International House Berkeley

59 study and sleep – that difference between us could have been an irritation otherwise. We had a good time together, though. She actually visited me later in Sweden. Gradually, you got to know different groups of students. Naturally, I got to know the Scandinavians – nineteen from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland; also natural for me was attraction to the barbershop singers who sang by the mailboxes every day after dinner. They struck me immediately with happiness, reminding me of all the singing at my home in Uppsala. My father was a tenor of great demand in the university area in Sweden, and my whole family sung in harmony. Representing Sweden in a World Fair in San Francisco for ten days, I came to know two very handsome girls from The Philippines and India who were also staying at I-House. They were wearing the most beautiful dresses from their homeland. I felt like farmer's daughter in my Swedish folk costume of wool; they looked to me like queens! We came to mean a lot to each other and spent much time together after that in the Great Hall. The Great Hall was the natural place to make acquaintances. It was the place to feel joy and friendliness, to make plans for all sorts of fun, but also where the most serious conversations and discussions took place. As it was soon after the second world war, we of course talked much about the war. Many students, male and female, had been in the war, or had been very affected by it, and their experiences were at first unbelievable to me, since I had lived completely outside the war. It was 150 years since Sweden had been at war. I had lived for the six years of the war in a vacuum, without connection, more or less, to the outside world – not knowing what really had been going on in the neighboring Scandinavian countries, the Baltic States, Poland, Germany, etc. At I-House, I listened and listened, and it was of greatest importance to me to hear all these detailed testimonies given by my new friends. It broadened my mind then and for a lifetime. The education I got in Berkeley was very good for my profession back in Sweden. In my class there happened to be three very bright and interesting girls who also lived at I-House They became my closest friends: Dorothy Hosford Smith, Mary Hamm Flumerfeldt and Ingrid Bergström Borland, the last a Swedish girl! When the professor heard my name – Inger Bergström – he said: "You must take your second name. I can't distinguish between Ingrid and Inger, and you are the one who has to change, for Ingrid has been an undergraduate here." My second name was a horror to me…. What was I to do? I said "Okay. It is 'Mopsen.'" And suddenly I had a new identity. Everybody on the whole campus greeted me by my childhood, most private, nickname. The name had been a fabrication of my big brother, who saw me as too cheeky during our dinner table discussions. You see, "Mops" is the Swedish word for "pug," a breed well-known for walking through life with its head held up high in quite a cheeky way. That is how I came to be known at Berkeley by the Swedish word for "pug." And this

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