Like so many Americans, my maternal family came here via chain (member by member) immigration at the turn of the last century. Our Swedish ancestors arrived not long after the American Civil War, reaching Chicago just in time for the Great Fire, and eventually settling to rural log cabin life. One Finnish relative landed on a major stop on the Underground Railroad before going insane, leaving his wife — a non-English-speaking teen fleeing servitude — to a life of single motherhood and constant Westward movement.

After a brief stint panning gold in Alaska, my free-thinking Swedish grandfather (Old Pappa) and Finnish grandmother (Mummi, a.k.a., Portland Snow Princess of 1932) purchased farmland taken from the Yakama Indian Nation in the Pacific Northwest and tried their hands at becoming good, middle-class Americans.