Hi Natalie,

Sorry, but your Norwegian friends have it wrong. As we all know, the letters "er" usually denote someone from a locale, such as "new Englander". But in this case that is just a seductive and superficial conclusion. My memory is that my family thought the name came from a farm that great-granddad worked on and he choose it because there already were too many émigrés taking the name Johnson. On the other hand, the Wisconsin family thought that the name came from a connection with the Isle but after looking through the Swedish "Records of the movement of People", they were unable to find any record of great granddad Karl ever having gone to the Isle.

My bet is that great granddad probably worked on a farm on the Isle very briefly and the records don't reflect that short stay - or the record is so obscure that it is easily overlooked. When he got to America and learned that he had to declare a family name he choose Olander simply because he liked the name or because he had fond memories of the Isle. (Anyone else ever hear of any different folklore they could share with us?)

But we do know from the family history that he was not "from" the Isle of Oland.

Tell Mori that I like his idea anyway and I will like it better if you can win enough tickets for all of us to go!

I have always said that there are about 50,000 people out there somewhere who don't know how lucky they are that I didn't go into teaching full time. I like to teach people about the few things I know - but my interest is clearly in the subject matter and not with the student, therefore I am not a teacher. Our family is full of gifted teachers - to me, there clearly is a difference.

Well I probably should get ready to go. I spent Labor day driving back to PHX from GJ - Sharon is staying on in GJ so the fasting has started already - but this time it is in preparation for a doctor's appointment later this morning. Looks like your mother is getting her way and my ritual once-a-decade physical is becoming annualized - bummer.

Take Care and both of you come see us some time soon!

Mom and Dad

-----Original Message-----

From: Natalie [mailto:natalieo@juno.com]

Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 7:26 AM

To: rolander@westerntreks.com

Subject: family reunion

Good Morning Dad,

Mori suggested that the next Olander family reunion be held on Oland, the little island off the coast of Sweden where the Olanders originally came from (at least that's what my Norwegian friends told me about the Olanders). :-) It would be fun to go visit Oland. We could do our own version of Chevy Chase's European Vacation where they went to Germany and knocked on the door and asked to stay with some people that they had never met but were related to!

It's really interesting how many teachers we have. You don't have to restrict it to just full-time schoolteachers. It just shows that teaching is in the blood or something. I think that your part-time teaching counts. I think that my teaching at a trade school and being a corporate trainer is also pretty close....

Have a wonderful Labor Day!

Love,

Natalie