86. Wayne's Swedish grandfather, a KEY HARP player -- unusual instrument!

Wayne's grandfather, Johann Wengren Eckman was quite an interesting character.  His wife was the "gun toting grandma" told about in blog # 75, written on January 21, 2014
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I will include here pages from our book which are print screened.   This is a grandfather who was born in Sweden, married, and joined the Church there.  His parents and several other siblings and relatives had come already.

   Please see post #75, which tells of his parents who were the first generation to come to the United States.   I said that I'd tell more of his playing the key harp.  Here it is:


When Wayne and I (Pal) went on our mission to Sweden in 1994-1995, we were able to visit the grave of this grandfather in the small town of Brunna.  The photo is above.   The following is from a newspaper article written about him in Sweden when he was 91 years old.  The article was written in Swedish and Wayne translated it.  The article was entitled 
"KEY HARP PLAYER EKMAN FROM BRUNNA", and here is a translation:


As mentioned above, his mother Anna Gretha Vallinder's father, Anders Perrson, also was well known as a key harp player from Dannemorra. Johann made them also. A photo of a key harp and player is below.




The above was Wayne's translation from the Swedish newspaper.  Below we will include more of his life story from our book.  He was quite an interesting person, and Wayne and Blaine wish they could have known him.  I'm sorry the following is smaller -- hope you can read it okay!  It tells of when Johan Wengren Eckman (Ekman) went back to Sweden in 1912 -- after living in the United States for about 30 years, (in Parley's Canyon, and other places).  See blog, or post, # 75.  (That also tells about Albert.)


The photo above of a saddle is probably similar to the saddles Johann made.


The army at this time still used reindeer like they
did horses. The final page of his history explains the Swedish practice of "Patronymics".  It also mentions that the family didn't have a lot of contact with him from about 1915 to 1950, which is quite sad.  His daughter Tacy married and stayed in Sweden, and Wayne and Blaine visited her during their 1950's mission.  (We have a daughter, Tacy, named after that aunt of Wayne's.)


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