Someone sent that to me. And it brightened my day so much that I wanted to share it with everybody else.

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Island of Moomins illustrated by Tove Jansson

Did you ever feel like Moominmamma was almost too perfect to be true? Well, reality is more amazing than you could believe as this perfect mother was actually based on a real person: Signe Hammarsten-Jansson (Ham), Tove Jansson’s beloved mother.

Ham was, according to all friends and neighbours, the image of a perfect mother and wife. She was born to a wealthy Swedish family, as a daughter of a priest. After falling in love with Tove’s father, Viktor Jansson, she moved with him to Finland. Even though living in a poorer, war-ridden country must have been hard for the young woman, she never complained. Instead she supported her husband’s career, loved her children dearly and was loved by them in return.

Ham can be described as the greatest love of Tove’s life. Mother and daughter were always close. Tove was always worried about her mother’s downtrodden place in the family (Viktor Jansson was not an easy personality to live with) and how she sacrificed everything for the family. Tove’s dream was to take Ham away from all of that. It was also her absolute love and devotion to her mother that prevented Tove from ever leaving Finland, as Ham was devoted to being with her hurband.

Ham was Tove’s first teacher and it’s said that in her lap, Tove learned to draw before she could even walk. Eventually young Tove would beging drawing political caricatures after her mother as a side for her aspirations as a painter.