Sky,

Sorry to hear about the loss of your loved ones.

We have a wonderful couple next door in our new home community.  She is 90 and he is 87.  They smile and joke that they do not have much sand left in their hour-glasses.  Still very active, sharp, and in love.  Still drive and are fiercely independent.  They do let up bake goodies for them each week, though.

Just thought that you might be interested to know that when Facit  finished making these machines, they sold the tooling to Poland, and the machine reappeared here in England as the 'Lucznik'.  I did see one once - identical to the Facit product but without the Facit logo on the front (obviously) and a 'Lucznic' sticker in its place.  It should have been a good seller, but the machine disappeared without a trace.

Did find this one photo on the Net of the Polish-made machine :
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Sky,
Sorry for your loss. That said, your story, and that of your extended family sounds like one I would love to read. 

Brozzy,
A "dead" key is one that will disengage the escapement for subsequent key strikes, this allows the addition of diacritical or accent marks where needed. You can often cheat a dead key by pressing the spacebar, holding it, and then pressing the keys you need. This necessitates the use of the backspace key first, but once you press the spacebar and hold it, the escapement is often disengaged and won't allow the carriage to advance. This is how you make an exclamation point.
Phil Forrest

Found this photo on the Web...

Room full of kids in typing class...all getting to use Facit T2 machines...guessing in the early 1970's.
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