An emigrant from Småland also appears in his novel A time on Earth which Moberg wrote after The Emigrants series. This character's name is Albert Carlsson. As he recollects his life, he entwines memories from the small parcels of land in Småland with the emigrants' promised land, America. Vilhelm Moberg had many relatives who emigrated, both on his father's and his mother's side. All of his mother's siblings emigrated. Only his mother, Ida, remained. Vilhelm Moberg considered emigrating as well and in 1916 he got as far as receiving the money for passage to America from an uncle who lived in California. His parents managed to persuade him to stay in Sweden by promising to provide Vilhelm with secondary education. Moberg's parents But back to the property in the woods. This was Vilhelm Moberg's home until he was nine. After that the family moved into town. With funds provided by those in America the family was able to buy back mother Ida's old family farm. Ida's mother, Johanna, was forced to sell when she became a widow with seven small children and no longer could afford anything but a hillside cabin. That farm is still owned and occupied today by relatives of Vilhelm Moberg. The billeted soldier, Karl Gottfrid Moberg, became a landowner in the same way as Karl Oskar acquired Korpamoen, though with a significantly better house and with access to the same amount of land, sixty acres. There were more cows in the barn and life was indeed more secure than it was living on the soldier's plot. However, writes Professor Ulf Beijbom in his book Vilhelm Moberg och utvandrarbygden (Vilhelm Moberg and the emigrants' countryside, published by Norstedt's, 1993), "Vilhelm's claim from 1947 that the family owned the farmer's foremost status symbol, a horse, has been contradicted by other observers." And no matter how well researched Vilhelm Moberg's life and works are, into the most minute detail, the reader always finds himself sooner or later in that familiar territory where The Emigrants epic is set. The setting, which actually exists, is pure fiction. Moberg moves about unencumbered borrowing from the documentary style to pure imagination, between the journalism he practiced and the popular literature he crafted which indeed liberated him even more. Take as an example the figure of Ulrika from Västergöhl. With her furious glibness, she has a striking resemblance to Sissa Svensdotter from Östergöl, who appears in reports and court records in connection with the dissident religious group known as Akians, much to the chagrin of the church due to the Akians growing number of supporters in the small towns of Småland in the late 18th century. Sissa Svensdotter was the sister of Åke Svensson from Östergöl, the very same who founded the Akians sect. She screamed out her disgust for the black-coated authorities nearly identically to the way Moberg let her do in the novel. But she was never the village whore. And Västergöhl does not exist. Moberg at his house on Väddö And where the Ulrika of the story achieves redemption and reconciliation, the figure on which the fictional character was based never found peace in Småland. In connection with the release of the books a man from Ljuder said in a radio program, "The real Ulrika never traveled to America. She stayed in the area where she successfully retained her lifestyle." Another example is the character of Kristina who was born in Duvemåla. It is impossible to try to find the real Kristina, but it is not difficult to be led to Vilhelm Moberg's maternal grandmother, Johanna. She was born in the village of Duvemåla in 1833 and lived until 1912. At the corner of her family cottage stood an apple tree of the Astrakhan variety. Next page The Musical | Background | Interactive guide | Merchandise | Downloadables | Swedish