Europe Road Trip
Sept 14-28, 2018
Wednesday, Sept. 26 Copenhagen to Middlefart to Ry, Denmark
“Tak, tak, tusen tak!”
We leave Copenhagen this morning. I will not soon forget the wonderful buffet breakfasts here. Do you know that skim milk is sometimes referred to as "skinny milk" or "thin milk"? That is something new I learn at the breakfast. The pitcher for skim milk is labeled “skinny milk” one morning and “thin milk" the next. We check out of our hotel, load the car, and get underway out of town. Sometime later we notice something flapping against the windshield. We discover a parking violation ticket! What an unwelcome surprise. Al will sort that out with the hotel at a later date. We are on our way to Ry with a stop in the medieval town of Middlefart where my Danish ancesters lived. I am looking forward to walking the old town streets, visiting the Middlefart Kirke (St. Nicolaus Church), and searching the church cemetery for the the tombstone of my namesake great great grandmother, Maren Jensdatter Banke Gylsen. Cousin Jorgen in Bornholm, Island showed me a photo of the gravesite and I am hoping to find it. However this is not to be. Originally my Danish ancestors hailed from Toensberg, Norway. I am descended from Hans Peter Gylsen 1788-1837 who migrated from Norway to Denmark and married Edel Kirstine in 1812. One of their sons, Carl F.P. Gylsen married Maren Banke in 1841. They lived in Middlefart and had 5 children. My Danish line comes down through their son Jens Frederik Martin Gylsen.
Halfway to Middelfart, we cross the large bridge between the islands of Sjaelland and Fyn. Finally we enter Middlefart. The tall church steeple of St. Nicolaus Church is easily visible and we head toward the church and the old section of town. How frustrating it is to find that the old town streets are being torn up and closed to traffic! What should be easy to get to is not! One detour after another leads us away from the old church.
Finally we park the car on a side street and ask a Danish girl passing by how we can walk to the church. She points the way to us and we walk the side roads over construction walks to the church. The church constructed in the 13th century sits on a hill overlooking the harbor. Al and I find the doors unlocked as we slip inside. Built in several stages the church has a Late Romanesque chancel, a tower first built in the 14th century and a nave with aisles from the 15th century. In 1650 the richly carved altarpiece was completed.
These small old medieval towns do not have a lot of churches. There is “THE CHURCH”; the town church, the only church (at the time). Walking outside we expect to find the church graveyard. We walk around and around the church looking north, south, east, west but we do not find a graveyard! Where is Maren Banke buried?! Where is she? Al walks into a side building which turns out to be the church offices and parish hall. A staff member tells Al that the graveyard is “down the road.” We do find the graveyard but we see very few gravestones from the car; a lot of grassy area is covered with plantings and some stones but the whole area looks strangely new, not old. Our time is up and we have to drive on to Ry where we are meeting my cousins Lise Buch and her family at 2:00pm! Disappointed to say the least, we drive on.
Al and I check into the Ry Hotel. On the way to the registration desk we walk through the hotel bar/restaurant and all of a sudden I am startled to find myself standing on a large glass portion of the floor where I can look straight through the glass into an old wine cellar. It is a very strange feeling to stand on an all glass floor. I feel like I am going to fall inside, so I quickly move on. No elevator here but we are soon in our room and then on our way to meet Lise Buch.
The town of Ry in central Denmark sprouted up around a railway station near the older town of Ry which is now much smaller than the town grown up around it. We drive just a few miles through some very nice country and here we are at Lise’s house. I met Lise in 1958 and this is the first time I have seen her since then…60 years later! She comes out of her house to greet us in a joyous reunion. How good it is to see her! Her home is lovely and filled with many old, unusual looking antique furniture pieces which are from her parents’ house in Poland. We sit in her living room and soon her son Claus and his wife Vibeke join us along with their son Anders.
On the coffee table are many sweets and cheeses. Suddenly Lise disappears and returns carrying a large round cake covered with whipped cream with strawberries on top! “I wanted to make something special for you,” she tells us. We chat for a couple of hours and then we drive the short distance to the home of Claus and Vibeke where we are having our evening meal. The house is surrounded by many acres of land made up of fields, woodlands and streams. We enter the kitchen and are taken by surprise at the sight of the long dinner table set very festively with a bright red table cloth. It feels like Christmas Eve! How welcome we are made to feel and how grateful we are to be with our Danish cousins!
Claus and Vibeke work hard together putting the hot dinner together and soon we are seated at the candle lit table filled with steaming platters of meatloaf, parslied potatoes and gravy! Claus’s sister Dorte and her husband Casten have joined us as well. The only one missing is Claus’s 2nd son Nils who is at work. In the silence before the meal starts I speak up and say, “There is only one thing I can say in Danish. I say it now and I say it with all my heart. Tak, tak, tusen tak!” (Thank you, thank you very much!”) Everyone is laughing. The hours go by quickly at that table with all the laughing and talking. Vibeke is the translater in the family as she has occasion to speak English at her job.
Before we know it, Nils walks into the kitchen home from work at 10:30 p.m. Dessert is served and we are eating ice cream, candy and chips. We talk a lot about our families and suddenly Claus looks at me and asks, “Do I have any Danish cousins in Belgium?” Surprised at this I answer quickly, “Yes! Yes, you do. I will send you the family papers when I get back home.” Now I realize why I am here and why I have felt led to visit these Danish and Belgium cousins. The Danish and Belgium cousins, descended from the same Danish ancestors, are meant to meet each other and get to know each other. They do not live far apart from each other. Our visit is opening the door so that this will take place. I have no doubt the long silence between these cousins will soon be broken. Something larger than myself is happening here and I am in the flow. It feels wonderful. It is hard to leave this wonderful family…our family, but the hour is late.
