From Book Club To Grape Harvesting - What Do The SWEA-Women Do Together?

Sylvia Linde

It is a beautiful day at Linde’s vineyard in Alexander Valley, California and 62 women from SWEA San Francisco have just been cutting the last grapes from the trees for this season. Because of the rain the same week, most of the grapes already had to be picked in order not to be wasted, so these women’s work was just to weed the last part of the harvest. This will result in a special wine with its very own label, the SWEA-wine. The pickers are now sitting down having well-deserved lunch together in Linde’s garden. Sylvia Linde gives a speech and sings a Swedish hymn in which everyone joins in. She came to the U.S. in 1952 to see the world and to learn English. She and her husband now own two vineyards, one in South Africa and this one in California. They spend half of the year on each one of them. Sylvia Linde is a member of SWEA in both countries, in South Africa she even is the president of the committee. Every year she invites the SWEA women in San Francisco to come to her vineyard for grape picking and lunch, this tradition has been going on for about 20 years.

This is just one of the many events and get-togethers SWEA San Francisco offers its members. As the vice president of SWEA, Ulla Reilly, explains it; “there are so many different ages, hobbies and occupational groups represented within SWEA. That is why we also have smaller groups with certain specializations.” Some of these are the Book club, Mother’s group and Girls’ Night Out. There is even a Swedish library open once every month. A special part of SWEA called BOST goes to cultural events like operas and theaters. Also, when there is a new Swedish movie coming out, the women put up chairs in a hall somewhere in the city and eat something typically Swedish, like sausage and mashed potatoes. And if an interesting Swedish person is in San Francisco they invite them to come and speak for them.

Other popular get-togethers among the SWEA-women are field trips within the Bay area. For example there has been a visit to one of the members that owns an exclusive caviar shop in the city, and then there is the yearly grape picking at Linde’s vineyard.