[Magdalen] Homing Pigeons.

[Jay Weigel]

My dad always said that the ethnic Finns were dark and somewhat Central
Asian in appearance, and referred to the very fair ones as "Swedish Finns".
One of my high school friends, a fellow UW faculty brat, was such a one.
Her father rejoiced in the name of Vernor Suomi (Suomi being the Finns'
name for their own country). I always wondered what the surname was when
his family came to this country.

On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 4:34 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
> In a message dated 12/27/2016 4:18:44 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> scottknitter at gmail.com writes:
>
> seemed  to have a lot of Swedish names  >>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>
> Finland was completely dominated by Sweden through much of its
> history.  There were times when it was questionable whether  Finland
> would remain a sovereign entity.  There was a point when  essentially
> half those in what is geographically Finland, spoke Swedish.  I  still
> remember the pull-down maps in school with the capital of Finland
> listed as "Helsingfors" for Helskinki.  The resurgence of  Finland
> as primarily a Finnish speaking country hasn't been all that long.
>
> It's now down to only 5% Swedish, but Swedish is a protected  language.
>
> The Finnish national composer, Sibelius, was such a Swede/Finn.
>
>
>
> David S.
>