My maternal grandmother, Vivian Luce attended Miss Wolcott’s School for Girls, a finishing school in Denver. She studied things like piano, French, water colors, needlework, elocution, etiquette, and other things appropriate to Edwardian ladies. I estimate she was there about 1914 to 1916. Wikipedia defines finishing schools: “A finishing school is a school for young women that…
Month: May 2020
Copyright Problems: A Dysfunctional System
We watched Sita Sings the Blues the other day. Haven’t seen it? Picture this. A cartoon that tells the story of the Hindu goddess Sita set to 1920s Blues music. Cool stuff. And it turns out to be a famous instance of copyright problems. Everyone knows copyright can be a pain in the butt but…
Kruse Connections
I’ve mentioned several times lately that the Swanstroms have a yDNA connection to a German Kruse family. And I’ve thrown out a few thoughts, but no real details. Today, just a quick note about what I’m really thinking. The soldier Petter Jönsson Cavat, born about 1732, lived in Gärdserum parish, He’s the earliest provable Swanstrom…
City States in America
The Ancient World had city states. Sometimes they became empires. And then when the empires collapsed they sometimes became nations. (Although–the modern ethnic nation state is more or less a late European invention.) When I was a kid, I used to imagine, particularly on car trips, that the cities around me were like ancient city…
Curly Bear
A bit of silliness tonight. We know from yDNA testing the Swanstroms might descend from a German Kruse family settled in Sweden. They, the Svanströms, lived relatively near a noble family named Crusebjörn. The Crusebjörn family’s original name was Kruse. They came from Lübeck in Schleswig-Holstein to Sweden. When they were ennobled their name was…