Author: Bruce Lindgren

I am the oldest son of Obed and Verona Lindgren of Richfield MN (near Minneapolis). Born in 1940.

Dance for All

Dancing has a long history and ranges from simple folk rituals to dramatic ballet. It seem very natural to engage body movement, story and movement to express everything from tragedy to comedy. Too often those with physical disability are only able to sit on the sidelines and watch others participate.

Ann Ungs, daughter of Jon and Elaine Lindgren trained as a physical therapist. settled in Des Moines with her husband, Marty, also a physical therapist. Ann specialized in pediatric care and worked with children with spinal injury. Many of these young people observed dancing and wished they could participate. Ann and a dance teacher began to see opportunity where opportunity had been missing. They formed a dance school for all and called it Dance Without Limits.

Since beginnings 14 years ago they have worked with many children to preserve opportunity. Ann and Marty’s three daughters, Madeline, Juliette and Lily were all dancers and able to help as teachers and all around helping support for the school.

Twice a year the dance instruction culminates with a recital at the Urbandale, IA high school or another suitable site, where dancers can perform and an audience can appreciate and applaud the wonderful efforts and interpretations that flow across a stage recognizing that dance is auniversal way to move the human spirit to new heights, and do so without limit.

Below you can enjoy photos from recent recital and practice. .

Dance Without Limits

Julianne Ungs with a dancer.

Madeline Ungs communicating in American Sign Language with a dancer

Ann Ungs with dancer.

I greatly appreciate the wonderful work of Ann and her daughters to enhance lives in Des Moines, IA.

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Roots & Shoots

ROOTS & SHOOTS—V1N6

Fostering Family Connections	
Friday, 10 March 2023
	
Greetings

Language is a necessary but troubling challenge to exchange ideas. I have found the use of “liberal” to be confusing and often mistaken for both political and economic discourse or conversation. Last Wednesday evening I found and related a quote from Francis Fukuyama, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Here is what he said in a Harper's interview.

    I would start by saying what I don’t mean by liberalism. If you call someone liberal in the United States, you mean that person is left of center, prioritizes equality, and wants government to do more to promote it. If you call someone liberal in Europe, you mean that person is right of center, prioritizes liberty, wants free markets and less government intervention. I don’t think these economic definitions are the essence of the thing. To me, liberalism revolves around a presumption of basic equality of dignity that applies to all of us as members of our species, and the idea that this dignity is ultimately based on our moral autonomy, our ability to make moral choices. You institutionalize liberalism through a rule of law that puts constraints on the use of political power such that the government does not interfere with this basic autonomy.

Since its beginnings in the seventeenth century, liberalism has also been closely associated with a certain cognitive mode—that of modern natural science, with its belief that there is an objective reality beyond our subjective consciousnesses, a reality that we can come to know through the scientific method. We can then use the resulting knowledge to manipulate that reality, moving from science to technology, and finally to the engineering of economic and social life.

If you use the term this way, Sweden, Denmark, and other big social democratic states qualify as liberal, but so do the United States, Japan, and other countries that have smaller welfare states. Liberalism has much more to do with this fundamental recognition of individual rights.

The highlights coincide with mental models I have held since my undergraduate days.
	
	
JOTTINGS:

    AFIB or Atrial Fibrillation was discussed last Wednesday and Dick Lindgren used an illustration of an EKG to explain how diagnosis of AFIB may be made and how it can be fraught. He had found the $100 portable devices attached to an iPhone to be of questionable value. Drugs to treat AFIB can be expensive, so Dick has some recommendations on reducing costs.
    Dave Lindgren was finally able to tell us about his findings regarding Swedish Coffee. He presented a nice slide show to explain how he used the recipe. I'll be editing the video and posting it on the website along with Aunt Hazel;s recipe for Apple Cake.
    Snow (and weather) is always close to mind on our Zoom calls and this week the Minnesota Mafia was ranting about the record setting snowfalls (approaching the tenth highest historically) in Minnesota.
    Jon and Elaine Lindgren are planning a drive to New York City to see granddaughter Lily perform for her ballet studies at Fordham University.
    My daughter, Erika Rivers, is anticipating a trip to Hawaii and the Volcano National Park on Maui. She will be leading a group sponsored by Wilderness Inquiry.
    Because of feedback I received by eMail and a question about how to contact the entire distribution list, I will post Roots & Shoots on the LONet website each week. This will provide readers with a way to comment. If you have anything by way of rebuttal or additional information, please post your comments there.
    Steve Lindgren has been monitoring the proposed merger of our Minnesota-based Fairview Health System with the Sanford Health operating out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Because University of Minnesota physicians associate with the UMN Medical School are opposed t the merger, it has attracted a great deal of attention in the TC area.

