Lena's name

While doing family history, the name Lena always caught my attention. I've always thought that it was beautiful and wanted to use it for one of my girls. As my Lena's birth approached, I knew that the name Lena had been in my family, but I couldn't remember where it belonged in my family line. A few weeks before Lena was born, Lewis and I were at my grandparent's house celebrating mother's day and my grandpa's birthday. My cousins were asking me what names we liked and I mentioned Lena. It was then that my grandpa said, "that was my grandmother's name."

Lena's presence in our family line was closer than I thought. That day, I went home, logged into my family history account, found Lena's information and tried to do some research on Lena Cecilia Wallin. There was nothing on google. Or ancestry.com. I was starting to get discouraged.

Then I remembered that my grandmother is an avid historian, and she had just given me a binder full of stories from her's and my grandfather's family history. So I pulled it open and began digging through until I found the recap of her life. My grandmother typed up and saved a personal history written by Lena herself.

She wrote of special experiences in her life that had stuck out to her:

• tracing through the snow to get home
• trying to care for a wounded blue jay her father had given her
• getting up early in the summer time to go pick berries
• gathering and roasting nuts by the fire with her family
• avoiding the animals around her house that she and her siblings were afraid of: wolves, snakes, and owls
• working the the fields planting potatoes, corn, and pumpkin
• going boating with friends at White Bear Lake in Minnesota
• lots of spiritual experiences where she felt she had been led by the spirit of Heavenly Father

Then she told of significant life events:

• Her parents came to America from Sweden and lived in Rockford, Illinois. They met and were married in 1870. Lena was born in 1871
• When Lena was 13 years old, her mother passed away from cancer
• She moved to the city to work in a knitting factory trying to help raise money for her family
• Eventually, she found work in a shoe factory in Omaha during the great depression
• On December 31, 1895, she married my great-grandfather, Magnus A. Herlin.
• They didn't have much money and she said, "we were happy, the hard times were still with us."
• Two years after they were married, Magnus contracted typhoid and died, leaving her alone with their two young children
• She moved back to Rockford to be near family.
• While there, her 6 month old baby, Floyd Anton, died in 1898.
• She and her other son, Mauritz Arnold, moved to Dixon so Lena could work in another shoe factory
• In Dixon, she met missionaries for our church
• On June 25, 1901, Lena and her sister, Ella were baptized in the Mississippi River
• In 1913, she made the trek to Salt Lake City
• She did temple work and was a relief society teacher in her ward
• She sewed in the Red Cross during World War I
• Eventually, she lost her hearing and had to stop volunteering where she was able. She couldn't hear what was being said at her church meetings

She sounded like an amazing lady, who went through a lot of trials but still managed to have a positive attitude throughout it all. My Lena wasn't named after this Lena. We liked the name Lena so that's why we decided to use it. But I am glad that another woman who shared her name was such a wonderful example.