Arbejdermuseet * Arbeidersmuseum * Worker's Museum
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| Rømersgade 22, København |
To have tea with the Sørensen-family I had to time-travel upstairs to 1915.
The Sørensen-family a working-class family consisted of the father, Peter Martin Sørensen, the mother, Karen Marie Sørensen, and their eight children.
Peter Martin Sørensen was a general labourer
and Karne Marie Sørensen was a housewife.
Having lived in many different flats
the family moved into a two-roomed flat at Østerbro in 1915.
This flat remained the family home until 1990.
In 1915 five of the children were still living at home: Karen (27) ran the household; Kristian (26) worked in the Copenhagen Free Port; Anna (21) was about to enter domestic service; and Yrsa (19) as well as Olga (17) were in domestic service in upper-class households. |
| Karne Marie Sørensen was a housewife and managed the family's laundry. |
When their parents died some time in the 1940s, Karen and Kristian hung on to the flat, and in the mid-1960s Yrsa took it over.
Yrsa Sørensen never married. She worked as a cleaner and ended her working life as a toilet attendant at the Copenhagen Central Railway Station.
Yrsa Sørensen remained a tenant until December 1989
when she went into residential care.
When Yrsa Sørensen moved out virtually no alterations had been made to the flat and its appearance since 1915 when her parents moved in.
And if you move any of the furniture you can see that everything has always been in the same places as the floors are totally untreated in the places where the furniture has always stood – the floors have simply been varnished around the furniture.
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The colour scheme of the kitchen is the traditional Danish ‘kitchen’ blue
with a larder, a plate rack on the wall, and a fine cast iron kitchen range.
The kitchen sink is made of iron and is edged in tinplate.
Over the sink there is a single cold-water tap.
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