“Jaha.”  The old lady scowled. “Jansonists.”

The 19th Century timbered Hälsingland farmhouse in Glössbo was lit with candles in sconces and brass candlesticks, and the flames in the corner fireplace reflected off the copper coffeepot. Scents of vanilla and cardamom filled the room, buzzing with local dialect as my 5th cousin Elisabeth and her family chatted with our hosts.

I couldn’t wait to write to Grandma Florine about this old farmhouse full of real Swedes and 19th century antiques. The famous nature photographer Hilding Mickelsson had just shown me his Life Magazine cover of a Great gray owl attacking his head. On the wooden trestle table, his wife Adele had laid out seven kinds of cookies and pastry and was pouring coffee into small porcelain cups. An exchange student’s dream come true.

Adele’s ancient mother insisted on showing me an old painting of her family farm, so I followed her long black dress partway up an open stairway.

“Does Miss have Swedish ancestors?”  

I beamed. “Right from this area. Followers of Erik Jansson.”

She narrowed her wrinkly eyes and sniffed. “Det tokiga folket som for.” The crazy people who left.

She might as well have slapped me. My Swedish was good enough to understand that she wasn’t joking.

This old lady scorned my great-great-great grandmother’s emigration a hundred years earlier? Is that what Swedes thought of the ancestors of my beloved Grandma Florine, the sensible schoolteacher in the Illinois village of Bishop Hill?

At twenty years old, I had no experience in dealing with blunt old ladies. I mumbled and fled downstairs. I don’t remember the rest of the evening, except that I stayed clear of this harsh old woman, and while she eyed me from across the room, she didn’t say another word.

Surely my Swedish ancestors weren’t crazy, but the question wouldn’t go away. Why did they leave this beautiful place?