ZOOMING

Our NEW SCHEDULE for Zooming begins nest Tuesday, March 14th at 7:30PM. We're not abandoning Wednesday evening but want to try out other days and shorten the time. Our tentative scheule for the rest of March is posted below. Days and starting times are going to move around, with hope that it will be easier for some to join that have not found Wednesday a good fit for participating. We have found over hte many months of doing these Zoom sessions, that no matter how big or small the group, we always have fun. We always hope you will be able to join us.

Here is connection information for TUESDAY. :

You are warmly invited to join our Zoom meeting on TUESDAY.

Topic: Family Zoom Conversation ... Steve Lindgren will facilitate a discussion focusing on our accomplishments as we approach 150 Zoom sessions.

Time: Mar 14, 2023 07:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6531363825
Meeting ID: 653 136 3825
For the remainder of March our Zoom sessions will be as follows:
Sunday, March 19th, 3:30 PM Tentative pending availability of a presenter.)
Thursday, March 24th, 7:30 PM
Wednesday March 29th, 7:30 PM


Let's Keep in Touch!
	
	

Warmest regards,

Bruce

(218) 348-3325 or bflind@cheqnet.net

Roots & Shoots

Roots & Shoots—v1n5

Fostering Family Connections
Saturday, 4 March2023
	
Greetings 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now roaring at us with the newest upgrades from Microsoft and their Windows OS. You may have experienced the seemingly big distance between your iPhone and your PC with some workaround to get pictures from your iPhone. Mine is to locate the photo on the iPhone, and then send it to my PC using eMail. A little clumsy but it works OK for an occasional photo or two. But it would be much easier if my PC simply opened the photo files on my iPhone and iCloud. Although that is currently doable now with Windows 10, it, along with other clever additions, will be easily automated with Windows 11.

Unfortunately the upgrade to Windows 11 with way too many current Windows 10 computers is blocked by hardware deficiencies. Which apparently for most of us means shelling out to buy a new computer and that is too steep a price for my Swedish soul. A quick check on Amazon for a Windows 11 PC equivalent to my current desktop would cost around a $1,000 or more. Since I prefer Open Source software, much of which will not likely run in the Windows 11 environment, I would be hanging on the horns of a dilemma. If I choose to upgrade, I will also face more expense finding and buying (or renting indefinitely) equivalent software, some of which I only use occasionally. All of this could easily add another $1,000 or more to may cost of upgrade.

But, there is a powerful incentive with Windows 11, and that is to gain access to the future; tools of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML). I have often said that if I was 20 years younger, I would take off my socks, roll up my pants and wade into the waters of AI/ML developing requisite skills with one of the compatible programming languages such as Python. With Windows 11 and recent upgrades, there is much of AI/ML that is reachable without writing a single line of code. What ever you may want to do—write an essay, calculate future value of an asset, reduce or expand a recipe for a Swedish version of Norwegian krumkake—first try talking to your PC with a request (in any language) that the PC do it for you. Some of that is currently free but don't expect that to pertain indefinitely; a pay plan will be ready for you sometime soon. Microsoft has not been known for its charity, the Gates Foundation notwithstanding. (If you want something from the Gates Foundation, make a detailed proposal and don't even think about asking for anything less that a couple million dollars.)

But Microsoft is not the only game in AI/ML. Google (YouTube), Meta (Facebook), Apple and Amazon are actually wagging the tail of the AI/ML dog. Not that we should be misled into thinking that a dog with a wagging tail is always friendly. These dogs are clever and know where your thoughts and money are kept. Beware offers that seem too good to be true. Hey SERI, what should I do?
	
