First of all, I am a family history researcher. Degerlund is a Finnish-Swedish name that is derived from Norr Degergard in Finland where the family got its name when the descendants moved to Bromarv and settled there. Translated it means "land of Deger". I suspect that this is an uncle of my ancestor who was a ship's carpenter, probably on the old wooden sailing ships. MY Great-grandfather Gustaf Severen Degerlund was a lad of eight when his brother ended up running the family farm. The two older sisters ran the house, all a result of the parents' death. Gustaf did not like the farm chores like mucking out the horse stalls so when the uncle arrived and agreed to take him to sea, it began a whole new family journey. For the next twenty years, the lad worked on board the ship, first as a cabin boy and then later, he trained as a ship's carpenter like his uncle. The language of the sea in those days was English so needless to say, he learned to speak it. At the age of 29, he got off the ship when it landed in London, England, and took a job building windows for a local manufacturer. That uncle would have also had a British wife and no doubt the only other person listed as a WWII casualty on CWGC listings was his son, then married and no doubt your father. My great-grandfather in London, England ended up marrying the only daughter of the owner of the business, who was already a widow and mother of two children, Together they would produce another 7 Degerlunds in London, of which my natural grandmother was one. Unfortunately, she only lived to be 30 years old and died in London of TB in 1926, the result of her church social work with the poor of London where TB was rampant. She would give birth to two daughters, on either side of WWI. When she took ill, my natural great-grandmother stepped in and that is when the family split for the next 62 years until I located the older sister living in Eagle in the north and brought her together with her sister, my mother who last saw her when she was ten years old. My mother served as an officer in the WAAF during WWII, married a Canadian pilot, and came to Canada with two sons, in 1945. She died at their retirement home north of Kingston Ontario at the age of 85. Bother her and my father's ashes were released on the lake. He lasted until 2007 dying in Kingston, Ontario. Three of the four kids of my father's generation ended up in Canada where they raised their families, The third son after WWII divorced his wife who returned to Canada and remarried twice. His second wife had two sons both of whom have since died, at ages 52 and 61, likely due to her death at a young age. The third wife lived to be 90 but had no children with him., One of those sons produced two daughters in Bermuda, and now the elder one is the mother to a 3-year-old son and two 3-month old twin girls. Life is a constant journey of birth, death, and a lot of great stories. The daughter of the second son has now settled in the interior of BC, back in Canada where her grandfather was born.
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Topic: HMT Oshogbo (Read 1133 times)