After leaving Copenhagen we headed for…well, we weren’t sure where…we were ready for a small approachable town and after a bit of last minute guide book review and a visit to the tourist office, we decided on Svendborg. Svendborg is a beautiful small town at the southern tip of the Island of Fyn. Our spur of the moment selection meant a late arrival in town and another night in a Danhostel. Early the next morning, 9/19 we skedaddled out of the Danhostel and found ourselves a precious B&B run by a fabulous Danish couple. The B&B was exactly what we needed, a beautiful room, a light airy communal living room and a kitchen where we could cook some meals for ourselves. It was a joy to settle in for a couple days, especially since the weather was rainy, foggy and cold.
On the 20th we burst out of our cocoon and rented a tandem bicycle and set out for a fabulous exploration of Tasinge, a small island south of Fyn. The tandem was a hoot.
We rode through farm lands, castle grounds and picturesque towns full of beautiful half timber houses. After a drizzly beginning, the weather stayed dry for most of our ride until the last hour when the sky opened up and thoroughly doused us. We returned to the B&B wet, dirty and full of laughter. On Friday the 21st we reluctantly departed Svendborg and headed north by bus to find the village where my mom’s father Kai was born. Before our departure from Seattle, I had found a postcard that my grandma sent to my mom in 1980 with the name of his birth town, Harndrup, written on it. I showed the postcard to our host family in Aarhus and they brought out their Denmark atlas to help us find the town. They couldn’t find a town with that spelling on Fyn, but found a similar name, Havndrup on the Island. We decided that either grandma had misspelled the name or it was one of the many Danish locations that had a couple different spellings.
Unfortunately we never cross checked with any other source to verify that there was no Harndrup. We weren’t too concerned until my aunt Dorine sent us an e-mail telling us that the town was northwest of the main town Odense, while Havndrup, the town our host family had found, was southeast of Odense…curious. Friday morning, as we prepared for our search, we realized the conflict and scanned a map of the island searching the northwest quadrant but still didn’t see Harndrup among the many small towns. Confident with our plan, we headed to Havndrup. After a pastoral ride through many small towns we got off the bus and walked the last 2 kilometers from the bus stop to the seven building village. We saw a farmer at work and asked him if he spoke English. Of course he spoke flawless English and was excited when we asked if he might help us trace our family. His family had lived in Havndrup for eight generations and they knew most of the history. I showed him Dorine’s e-mail and he kindly told us that Harndrup is in fact a town to the northwest of Odense and we were in fact in the absolute wrong place.
Cue the music. . .our mistake turned what had been an hour journey between Svendborg and Odense into a three hour tour. When we finally arrived in Odense we couldn’t give up the pursuit. We stashed our bags in the train / bus station lockers and bought a ticket for Harndrup, a 50 minute journey outside of Odense. We reached the town and disembarked from the bus. As it pulled away, we pondered what the heck to do next. We’d found the town and made it there, but what next…we knew the family graves were no longer in the graveyard and we didn’t know where the family had lived. We wandered a bit and found a beautiful old museum and wandered in to see if we could find someone to give us some ideas. It was the best find ever. The first woman we talked to called another man with better English, he called in another four old timers and the six of them gathered around us to read Dorine’s e-mail and draw on old memories. Just being in their company was a treat, their earnest attempt to help us was marvelous and the icing on the cake was when the man with fabulous English asked, “Does the name Kai Waidtlow ring a bell?” “Why yes” I said, “that’s my grandfather.”
He remembered his mother mentioning the name Waidtlow. He lamented that his mother had passed away and wasn’t there to add her memory to the lot. Though we did not make the fairytale link between our history and her memory, It was a sweet convergence of history and kind people. We bid the helpful museum members adieu and strolled the village and the church grounds envisioning what life might have been like in the 1920’s when Kai was born.
As we finished our tour of town the rain and fog descended on us and re-boarded the bus bound for Odense.
If you just want to see the pictures click here.
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