	

JOTTINGS:

    The Bowl (Amy's Wooden Bowl) is safely on the way to Ames. Laura Gardner will pass it along to daughter Grace for safekeeping for another generation and hopefully more. I have recently revised the Editors Note on the Post provided by Linnae on the provenance of the bowl.
    I just did my taxes for 2022—full disclosure, Patti assembled everything for our CPA—and again found that none of my computer expenses are deductible as they were when my consulting business was active. Zoom and lindgrensonline does not qualify as charity either. Fortunately all costs are manageable.
    My latest listen (Audible Book) as mentioned last week is The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, PhD. He is a wonderful storyteller and highlights so many things about cell biology that I taught for many years, yet he bring almost poetic writing to his descriptions and stories of the people who made the important discoveries of the past decades.
    Brave New Workshop, an improv theater in Minneapolis has a current show entitled “Smelling Elon's Musk.” The subtitle: The Future is Now, but Does It Include Us?will not likely engender a love story with the oligarchs taking control of our economy, technologies and democracy.
    Holding your breath for Republicans to criticise either Fox News or its darling Marjorie Taylor Green is going to deprive you and our democracy of much needed oxygen. It is impossible to imagine the angst of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell when Green calls for all Red States, presumably the contiguous states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee to form a new nation. Whew!


ZOOMING

We keep going with hope that others will join us. It is time to begin trying something new. Accordingly this will be the last of the routine, two-hour Wednesday evening sessions. Here is a (tentative) schedule for the month of March: Wednesday, 8th 7:00-9:00 PM; Tuesday, 14th 7:30-8:30 PM; Sunday, 19th, Thursday, 23rd 7:30-8:30; and Wednesday, 29th, 7:30-8:30. Let me know how you feel about this change.

My hope is that by adding some flexibility to the Zooming schedule, it will easier for some family members to join. We know other obligations on Wednesday evening have made participation difficult. I have always said, and this is still true, you can always jump on and jump off at any time.

I will continue to send Roots & Shoots each week with connection information and a bold reminder of the the times and dates. I continue to hope to raise topics of interest to stimulate fun and interesting conversations about our family history, connections and the world writ large. Without being intrusive or snoopy, it is great to hear about travel and toil among our connected and extended family.

We will continue to highlight Questions of Interest, along with some special topics that may bubble up in the course of our conversations. Special presentations are encouraged on virtually any topic you find of interest. Feel free to be formal or casual at what ever is your comfort level.

You are warmly invited to join this upcoming Zoom Conversation:

Bruce Lindgren is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Family Zoom Conversation

Time: Mar 8, 2023 07:00-9:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting by Clicking the Link Below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6531363825

The Meeting ID is: 653 136 3825 (This is usually not needed, except when joining for the first time and when you dont have the Zoom application installed on your personal computer or device (iPhone, etc.)

Let's Keep in Touch!
	
Warm regards,

Bruce

(218) 348-3325 or bflind@cheqnet.net

Gil & Hazel Lindgren Our Families Our Memories Roots & Shoots

Remembering Ted

We all mourn the passing of Ted Lindgren but in spite of hope and some sense that he would live forever, we understand that all life ends with death and that our existence ends … The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte was wrong in one sense because every life, like Ted’s, lives on with something, that is not nothing. Memories are living things and our memories of Ted are of amazement and wonder; his accomplishments are unforgettable and will remain an example for all who follow. Those who follow may not match his accomplishments academically and those parts of life that brought him joy. Because of his disability from a stroke, over nearly two decades, much of his mindfulness may be fragmentary and left with those who were closest to him across those years. We saw Ted on Zoom calls from his nursing home bed and always felt joy with his smile and wave to us.

I for one regret that so much passed across time between my brief encounters with Ted as a teenager, playing ball with a younger cousin on the lawn in front of the big porch of the Lanyon farm house, and the life-changing event his stroke. During those nearly 60 years, I was too busy with my life and struggle to put into place a structure for living, working and enjoyment of what was closest to me. In those missing years, I knew that Ted graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in engineering, that he and his brother Carleton had moved beyond Ames, living and working on the east coast, but there was too little that passed from the RR to me through my parents other than as small talk that could be recognized but passed off in favor or more immediate matters of mind. I knew that Ted went on to more advanced study and degrees, as it turned out a PhD in electrical engineering and inventions of brushless motors that led to patents and probably issues of what are now known as technology transfer matters involving the financial exploitation of intellectual property.

