The photographic memories of Spirit Lake — including those unphotographed!

Life as we know it
Pull of a Place Division

The Gram With a Thousand Rules: “Every summer, we drove my mother back to her home town of Spirit Lake, Iowa. I thought I was taking a picture of my baby daughter snuggling in her grandma’s arms, but now I know what that serene and contented look on my mom’s face really meant. She was ‘homing.’ She had arrived in her mind long before our packed van pulled into town.

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You can’t go “home” again? Well, of course you can — if you can find it!

Life as we know it
Pull of a Place Division

Mounds View Swede writes again: “On a second trip to Sweden, in 2011, I was looking for one last farm, called Guntjugan (goon-shoo-gun). I knew which parish it was in, but not how to find it by its name. We went to the archives in Uppsala that had the records for that parish and asked there. They quickly got on their computers, brought up the old maps and printed off a copy for me. The farm was clearly marked. I then asked how I could find that on today’s maps, and they replied that they didn’t know. But if I got closer and asked, someone would know.

Continue reading “You can’t go “home” again? Well, of course you can — if you can find it!”