04 Nov Did you say Bernadotte?

My sisters and brother (#SiblingsinSweden) were thrilled when, thanks to the assistance of Lars Åke Näsman at Skansen, we found the very garden where in 1944 our father proposed to our mother. The Proposal Garden. It was such a romantic setting. We took pictures from every angle.

Bill, Kathy, Barbara and Pat … Siblings in the Proposal Garden. Oh yes, and behind Bill, a stand-in photo of David

My only regret was that there was no one to take a picture of us, all four of us. It was getting dark. The special event restaurant Rosendals Wärdshus was deserted.

Suddenly on a trail far off to the side I spotted a woman walking her dog. Or rather, a big dog was walking her! She called to him, “King, King!” Normally I would never go near a big huge dog on purpose but this was an emergency. I ran over and asked her if she could please take our picture. I explained that we had come a long way to find this garden and showed her the picture from our parents’ World War II scrapbook.

I was so happy that she understood my English. “Of course,” she said and came over to meet my family. She took several pictures with Bill’s camera as we told her the story of how we had come to find the spot. She mentioned that she was a journalist!

Bill, curious and also just being polite, asked, “And what is your name?”

“Monica Bernadotte Bonde,” was her answer.

Wide-eyed Kathy shook her head in disbelief and asked,

“Excuse me? Did you say Bernadotte?”

Yes, we heard right. This lovely lady’s father, recently deceased, was the uncle of King Carl XVI Gustaf, Sweden’s king since 1973. Her father was the first cousin once removed of Count Folke Bernadotte who was a close friend of our parents in 1944 and 1945 when they were in Stockholm.

Pat and Monica … by now we were all fast friends!

They are all part of the House of Bernadotte, the royal family of Sweden since 1818 when Charles XIV (born in France as Jean Bernadotte) took the throne. And, by the way, his wife was Désirée Clary, once engaged to marry Napoleon Bonaparte.

Today Monica is a journalist for the Swedish magazine Svensk Damtidning where she is an editor. With her dog “King” (of course, “King!”) we walked to her lovely home where she gave us one of her magazines.

I felt like we had somehow been swept into another world. I knew that our mother was watching every move from a cloud up on high.

When Kathy asked, “Excuse me? Did you say Bernadotte?” Mom hollered to our Dad, no doubt napping on the next cloud. “Herman, come here. Come here right now. You’ll never believe what just happened.”

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