That story is important to our family and my hope is that Anne, John and Lisa will write about it for all of us to learn and reflect on Ted’s accomplishments and struggles. Those years must have had enormous meaning for Ted and Bet as well as their children’s lives—family life in Texas, Up state New York and Florida was undoubtedly impacted in too many ways to count. We always know far too little about the life of another. That applies most directly to the physical part of life; when and where events occurred, what happened, what changed. We can create timelines — our physical chronology — of those physical event of birth, death, marriages, children, divorces, attending schools and college, hobbies and recreations, memberships in organizations and employment in place and time; but our access to the cognitive and even emotion (unless these may have physical manifestations) is often at best elusive. The cognitive may have physical manifestations such as writing and recording, with drawing (sketches or meticulously detailed, artistically executed, beautiful paintings), photographs and movies or video, and especially writing of notes, journals, letters, or formal papers and applications are important artifacts to sustain memories of a life.

Our hope is that Ted’s life is remembered through those physical artifacts that he left with his children and now his grandchildren who remember better than his more distant relatives ever could. We are reminded of our questions that were not or could not be asked of our parents, grandparents, great grandparents. These questions not asked don’t linger well, but nevertheless are points of importance for the future because they represent a part of our gaps, our ignorance most which cannot be recovered.

With death there is always a loss. Love lingers and is now represented in memories, only memories and the special thoughts that arise when we encounter the artifacts of a life once lived and now gone for eternity. From earthly eternity. Earthly life goes on and an important part of what remains are memories, which are fleeting but supported by the physical artifacts. I hope we all rededicate our efforts to capture those memories and artifacts of our ancestors; parents remembered by children and recorded … digital recording and the analogue film and vocal files are ephemeral or potentially ephemeral. We can capture our moments for the future now with written records of what we remember. It is hard but important to take a blank page and begin simply; “I remember …”.

Gathering memories and artifacts are certainly for us but should be mostly for our offspring who otherwise will never know of the amazing accomplishments that surround our lives … no matter how big or small … no mater of impact … no matter how seemingly mundane or how stimulating. We are not judges but only recorders for some future time that we cannot fully appreciate or even contemplate. What we have missed may bring tears—but our hope that all of those tears are of joy aid not overwhelmed by our notable sadness at the moment of passing. Life is amazing. Ted’s life was certainly amazing and we will cherish our memories of his life and accomplishments and his family.

Reunions

1999 Denver

The reunion in 1999 was the first that was intentionally devoted to bringing cousins into the Lindgren’s family sibling’s practice of getting together. Reunions has been a long standing tradition among the children of Amy and Frank Lindgren. Many of most of the early reunions were held in the Lanyon-Ft Dodge area. However, by 1999 both Frank and Amy had passed annd Roy Lindgren recognized that continuing reunions would depend upon gathering at other alternative locations. Roy was, at the time living in Silver Springs, MD and he encouraged the meeting in Denver. He recognized that this was an important occasion to engage the cousins in family reunions. Other organizers of the Denver meeting were, no doubt, involved, and it seems clear the Irene was another important leader of the reunion effort. However, our records of how others may have contributed to the organization are incomplete.

The 1999 reunion was held at a State Park that may have been Cherry Hills State Park. Steve Lindgren has raised some doubt as to the accuracy of this location, as he also cites a famous Golf Course of similar name, that he and his son Stuart visited at the time of the reunion.

Attendees

A photograph provided by Linnae (below in the Gallery) confirms that siblings Obed, Ruth, Emory, Irene and Roy were present. Other photographs will be used to compile a list of attendees …

Others known to attend included:

Steve Lindgren
Stuart Lindgren
Joann and Bill Morton
Becky and Susanne Lindgren

Notable Events

Picnic at a pavilion at the State Park …

Photo Gallery

From Left: Emory, Ruth, Obed, Irene, Roy

Roots & Shoots

Bruce’s View

From Bruce Lindgren (Son of Obed and Verona Lindgren)

Greetings to all.

