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2546. wonkers2 - 1/24/2005 5:15:45 PM Pelle, thanks for your kind offer. I don't want to put you to trouble on my behalf. My maternal grandmother, Ruth Malm, was born in Stromsburg, Nebraska. Her parents, John and Johanna Sundgren Malm came from Sweden.
About all I have of their history is a translation of a letter, dated September 28, 1852 written by Per Sundgren to his wife Johanna in Soderhamm from London shortly before his departure in the sailing vessel Apollo for Genoa, never to be heard from again. Although the letter doesn't confirm it, family lore is that he was the ship's captain. His wife was at home on the family farm. Here is a quote from the letter:
"...I have hope in God that I soon get out to sea and a fast journey to Genoa where news for you are waiting for me, news that takes up more room than can be written on a three ells-long sheet of paper.
"I cannot at theis point give you any suggestions regarding business, if I were closer so that I could see you or have an idea how things were going, then I could always give you some help. However, first and foremost be very careful and do not get involved in anything foolish which you do not know anything about or do not understand."
According to a footnote written on the bottom of the letter by my aunt, Per Sundgren and his wife Dorotheia Johanna Smeden were born in Ljusne.
Per Sundgren and Johanna were my great-great grandparents.
 John Malm, center, with his son, Axel and grandson Ralph, c. 1930 2547. ronski - 1/24/2005 6:05:12 PM I have found a kind of feeder that is squirrel-proof for grey and black squirrels, such as hang around my Mom's house. I have one such feeder at her place, and one at mine (plus other devices).
I have only the grey variety of squirrel by me in the exurbs, but we also have the much smaller red (flying) squirrels, and they can fit in the feeder. Though nocturnal (with huge eyes), one has been helping himself during the day lately. 2548. PelleNilsson - 1/24/2005 8:46:36 PM No trouble at all, wonkers, on the contrary. I rather like poking around old records. But to start with I need to pick up the Sundgrens somewhere, either in Söderhamn or in Ljusne (which is not far away). I won't bother you with the technicalities of the Swedish church records but it would help to know approximately when they were born because the birth register contains far fewer entries than the total population register. Also, Ljusne was a smaller parish than Söderhamn
Do you think this John Malm could be our man? That would give a clue to his wife's age and, in turn, to her mother's age. 2549. robertjayb - 1/24/2005 9:25:40 PM Butting in here, Pelle. For me the John Malm link produces a blank form. 2550. PelleNilsson - 1/24/2005 10:16:25 PM Indeed, you are right. Thank you. Here is the info on John Malm from the 1880 US census as provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Born: 1850
Birthplace: Sweden
Age: 30
Marital status: Married
Census place: Transit, Sibley, Minnesota 2551. PelleNilsson - 1/24/2005 10:19:21 PM I forgot
Occupation: Farmer 2552. thoughtful - 1/25/2005 12:15:24 AM So i dug out the old waffle maker from way back and made waffles for breakfast. very disappointing. Don't know if it was the mix or the machine but it left a lot to be desired. I'll try again sometime soon making them from scratch and see where that takes us.
Hubby thinks he still has his mother's waffle iron around...maybe we should try hers instead. Mine just smoked the entire time. Whole house was full and we dare not open a window seeing as the temp was 2 below outside (f, not c) 2553. woden - 1/25/2005 12:29:07 AM Can you make pizzelles with a waffle iron? 2554. wonkers2 - 1/25/2005 12:37:51 AM Pelle, The John Malm you unearthed may be my great grandfather. From my aunt's note at the bottom of Per Sundgren's letter from Newcastle:
"Per Sundgren and his wife Doretheia Johanna Smeden were born in Ljusne, Sweden. Considering the generations that have passed, I have been able to get a fairly good family tree and when I get it in order will send copies. These people are the parents of my grandmother Malm, Mother's mother. [Written by my Aunt Margaret whose mother's name was Ruth Malm who was born in Stromsburg, Nebraska. Per Sundgren, the ship captain, I believe was my grandmother's maternal grandfather. She never sent me the family tree!] 2555. Ronski - 1/25/2005 3:00:06 AM Wonder what happened on the way to Genoa. War, pestilence, weather, mutiny? 2556. Ronski - 1/25/2005 3:01:45 AM thoughtful,
That smoking suggests a too hot waffle iron. 2557. PelleNilsson - 1/25/2005 10:40:34 AM In the meantime some info on Söderhamn, a small town (pop 13,000) some 200 km north of Stockholm. It was founded in 1620 by Gustavus Adolphus who located a musket factory there. The town has a good protected port which became important when the demand for forestry products, in particular in England, increased rather dramatically in the mid 19th century. Söderhamn became the home port for a rather large merchant fleet. Its coat of arms reflects these activities.
