By this time his father had legally had his name changed to Stolt.ДЄt the age of 21 Francis joined the army and served his newfound country for three years during the Spanish-American War. Somehow Francis, the eldest child of five siblings, made his way to the town of Bay City in western Wisconsin where he was reunited with his father, who himself had come over two years earlier to earn money to bring his wife and family to America. (Again, I canвЂ™t think of anything IвЂ™ve gone through in life that compares to that kind of challenge.) Upon arrival he quickly found himself surrounded by bustling, chattering crowds, but he didnвЂ™t understand a word of their language. In Sweden itвЂ™s called fГ¶rsyn, in America the word is providence but whatever the language and however strong oneвЂ™s belief in such things, itвЂ™s enough for me to know that Francis Ludwig Johanson, my grandfather, survived the trip across the Atlantic, though in landing in America his perilous journey was nowhere near finished. More than once IвЂ™ve found myself wondering if I could have been strong enough to do what they did. They simply grew up steeled by risk and hardship the likes of which we can barely imagine in our world today. They were solid, steady, and abiding of faith. Given the times they lived in, our ancestors had no choice but to be strong. Ours is a nation of immigrants, and all of us have a similar story somewhere in our past itвЂ™s part of our collective DNA. (Note to self: When I was twelve years old it was all I could do to safely ride my Schwinn 10-Speed bike to a friendвЂ™s house a few miles from home.) Falling in line with all the strange faces, he walked up the gangplank and never saw his homeland again. Traveling by himself, he possessed little more than the clothes on his back and a Swedish Bible ( Bibeln) given to him the day he sailed - someoneвЂ™s subtle way of saying there was no going back now if things didnвЂ™t work out. Based on historical record, the boat he was on most likely sailed from Sweden to Great Britain before setting out for a promising but wholly unpredictable new life in America. How wonderfully fitting it was for me, a writer who loves telling personal and family histories, to find out my surname - Stolt - also happens to be the Swedish word for вЂproud.вЂ™Д«ecause almost 120 years ago, on Novemto be exact, my paternal grandfather boarded a ship for the first time in his life in the port city of GГ¶teborg, Sweden, and embarked on a weeks-long winter voyage across the North Atlantic that was anything but safe and luxurious. вЂњA worn antique book with latin text on a vintage pedestal.вЂќ by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

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