Aleta Chossek
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Here on my website you will find some of my writing, and a lot about my grandmother, Kristine Kristiansen Hjelmeland of Kristine, Finding Home: Norway to America.  The site is new so come back again for changes and updates.
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I have been writing personal essays and family stories for about ten years.  With the help of a community of writers, I have learned a lot about the craft and even more about myself.  Maybe some of my writing will inspire you to tell a story.
 
 If you are interested in origin stories, immigrant stories and family stories, you will find letters, photos and writing here​ to interest and inspire you to write your story.  If you are family looking for more information, you will find links to my primary source material and genealogy. If you enjoyed Kristine, Finding Home and want to explore themes of heritage, home, ambition, women’s changing roles, more, check out my blog.
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Fredrik Brings Home a Chicken

11/18/2021

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F​inally returning to the blog.  This is a section of the story from Kristine Finding Home that did not make it into the final book but adds another point of view to Chapter 18, Ordinary People Extraordinary Times.
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This story is based on a letter written during the depression,Fredrik Hjelmeland, my grandfather and the letter writer has promised his wife Kristine that he will try to get an extra chicken for the Sunday dinner she will make for their unemployed friends, Louise and Hans Wange and their friends.  We pick up the story with Fredrik trying to make a sale.
 
Letter from Fredrik Hjelmeland in Waukegan Illinois to his brother F. Mikal Hjelmeland in Bygstad, Norway, September 3, 1933. 
 
 
“For more than three years now, we have been having bad times here in America and it isn’t any better now as far as we can see.  Activities within the building trades have completely stopped…  Brother it is hard to understand that this can be America.  I have never seen a mess like this.”

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