Thank you for taking a few minutes to click links and read some of the newsletter copy that has been embedded in our family website. While the Roots & Shoots newsletter is an attempt to find a new direction for family communications after our legacy of 90 years of the Round Robin, it is my hope that we will also forge new directions. It may be too much to hope or too ambitions to find a path forward that engages new generations, but here are a few thoughts that take a different tack.

Our World is HOT! Elizabeth Kolbert wrote in The New Yorker about the IPCC Report that was issued earlier this month. She lamented that this report comes after 30 years of inadequate attention to recognize and do enough about the problem of our changing planetary climate. The International Panel on Climate Change report required sign-off from most of the 162 member countries of the IPCC. This report, unlike its predecessors, is not optimistic about human intervention preventing regionally dangerous and economically devastating weather events that will cause tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes and other storm events. Rising ocean levels are already wreaking havoc with coastal regions. Replacements for fossil fuels have been so slow in coming, the report says, that it is no longer possible to prevent more damage including losses of life and further impoverishment.

Minneapolis after George Floyd … is still struggling with the appropriate response for the Minneapolis Police Department. Proposals to “defund police” are too far beyond the pale but there is no decent clarity as to what should be done to reform a department that has relied too much on violence in dealing with situations that too easily get out of control. Defusing tensions … too many guns on the street and police can’t take chances guessing who may or may not have one. Black people do have a legitimate complaint about profiling, but their protests are too often lacking in details of the specific changes and action that need not be implemented. Solutions will require a joint effort. Perhaps a neighborhood-based initiative to begin removing guns from people displaying belligerent and irresponsible behaviors would be a step forward. But we are not about to see instant solutions that are satisfying. A world without police is not likely to be a world in which we want to live.

COVID-19 and the Delta variant. Hope you are all vaccinated and doing your part to testify on behalf of vaccination. The new Delta variant is causing a new round of concern and need for caution. This pandemic is still far from over, even though we have a little better chance of avoiding hospitalization and death from the virus. But we are all in this together and for a long stretch of time. Your influence is important to those you love and find your self involved with contacts where you are able to influence someone on getting vaccinated. A third booster shot will be in the offing soon.

XXX

The Website

About Us

Our Surname

Lindgren is a Swedish surname for many families across Scandinavian countries and the United States. According to Wikipedia, approximately 58% of people using Lindgren as a surname live in Sweden. Because of emigration in the mid-1800s, the United States is home to another 26%, followed by significant numbers in Finland, Norway, Denmark and Canada.

In the United States, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota all are represented by many families with the Lindgren surname. In the days of the old Bell System telephone books, the Minneapolis book held several pages of Lindgrens.

Lanyon, Iowa area Lindgrens — descendants of John and Frank Lindgren — will populate this site with genealogical records as well as documents of interest. John emigrated to America in 1890 and changed his surname from Petersson to Lindgren. When his brother Frank arrived two years later, he too adopted the Lindgren surname. Why Lindgren? Well, we just don’t know. Perhaps our connections through this website will someday reveal the answer. One theory advanced by Aunt Irene Elisabeth Lindgren Lessing Dahlen in the Family Album she assembled, Lindgren translated to “Linden Tree”.

Navigation

The Main Menu has recently been revised with a goal of making it easier to find information. Genealogy is a separate menu item and contains important links to tables, charts and sources. The included tables will contain additional links to both internal and external sources. These internal sources will include both pages and posts. Pages contain permanent, factual information about people and places, while posts are contemporaneous narratives reflecting the views of contributors. Additionally, categories for posts have been established. About a half dozen recent posts are highlighted. These are accessed from the menu items at the bottom of a page, or post. Each post may also use tags to establish connections for reference. Posts may or may not include provision for comment. All comments are screened or modulated before going live.

Our Families menu recognizes both lineages of Frank and Amy Lindgren and John and Lizzie Lindgren, as well as The Johnson’s. Our part in the Swedish diaspora is recognized by including both our Swedish ancestry and the proliferation of surnames with which we are connected through marriages.

