May Blog

One of the best Swedish characteristic is honesty. Sweden always ranks among the highest in the world on the anti-corruption scale. When you shake hands on a deal it stands. You know that you can always trust your Swedish friends.

Even at the Swedish Press one of our strongest selling points is trust. Subscribers know that they can trust us with their credit card numbers or that we will not overcharge them for products or pass their e-mail addresses on to other marketeers.

Dealing, as we do, mostly with "Scandinavians" and Nordic-related companies, we also know that we can rely on our advertisers and it is very rare that a person or a company has reneged on a payment without an explicable cause.

A case in point is Solhem, the poetical name of the lovely "Swedish Home for the Aged" on Staten Island, that had been a long-time advertiser. Purchased by the United Swedish Societies of New York in 1912, it was a really nice and well-managed resthome for some forty mostly Swedish guests. However a few years ago Solhem ran into financial difficulties and our invoices remained unpaid or when they were paid the checks bounced. Eventually the Home was put into receivership and we wrote off the debt.

Then a few years later we were told that the facilities on Staten Island were sold and the board wanted to settle all old bills. There was that Swedish honesty at play again.

It took a while but eventually we were contacted by a lawyer in New York who had been put in charge of taking care of old business. I was informed that all the documentation, including copies of unpaid invoices, that the lawyer had in his possession was not sufficient to release the funds owed to us. In other words he did not trust me or the Swedish Press. I had to go and sign a document in the presence of a US Consul. No other consul would do (I happen to be the Honorary Consul of Sweden), neither could this be done in front of a regular notary.

I could not help feeling that my honesty had been violated not to mention the time and money involved to get the payment that the board of Solhem had made such an honest effort to settle.

It was also so sad to see an old Swedish American institution go. For almost a hundred years, the Solhem Swedish resthome on Staten Island was a lovely oasis just a ferry trip away from the bustling metropolis of New York. The original historic building, that was a wedding gift for the daughter of Commodore Vanderbuilt, housed the social rooms and a beautiful dining room. I wrote in the Swedish Press after one of my visits there that "you could not find a nicer place to retire in".

Have a nice May

Anders