Almost Like One Of The Family
My starting point is 30 letters written by Anna-Helen to her big sister Clary in Rickarum. Anna-Helen was a farmer`s daughter from Bjδrehalvφn, who at the age of 19, got the chance to come along to one of the families visiting over the summer, the one of opera singer Stiebel, to “practice” in a city household. She was supposed to be like a member of the family. She became a maid. There is a flow of descriptions in the letters of everything she sees and is amazed by in this unknown environment – what she does, all the new food she cooks, the kitchen equipment she uses, and above everything – what she feels. She had never been that affected by class difference as a farmer’s daughter before. She “waits on” the teenage children of the family when they ring an electric bell. She is pissed! It`s 1933. Anna-Helen is my mother, who died in 1997.
Goransson Astrid