Per Sundgren may well have offloaded a cargo of, say, pitprops in Newcastle before setting sail for Genoa.
Ljusne is also a port 15 km south of Söderhamn. Both ports are still quite busy and the main outgoing cargo is still forestry products including paper and pulp.
John Malm probably saw the railway station before he and his wife left for America.
Here a monument from later times, Saab's J-37 Viggen, which is prominently displayed at a round-about just outside the town. The Söderhamn air base, alas, was closed down a few years ago.
 2558. Macnas - 1/25/2005 10:54:39 AM This is a very good link to an american bird book. Some nice colour plates and rather fancy write ups. My favourite is the page on the Passenger Pigeon, where he states that it could never be hunted out of existence. 2559. Marc-Albert - 1/25/2005 3:48:18 PM Le Cambio
Soderhamn to me is synonymous with "Cambio". The forestry equipment manufacturing firm for whom my father worked had acquired the rights for a new log debarking machine called the Cambio, manufactured by the Swedish company Soderhamn Eriksson. My father’s company already had a forestry equipment sale network throughout North America and I guess Soderhamn was happy to grant them an exclusive dealership for their Cambio.
The smart Cambio machine sold like hotcakes and soon the Swedes regretted the generous terms granted to our small Canadian firm. I think they tried to wrest the lucrative U.S market away from it, but to no avail: A deal is a deal, as I remember my father saying more than once about the Cambio deal. For several years, much of the profits of the company came from the sale of the Cambio. I remember that in those days, my otherwise conventional parents travelled once or twice to Soherhamn: London, Paris and Soderhamn.
2560. wonkers2 - 1/25/2005 7:59:06 PM Ronski, according to family lore the Appollo went down in a storm somewhere between Liverpool and Genoa. 2561. wonkers2 - 1/25/2005 8:00:38 PM Pelle, many thanks for the information! 2562. thoughtful - 1/26/2005 3:29:07 PM So hubby managed to dig up his mother's old waffle iron. Cookbook with it costs all of 15 cents. Thing is dated back to 1937. The scary part is it's not automatic...no light, no thermostat. Just plug it in and keep fingers crossed. Will be fun to play with it.
More interesting though, the cookbook included recipes for cookies, biscuits, muffins and such to be made in the waffle iron....can you imagine??
I'm sure my mother's is long gone. It was a heavy old thing, but modern enough to have a thermostat light so waffles were rarely burned.
If these don't work, I'll have to hunt some flea markets to see if i can't find a good one. 2563. thoughtful - 1/26/2005 5:01:50 PM Hubby's mom had a high tolerance for such things seeing as the old gas stove from the 20s in their nyc apartment also had no thermostat....she would open the oven door and wave her hand to try to judge the temp.
Hubby, consequently has a high tolerance for burned food. I can remember the first time i made kasha for him he said it didn't taste right. I remember all the blackened kasha stuck to the bottom of his mom's frying pan. I told him, yes, this one isn't burned!
Oh and I remember the donnybrook in his family over whether the peas were burned as his father declared, or 'brown from the mushrooms' as his mother declared.
Nothing quite like family, eh? 2564. thoughtful - 1/26/2005 8:04:49 PM So with valentine's day coming, we're going out to dinner. Only thing is who wants to eat out on a monday night? So we're going the sat before to a new restaurant...new to us anyway that is supposed to be very good, very expensive and very romantic. I was checking out the menu and got hungry right away.
Tenderloin of Beef - rubbed with roasted garlic, pepper and shallots over a bed of braised celery and spinach dressed with a Merlot fresh tarragon sauce accompanied by pecorino and Yukon gold potato tart
Chicken Scaloppine - topped with shaved prosciutto, basil and smoked mozzarella, dressed with a lemon caper brown butter sauce accompanied by roasted pepper risotto
Sea Scallops - baked with portobello mushrooms, baby spinach and Mountain gorgonzola cream topped with crisp garlic oregano crumbs accompanied with steamed Jasmine rice and baby vegetables
Is it valentine's day yet??? 2565. thoughtful - 1/26/2005 8:05:37 PM Never thought of it before, but I guess combing the on line menus from restaurants is a way to get entertaining ideas for dinner parties. Hmmmm.
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