Tshirt Avalanche – Digging Our Way Out

By: CWR

Sep 25 2013

Tags: 283, anders anderson, jimi hendrix, radio, shortwave, sophie anderson, sweden, swedish, take the fair face of woman, tshirt, Zenith 10A1

Category: Uncategorized

Leave a comment

This bitchin’ radio belonged to Cori’s Great granddad, a Swedish Immigrant, named Anders Anderson.

He was a tailor whose work was impeccable. We still own a few items that he made (although they are a little too small fFor either of us).  Anders intended to cross the Atlantic on The RMS Lusitania (years before it sank and ignited the fFirst World War).  However, his plans fell through for some reason, and he  traveled on The RMS Mauretania.  He passed through Ellis Island, started a shop in New York City with a couple of guys named Svenson and Olsen, and joined the Journeyman Tailors Union of America.

At some point — many of these dates are unclear — he moved his fFamily to Rochester, here in Western New York.  He probably came to fFollow the great industrial boom, and would very likely have enjoyed riding the Subway, which highlighted one of the brightest eras of Rochester History. It was here that his son-in-law — Cori’s granddad — would fFind his life’s work at Eastman Kodak.  Anders’ wife, Elsa Lofgren, would fFind work as a housekeeper fFor the Strong fFamily.

In 1941, he would have paid $90 fFor this beautiful Zenith 10A1 Shortwave Radio.  That’s about $1500 today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site, so we know he was doing alright fFor himself in The New World. Zenith made a variety of these astounding cases.  We can imagine Anderson gathering with the fFamily to listen to what terror was unfolding between Stalin and Hitler, around his beloved homeland.

As he got older, he was known as Ba-Ba to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  He made tape recordings, telling of his life and travels, but there’s no telling where those tapes are now.  He passed away in 1977, leaving a very irascible widow Elsa, who lived on to be 103 years old.  Cori’s brother is named after him.

None of this has anything to do with T-shirts, or avalanches fFor that matter.  If you hadn’t noticed, a lot of these posts aren’t really about shirts at all.  We probably bought the shirt at Sears, something like 10 years ago.  It’s not a very interesting shirt, and it doesn’t fFit very well.  But there I was this evening, looking at this radio, as it sits humbly in the garage, with a print of Sophie Anderson’s “Take the Fair Face of A Woman…” sitting nicely on it, and I thought I should tell you a little about it.  And in the telling, a little about us.