Elna: A Danish Blossom in Urban Blight, by Harold Olsen

A miniature Europe with its variety of department stores, factories, wine cellars and churches of all denominations in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, provides the settings for the story of Elna. 

In 1922 Elna Jespersen Laumark comes to this country as an escort for her younger sister with the intention of staying here only for a year.  But life turns out entirely different.  She falls in love, gets married and becomes the mother of two children. 

Abandoned by her husband iin the beginning of the Great Depression this young Danish woman manages to keep up a home for herself and her children in the multiethnic neighborhood of Frog Hollow despite her broken English and severe financial problems.  

The book gives an insight into the life of an immigrant woman from her experience as a housemaid in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to her new assignment as a housewife with children in Hartford, Cconnecticut.  It is interesting to see how the young farm girl from Denmark adapts to the city life in America, and how later she alone with the children turns into a independent and self-confident woman in her struggle to provide a good life for her children.

The humorous and optimistic tone of the story, spiced with quaint Danish qrotations, makes the reading of this book a pleasure.  

                    Birgit Flemming Larsen, archivist, Aalborg, Denmark

Details
Softcover
170 pages
7 x 10 inches