Our Memories menu includes the important “I Remember …” documents with wonderful stories about Frank and Amy Lindgren by their children and contributions from Nellie Anderson (Amy’s sister) and the oldest grandchild, Richard Lindgren, MD, who has also collected a wide range of documents about farming in Iowa as well as the historical records of the Mission Covenant Church that played such a prominent role in the life of Lanyon. .

The sitemap lists all posts and pages, as well as categories and tags. All sitemap entries are clickable so that you can view the page or post. Clicking on a category or a tag will display all of the linked items on the website. Unfortunately, the sitemap is not annotated and titles are an imperfect way to search for relevant information.

The search button at the top right of pages is quite effective in locating pages and posts containing any names and places of interest.

Throughout the website, we use active links to both internal pages and posts as well as external sources accessible through the Internet.

An effort is underway to establish a YouTube Channel that will enable the storage and streaming of relevant video.

Registration

Register if you would like to be informed about progress and new additions to the site. We hope to maintain many opportunities for communication. Our family has a legacy extending back over 100 years of keeping in contact with relatives. Two sisters of Frank and John, Selma and Jennie, were encouraged to emigrate through letters. Years later the children of Frank Lindgren organized a serial exchange of current family news through a Round Robin. The Round Robin continues through email distribution. Contact us to be included in our Round Robin distribution list.

If you are a member of this family and would like access to records that have not been made public, please contact Bruce for current information.

Our Heritage Sources

These pages will continue to develop as new information emerges from our connections and new or renewed contacts. We hope you will enjoy seeing our progress.

There are multiple source documents that will be accessed from these page. These sources will include records and photographs that have been collected. Our Aunt Irene—assembled the famous Family Album—now retained by Steve Lindgren. Other sources may include Richard Lindgren (the oldest grandchild of Frank and Amy Lindgren) and his daughter Amy Gfesser, Jonathon Coss and his sister Linnae Coss, Jim Carey and others.

The following represent some currently accessed sources.

The Family Album Collection
The old Website materials mostly curated by Linnae Coss, especially the “I Remember …” documents.
Linnae Coss Contemporaneous Family Records
Jim Carey Genealogy Studies
Jonathan Coss Genealogy Studies.
Richard Lindgren’s collection of Lanyon, IA History.
John W. Johnson has access to an archive of Johnson family clippings, photographs and letters held by his sister.
Dick Lindgren, and his son Chris, have recently contributed new records.

Contributors

Jonathan Lindgren Coss, editor, New Rochelle, NY.
Steven Obed Lindgren, editor, Bloomington, MN.
David Charles Lindgren, editor, Stillwater, MN.
Jon Gilmore Lindgren, editor, Des Moines, IA.
Linnae Coss, advisor & curator, Philadelphia, PA.
Pat Heath, writer & curator, Tulsa OK.
John W. Johnson, curator, San Francisco, CA.
Richard Lindgren, curator, Madison, WI.
Chris Lindgren, curator, Adel, IA.
Jay Lindgren, contributor & curator, Denver,CO

NOTE: This new post was recently modified. The post carried the unusual LONet, which is my shorthand or abbreviation for the much longer www.lindgrensonline.net.

The Website

Where are We Going?

The Zoom meetings and the website are forging new spaces for family relationships that are adding richness to our lives. Steve has raised the questions about how we may be able to expand our reach to new generations as exemplified by Brent’s participation. Our generation has time to spare and to burn. Brent’s generation is deeply engaged with both professional and personal concerns that are settled conditions for most of us.

I am reminded again and again about the need to incorporate and integrate new media to our communication tools. The reminders are both contemporary and historical. The contemporary version comes from my almost daily contact with YouTube and the role of video media in teaching, conveying information on how-to-do-it, as well as transmitting a point of view. The historical comes from our family now being actively engaged with an extended range of connections and uncovering treasure hidden in boxes in attics, garages and basements. As boxes are opened, we now see potential for dissemination of messages embedded in images of the past and the words of our ancestors’ worlds that are preserved in letters and news clippings. Interestingly, there seems to be no clear, clean border about the extent of our connections. Second cousins are already involved and I’m seeing a future where there are third and fourth cousins involved, not to mention a half dozen or more generations.

