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Swede Hollow | MNopedia

She remembered times of sharing, when the Mexican women would trade onions, garlic and peppers for Italian bread cooked in outdoor ovens. Her mother and an Italian neighbor were able to communicate. In December , the city Health Department decided that since Swede Hollow had no sewer or city water service it was a health hazard. The last fourteen families were moved out and the remaining homes burned down by the Fire Department. Thanks to the efforts of Friends of Swede Hollow and the city of St. Paul the hollow has been revitalized and is once again a center of the community. The restoration of Swede Hollow as a park was the Saint Paul Garden Club's Bicentennial project, for which they received a major award. Visitors could walk or bike through the park on new trails. There are a few reminders of the old days seen in sporadic remains of stone foundations and flowers that were planted in immigrant yards.

Swede Hollow

Need Help? Text Swede Hollow. Photographer: St. Get Directions. Subjects Payne Avenue. Not to be missed. Literature , Fiction. When Gustaf and Anna Klar and their three children leave Sweden for New York in , they take with them a terrible secret and a longing for a new life. But their dream of starting over is nearly crushed at the outset: a fire devastates Ellis Island just as they arrive, and then the relentlessly harsh conditions and lack of work in the city make it impossible for Gustaf to support his family. An unexpected gift allows the Klars to make one more desperate move, this time to the Midwest and a place called Swede Hollow.

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Deeply researched and full of memorable moments, Swede Hollow is the powerful story of a family who makes the long journey to St. Ola Larsmo presents a sober and realistic portrayal of the suffering and hardships that awaited Swedish immigrants after they arrived in America. Swede Hollow is a moving, at times harrowing, always convincing novel on a truly epic scale. Larsmo is a faithful storyteller, rooted in historical incident, hearing the voices and breathing life into people who risked everything to forge new beginnings and raise up families by sweat, fist, and the ragged, life-giving fabric of clan. Swede Hollow captures the travails of a group of Swedish immigrants who find refuge in this poor neighborhood in St. Ola Larsmo gives the reader a remarkable sense of the struggle and dislocation that is ever present in these people. A rich and worthwhile read addressing the basic question of immigration—how does one make a life in a new country?

Those looking for a conventional plot won't find it here: Larsmo writes believable scenes grounded in sensory experience, with relatively complicated characters, in some sort of chronological order, but also seems content to branch out into what are essentially self-contained short stories about characters peripheral to the main intertwined family saga. A worthy addition to the shelf of books about the immigrant experience. Larsmo's Deceit , sobering, realistic portrayal of Swedish immigration to America pulls readers into a richly detailed world peopled with unforgettable characters.

Swede Hollow — University of Minnesota Press

Extensively researched and beautifully translated, Larsmo's novel is the epic story of a family and a community struggling to survive and an intimate look at the complexities of immigration. As the family scrambles to make ends meet, they face poor living conditions, disease, and discrimination. But they find love and friendship as well in the tight-knit, hardscrabble community. What saves the novel from gloom is the sense of community shared by people who spoke many different languages. Swede Hollow is one of the most important works of fiction to come out of Scandinavia in the last few years largely for how it casts important new light on a history that is all too easily forgotten. Larsmo's Deceit, sobering, realistic portrayal of Swedish immigration to America pulls readers into a richly detailed world peopled with unforgettable characters. For those who have Scandinavian heritage and live in or have family ties to Minnesota, it is certainly worth a read into seeing what Swedes in the Minnesota of lived through and in some cases, in, as part of their initial years here in America.

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