Friberg Township – Valerie's Voice

My Christmas Cactus is blooming. It doesn’t bloom often, and it doesn’t bloom at Christmas, so I wonder about the name!

This beautiful plant was a slip given to me from a friend’s cactus, and there is a story.

My friend’s grandmother brought the “mother plant” along with her, when she immigrated from Alesund, Sweden in the late 1800’s.

She traveled to the United States, by herself, from Sweden to meet up with her future husband who had settled in Friberg Township, in northern Minnesota. Several other Swedish immigrants settled in the area and they built a Baptist Church, which is still standing. My friend’s grandparents had 10 children and gathered together for a family photo on their 50^th wedding anniversary, in 1936.

My friend, Kay, holding a photo taken in 1936, of her extended family. Her grandparents, their ten children and their children’s children. Kay’s mother is holding Kay in her lap…Kay was the baby at the time of the photo.

Just like this Swedish immigrant family, my Christmas cactus has many family members because many slips have been cut and replanted from the mother cactus…

I’m happy to have this succulent. Even when it’s not in bloom it has interesting foliage and is a pleasant green all year long.