Stålhammar. The package contained quite a few issues of this missionary journal featuring missionary news, articles, obituaries and advertisements - mainly from the years 1920-1923. The journal is in English and was aimed at an... Continue Reading →
Looking through the box of books and documents that fellow researcher Karin Stålhammar Hansson sent me in December, I came across a carefully wrapped Bible in Chinese. On the title page is the name “Mina Stålhammar,” Karin’s grandmother. The cover is somewhat worn, but all the pages are intact, and a bookmark, depicting the mission... Continue Reading →
On New Year’s Eve 1927, 98 years ago, Robert and Dagny’s eldest, and only surviving, daughter, Dagny-Edla, finally set foot in China again, this time as a missionary in her own right. She had been sent home from China to study in Sweden in 1907 and had longed to return ever since. During her years... Continue Reading →
My grandmother Edna’s old photo albums from her and her parents’ (Olga and Nils) years in China offer many glimpses into their daily lives and what mattered most to them. Olga and Nils had two children who survived into old age - my grandmother and her sister. Their little brother died in China at the... Continue Reading →
Every September, one of Sweden’s biggest cultural events takes place – the Gothenburg Book Fair. There’s always a certain energy in the air when the fair opens its doors - a mix of excitement, ink, and ideas. For me, it’s both work and inspiration. But this year felt especially meaningful, because I knew I would... Continue Reading →
What’s in a place? For missionaries, a place could not possibly just be geography – it was an opportunity - to fulfil their calling and to save as many souls as possible. Beyond the obvious mission work, the places where they lived also meant community, family and home. Each mission station carried its own stories... Continue Reading →
One of the most difficult things to come to terms with on a personal level, when diving into missionary history in China, is the fact that my great-grandparents had to send their children back to Sweden by the age of seven. In practice, this meant they could only be present in their children’s lives during... Continue Reading →
As many of my blog posts testify, the missionaries in China did not only preach and teach Christianity, but also worked with various forms of education and healthcare. Above all, they started many boys’ and girls’ schools for the children in their areas of outreach, and opium asylums were common in regions where many were... Continue Reading →
In May, I was invited to speak about my research into my family history in China by the Evangelical East Asia Mission (EÖM) the organization that used to be called the Swedish Mission in China, which is the very mission my ancestors were part of. Today, the mission organization consists of many people who have... Continue Reading →
- A Shared Swedish Missionary Legacy in China A few weeks ago, I received an email about my blog and research. It was from Karin Stålhammar Hansson, another descendant of missionaries in China. She wrote that she had read about my blog in a newsletter from the missionary society our ancestors had traveled to China... Continue Reading →
Responding to my latest article here on the blog, Mr. Liu Hong wrote me the other day. He told me he had just recently visited Hancheng, the town where Robert fought so hard to rent a house for the mission. Hong had never been before, but now he had at last been able to make... Continue Reading →
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from Mr. Liu Hong, a passionate researcher of Swedish missionaries in China. He shared with me a passage about my great-grandfather Robert’s challenges in establishing a mission station in Hancheng, Shaanxi. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was incredibly difficult for foreigners to... Continue Reading →
Throughout my research, one particularly important source has helped me make sense of the adventures my great-grandparents experienced during their time as missionaries in China. The mission paper Sinims Land, first published in 1896, is filled with articles from Robert, Dagny, Nils and Olga. Aside from their contributions, I can also read articles and messages... Continue Reading →
This Christmas, I received two handwritten Christmas cards in the mail. The number of Christmas cards has steadily decreased in recent years. I used to write a lot of cards myself, but like so many others, I don’t write them anymore. I was very, very happy to receive the two cards, though. There is something... Continue Reading →
My small library with books related to missionary history is slowly growing. The books are particularly concentrating on the Swedish Mission to China, its missionaries and publications. I love physical books, and regularly search online antiquarian bookstores to see if they have any of my relatives' books, or works by their friends and missionary colleagues.... Continue Reading →
As a parent, it has often been tough to leave my children behind for work trips to other countries. Since I had a job that required frequent travel, there were plenty of times I missed my kids when they were little. What brought me comfort was knowing that they had a dad at home taking... Continue Reading →
My great grandfather Nils Styrelius passed away on this day, the 16th of October, 82 years ago. By then he was a well-travelled man, who had lived an adventurous life. I have written about his passing before, and a bit about his time as an emigrant to America. He emigrated from Sweden to Chicago in... Continue Reading →
Time has come for the Mystery Man to be properly named and put in context. Thanks to Haifeng, a Chinese blogreader and avid researcher, the mystery man from my grandmother's old glass cabinet has now been identified! If you have followed my blog, you know that I have written about this man and tried to... Continue Reading →
Those of you who follow this blog know that my relatives spent much of their lives in China, a country so different from Sweden that life there must have seemed like something out of a novel, or a parallel universe. To live there, in a foreign culture and a foreign language, they had to adapt... Continue Reading →
Thérèse Amnéus 