finding self

Who on earth was she when when no one knew she was Hanna…

“But what made the greatest impression during those early days was the man who employed her at the bakery. ‘What’s your name?’
Hanna hesitated for a while before answering, ‘Hanna, Lovisa, Greta . . . Broman.’
‘Married?’

“‘Yes, but my husband’s dead.”’
“’Now, then,’ said the man, noting it down. ‘Date of birth?’
She was silent. She’d never heard anything so silly. He had to repeat it.
‘”When and where were you born, woman?’
She stated both year and parish, got the job . . . she never forgot the foreman’s questions and repeated themselves to herself every evening for a long time afterwards. Name, married, born? To her it was if she’d fallen into a gigantic hollow on Wolf Mountain. Who on earth was she when no one knew she was Hanna Augustdotter from Braten, granddaughter of the rich Erik of Framgarden, and who become the miller’s wife at Norakvattnet?
Fortunately she wasn’t given to brooding. But many a time over the next few years she had to fend off the feeling of having lost her foothold.”

[Fredriksson, M. (1994). Hanna’s Daughters. The Ballantine Publishing Group: New York]

Ryan Pfluge…