Lena Larsson (4)

Swedish traditional folk singer, smallholder wife and tradition bearer, unmarried Karlsson, born June 14, 1882 in Ytterby parish, Gothenburg and Bohus county, died November 20, 1967 during a performance at Göteborgs Konserthus. She was born at Skansen in Ytterby in a family that supported itself on fishing and small farms. As the eldest daughter, she had to take care of the younger siblings, her schooling was, according to her own statement, "uneven", and when she reached the age of confirmation, she had to help milk. In her youth, she stayed for two months in Gothenburg to learn how to iron shirts, that was all she was from home. She first married the small farmer Gustav Larsson at the age of 53 and then moved across the Nordre älv to Gullö. When she became a widow in 1956, she took care of the agriculture she ran until her death. She had no children of her own, but raised her sister's children, who became orphans from an early age. The song had great significance in Lena Larsson's life. Her younger brother Anders Carlsson wrote down a number of her lyrics and sent them partly to Radiotjänst's folk song competition 1948–1949, and partly to the West Swedish folk memory archive in Gothenburg. In 1957, Matts Arnberg (2) from Swedish Radio and Ulf Peder Olrog from the Swedish Song Archive traveled to Ytterby to make the first recordings of Lena Larsson's songs. This was followed by a series of recordings, and on one occasion she was brought to Stockholm for a TV recording directed by Arnberg. The recordings include about 250 songs, of which 66 are folk love songs (43 lyrical, 26 epic), 39 literary songs (24 lyrical, 15 epic), 25 sailor songs, 20 small songs (lullabies, rhymes, rhyme songs), 15 ballads, 15 joke songs, 10 song and dance games as well as a small number of soldier songs, companion songs, historical songs, emigrant songs, nature lyric songs, house interrogation songs, sobriety songs, nid songs, drink songs and revue songs. Lena Larsson came to make several appearances on radio, on gramophone and on concert stages. In 1967 she made her last appearance at Göteborgs Konserthus; she suffered a heart attack while the audience applauded and signed down dead.