What is your connection to Sweden?

My great-grandparents were born in Sweden. He was a carpenter. My grandfather was born in New York before they settled in New Jersey. They had 5 more boys and 2 girls. He and my grandmother (her parents immigrated from Switzerland) moved across New Jersey near the border with Easton, PA where my grandfather and a brother opened an optical office in Easton.  My dad and his 2 sisters were raised in nearby Phillipsburg, NJ. 

Tell us a little about yourself

After Pearl Harbor, my father enlisted in WWII; he was in Europe when I was born. My mother and I lived with her family in Nazareth, PA until Dad came home. We then moved to Phillipsburg, NJ where my brother and I grew up. My earliest Swedish memories were hardtack at Christmas Eve dinner at my grandparents. As the roads got better, we occasionally made the trip across New Jersey for get-togethers with the Boquist Family, in the summer, Christmas, and vacations at the Jersey shore. They were always so welcoming! 

I worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, supporting early computers and supercomputers, spacecraft telemetry, as well as Earth and Space science research and data distribution. I retired in 2012 and went back part time for almost 5 years. I consider myself fortunate to have worked for so long at such an amazing place.

My passions are cats, dogs, reading cookbooks, and being outside. While in Detroit I cooked from Julia Child’s first cookbook. I bought a small house because I wanted a dog and a cat. I started cooking from the Time Life Cooking of Scandinavia. After retiring, I started volunteering in my leafy neighborhood, recently on water remediation and a conservation garden.

Over the years I’ve had some great trips traveling through Europe and a month in the Middle East. In 1963 while in Copenhagen, my college roommate and I took the hydrofoil to Malmö so I could set foot on Swedish soil! My most recent trip was with my partner, Richard Glassbrook, visiting his family in Dusseldorf.