Thursday, October 9, 2025
Meet and Eat at The Old Mill, Rockford
6 PM
Save the date for fun, food and fellowship at the Old Mill in Rockford! The restaurant is a historical landmark modernized with handcrafted food & drinks, located on the scenic Rogue River. Enjoy favorites like the Scandinavian Shuffle and Riviera Salad.
Please register by emailing SAHS at info@sahswm.org. You will order and pay for yourself and/or your party that evening.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Swedish Reading Club: Big in Sweden by Sally Franson
7 PM
Our meeting will be held online using Zoom. For more information, including the link to join the meeting, please email info@sahswm.org.
A charming, wise, and laugh-out-loud funny novel following an American woman competing on a Swedish reality show in an attempt to discover her roots.
Paulie Johansson has never put much stock in the idea of family: she has her long-term boyfriend Declan and beloved best friend Jemma, and that’s more than enough for her. Yet one night on a lark, she lets Jemma convince her to audition for Sverige och Mig, a show on Swedish television where Swedish-Americans compete to win the ultimate prize: a reunion with their Swedish relatives. Much to her shock, her drunken submission video wins her a spot on the show, and against Declan’s advice Paulie decides to go for it.
Armed with her Polaroid camera, a beat-up copy of Pippi Longstocking, and an unquenchable sense of possibility, Paulie hops on a plane to Sweden and launches into the contest with seven other Americans, all under the watchful eye of a camera crew. At first, Paulie is certain that she and her competitors have nothing in common besides their passports and views their bloodthirsty ambitions with suspicion. Yet amid the increasingly absurd challenges—rowing from Denmark to Sweden in the freezing rain, battling through obstacle courses, competing in a pickled herring eating contest—Paulie finds herself rethinking her snap judgments about her fellow countrymen, while her growing attachment to her Swedish roots increases her resolve to win the competition herself.
Grappling with long-held notions of family, friendship, and love—not to mention her feelings for the distractingly handsome Swedish cameraman who’s been assigned to follow her around—Paulie starts to reconsider her past and rethink what she wants for the future. A fish-out-of-water tale filled with warmth, optimism, and wit, Big in Sweden is at its heart a love story: love for family, friends, country, and—most importantly—oneself.
You can buy the book online at Schuler’s, or at a 20% discount in the store.
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Annual Lucia Celebration
10 AM
We invite you to come and enjoy this lovely Swedish introduction to the Christmas season and listen to the Lucia choir sing in a beautiful setting. It will once again be held in the beautiful sanctuary of Mayflower Congregational Church. There will be plenty of free parking. There will be baked goods and coffee to enjoy afterwards plus a Julmarknad sale! Bring cash if you are interested in purchasing any items.
Volunteers Needed! We could really use volunteers to bake and help out with the fika on the day of Lucia! Volunteers can contact Elise Roe at eroe1580@gmail.com if you’d like to help out.
It helps greatly if you pre-register at info@sahswm.org by December 9. You may pay at the door: Non-Members $10; Members $5; students and children are free.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Swedish Reading Club: When the Cranes Fly South (Tranorna flyger söderut) by Lisa Ridzén
7 PM
Our meeting will be held online using Zoom. For more information, including the link to join the meeting, please email info@sahswm.org.
A profoundly moving debut novel that follows an elderly man’s attempts to mend his relationship with his son before it’s too late: an emotional story of love, friendship, fatherhood, dogs, and atonement that is already an international sensation.
Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he’s got left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound Sixten to keep him company—though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he’s expressed his love over the years.
“A tender tale about aging, our own and others’, and the quiet brutality of love. About what being a man is, and what being a human is, about fathers and sons and fathers and dogs. It’s really a book for anyone who’s had to say goodbye. The kind of book you give to someone when you’re really trying to say ‘I’ve been thinking about you’ but don’t know how.”
—Fredrik Backman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove
You can buy the book online at Schuler’s, or at a 20% discount in the store.
May 28-June 8, 2026
Celebrate 50 Years with a Journey Through Sweden!
In honor of the Swedish American Museum of Chicago’s 50th anniversary in 2026, we invite you to join fellow Swedish Americans for the trip of a lifetime: “The Swedish Odyssey – Sights and Landscapes,” a fully escorted motor coach tour. Jill Pearson Reider from SAHS will be along as one of the co-hosts.
Whether you’re tracing your roots or simply embracing your heritage, this tour offers a unique opportunity to connect with your past. Our genealogy team is excited to help you locate living relatives—and with a little luck, you might even meet them during your Swedish Odyssey!
If you have any questions, you can contact the Museum at museum@samac.org or 773-728-8111 or contact Jill Pearson Reider at JillReider1@gmail.com.