The Round Robin served our parents for over a half century. What they did with their letters is incompletely known but so far, there is little evidence that much of anything was saved. By contrast, we are trying to establish a condition in this digital world where what remains of our generation and the next extant generations will be able to access easily and quickly a trove of rich historical and anecdotal images and text-based, narrative messages. (Of course, images are messages.) We also must hope to convey messages that are of high quality and retain the values demanded by our contemporary state of being. That doesn’t just mean that our messages are hip and couched in the lingo of our time, although that may form a part of our communications.

WordPress is ideally set up to be a blog and we may find new ways to implement that function. One key, which came up on Wednesday evening, could be to enroll people as contributors. I need to gain experience with how that may work. That experience will come only through feedback from a cohort of contributors. They, and perhaps they alone, will be able to “contribute” and inform the editors about how to best use and publish their contributions. I need to do more thinking about this as a potential for adding rich content to the site. It is that rich content that will inform what potential we can tap going forward.

One thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that I can’t continue to sustain my central role with both the website and the Zoom meetings. So far, there is only one reasonably active editor. The other designated editors are fairly silent especially when it comes to publishing. I don’t understand why this is the case; although, I suspect that the perfect may be the enemy of the good.

XXX — 20200821 –8:58am

This video is a short overview of the website, lindgrensonline.net. We will update this video from time to time as the main menu changes.

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Uncategorized

Random Thoughts

Editing Trouble

For a few months I have been baffled by the change in the editing function of WordPress when it is used with my Firefox browser. Interestingly, this is being done with the Chrome browser, and I have also found that the Microsoft Edge browser also seems to function just fine. Accordingly my recommendation is that if you are encountering trouble editing with one browser, change to a different application to see if that solves the problem.

Please let me know if you have been able to continue with editing. Unfortunately I may have spooked our editors when I described my problems.

This will contain some thoughts on strategy for the website. At least for the time being I’ll leave this unpublished and saved as a draft. Other editors may draw from the post and expand the development of pages, etc to reside on the site.

Travels to Sweden by members of the Lindgren family. Multiple visits to Sweden and Hamneda have been made by various family members.
Travels from Sweden … emigrations and visits by family members …
Swedish China Connections through missionary work, in particular that of Obed Simon Johnson, his marriage to Vida and the engagement of her and her sister as missionaries in China. Jon Coss is looking into the mission support provided by the Mission Covenant Church from records housed at North Park College in Chicago. On July 17 Jon contacted Mr. A Meyer (ameyer@northpark.edu) at North Park requesting information about the existence of records on OSJ (1883-1969).
List of Reunions, with attendees and photographs … This has been substantially colmpleted by Linnae Coss.
Create a timeline with annual dates beginning in about 1840-50 identifying individuals with birth, marriages, deaths, …. a search by date would turn up this document. Many, if not all, entries on the document could include links (and targets) to relevant related information. It may be well to consider creating this document with Google Sheets and embedding on a page titled “Timeline” so that the page could be easily updated. Unfortunately I have no idea how a relational database could be linked as a content source for WordPress; although a search may reveal a Widget or another tool that would do this easily and well.
Editors should explore any and all of the options available for blocks …
At some point I hope there will be enough interest to establish an “editorial working group” that could meet, maybe 3-4 times a year to discuss site improvements, revisions, needs, ideas, etc.
Consider a YouTube channel. This could be used to distribute (make available) the video recordings of Zoom Meetings … this would greatly facilitate review by any member of the family who my choose to subscribe to the channel. I’m pretty sure that the channel can be restricted to subscribers.
Explore options for storage and serving of PDF entries with relevance. Two documents that come immediately to mind are the Lost Grove Centennial book in its indexed form and the “I Remember” documents (book) assembled, edited and formatted by Linnae Coss in July 2020.
At some future point it will be great to identify members of the family that can do some of the technical work for the site, such as editing photo and photo enhancements or image manipulations, writing HTML and CSS code to modify the blocks for posts and pages, video editing, animated titles, etc. etc.

Originated 7/17/2020. Last revised:

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