Last stop for the day was the American Swedish Institute which has tours of the Turnblad mansion.
 |
| Wikipedia Image |
It was raining that day so I only got a few images from the inside out:
There was no flash-photography allowed inside the house, and it was a dark day, but I got a few soft images.
At the top of the staircase is a stain-glass panel:
 |
| Base of Staircase Banister |
Swan Turnblad was a Swedish immigrate who worked at several Swedish language newspapers before becoming the owner of one of his own.
This is a glass panel from his paper, the Svenska Amerikanska Posten:
In 1883, he married Christina Nelsson (also a Swedish immigrate) and they had only one child, Lillian, born the following year.
The stately chateau style mansion was started in 1903 and took five years to complete.
The highly detailed woodcarvings in the mansion were done by Ulrich Steiner and Albin Polasek.
The Swans purchased eleven tile
stoves (kakelugnar) in Sweden (no two are alike).
Since they had central heating these were most likely for decorative purposes.
Above is the bottom of a fireplace, below is the top.
After his wife died in 1929, Swan and his daughter moved across the street.
He turned the former home into a museum, creating the American Swedish Institute as a place to preserve Swedish customs and culture.
 |
| Ceiling |
He once said, “many persons may have wondered what a small family like ours, a family which had not great social ambitions, wanted with so big a house. Perhaps they can guess now.”
