Filmjölk

One of those beautiful moments happened the other day, when you are chatting with your family and unexpectedly, an old cultural thing comes up concerning our immigrant grandparents. I always get surprised by these little gems that crop up because I've asked so many questions and sat down with so many family members so many times, just drooling at the opportunity to hear some of their childhood memories of the generations before me that I did not have the pleasure of getting to know, or even meet. After so many years you naively think you've covered all the bases and documented every memory from every nook and cranny of every aunt and uncle's, parent, grandparent and cousin's brain.

But we all know that will never happen. 

And so we get moments like this, that I have to write down so I don't forget them.

(Side note: I am writing using the blogger app, and it's allowing me to type up my drafts on the road, from the passenger seat of course. And as I document these family memories, I am driving past O'Hare airport in Chicago, which is part of the land originally settled by my Wille family. I get to drive past the exit that leads to the highway still named Wille Road. Remnants of each of us are left everywhere. You just have to find them....These things, they make me smile.)

  So on to filmjölk... Which apparently in our family was known as simply "fil" You can read more about the scoop on fil Here.

 And in searching for more information about Fil, I found this:   HA!

    So,  It came about in a car ride between talking about trying to duplicate recipes and guessing how long it took for grandma and grandpa to get to America by ship. These conversations tend to run a pretty broad spectrum :)

     We were talking about when the grandparents traveled back to Sweden over the years to visit family. And something during the talks jogged my aunt's memory.

     She said every time her grandparents came back from Sweden they would bring something called "fil" home with them. They obviously couldn't refrigerate it on the way home, so what grandma would do was dry it out on cheesecloth while in Sweden, and pack up the cloth in her luggage and bring it home. Once home, she'd put the cheesecloth with the dried fil into a bowl of milk, and wait for it to turn back into, well, what it once was. 

      The result was this "yogurt" that was very sour or tangy. My aunt remembers her dad and herself always being excited over it. Putting it into a bowl and adding lots and lots of sugar. It was one of those delicious childhood memories she has tried to recreate from recipes, but was never quite right. 

      I should note, that this was not the general consensus for everyone, as my other aunt remembers it as disgusting, and never being able to eat it because it had the texture of snot. Funny how the memories differ person to person :)

  For the record, my aunt has had little luck recreating it the way she had it during her childhood. She was given a hint by someone to try Stonybrook's plain light yogurt. So she bought some, poured her sugar into it, and said with joy that it was the closest thing she's had to the real thing since!
 

Sune Bergman & Swedish Handwriting translation

     My grandfather Arthur Jonsson and great grandparents Esther and Helge Jonsson had a number of books written by "Sune Bergman" Apparently a Swedish author and someone they knew on a personal level. It seems Sune would send a book to them once it was published, with a handwritten note inside the cover. I have tried to find more about this author but have had no luck. I have also tried to translate the notes a little bit but I'm having a hard time with the handwriting I think.

     If anyone knows ANYTHING about Sune Bergman, the author of these books, or help for the translation on these notes I may have botched, feel free to let me know! I think I may post some of the pictures on Anbytaforum and see if anything comes up.

   The first book of Sune Bergmans that we have:

Äventyret I Gungstolen translated to  Adventures in The Rocking Chair.

 

and the note inside the cover.....

 

I've tried google translate and all I can get is something like:

Esther and Helge, Today as of June 11, 1958, This comes to you by plane from the old country.

   Then I have no idea what that Bruksanoisming word is. after that, I type in the words, and the sentence changes around on translation, and then disappears, like the computer can't make anything of it. so I tried typing in one word at a time, deleting, then another word, deleting, then another word.... tedious, but worked out a little better.....

The book is intended to lie on nightstands. Only five pages need to be read at a time - then that- when so well.

      Sune

Okay, I got the jist of the first part. but not the last. And this doesn't give a clue as to who Sune is to them, except he probably knew them from the old country.

Next book we have is another copy of Adventures In The Rocking Chair but it's a hard copy. Copyrighted the same year as the other; 1957.

 
 The text inside the cover is short and upon first translation I got:

  Helge & Esther

With normal cervical accession

   Sune

    
                   Well then. I'm going to take a wild guess here and assume that's incorrect.....

  After playing around with the words and trying different letters... I got something that makes much more sense:

Helge & Esther

With usual greetings,

Sune

 Ahhhhhh. Ok! Much better. But why were two copies given? I don't have a clue. Maybe Sune wanted the paperback one "on the nightstand" meaning it could get roughed around and the hardcover put away for keeping? I honestly don't know.

NEXT.........    Med Näver Och Glödstift  or in English, With Birch Bark And Glow Plugs

Um, what are "glow plugs"? Am I missing something here?  ....Anyways...... on to the inside cover...

 To my dear friends Helge and Esther from Sune in Aug. 1958

   In memory of your second Sweden trip.

Well that's a tad more helpful.... so I can assume Sune is not family, but a dear friend. But now I want to read the book and see why it's given "in memory of" their trip back to Sweden. I am NOT google translating this whole book. I guess I'll just have to learn Swedish! Ha!

Last book, simple hard cover like the second, is titled:

Nog Går Det Bra   which translated to: Enough, Do Not Hesitate 

If I put each word in alone, I get "Enough can the good." Sooo, I'm going to go with the first one.

.

  Inside under the title it says: ur min rese dagbok, which translated to: from my travel diary

The inscription says....

With the usual greeting (then a word I can't figure out....) desire for Merry Christmas from all of us in (oh this next word gave me trouble....) Hawk morning? Hawk bog?  Is it the name of a town maybe? 

One other interesting tidbit... the last book, it also has published inside a lot of pictures. The pictures are described as this in the beginning of the book:
    Illustrations are printed in the book directly from linoleum plates which has been cut by the author.

     This is interesting because some of them look familiar. Our family has prints that look very similar, but were done, as we understand it, by my great grandfather Helge. 
      Also, this one in particular stands out....

  My grandfather, Arthur,  made a few woodburning pictures when he was back in Sweden visiting. His cabin is done the same way, same angles and looks very similar. I'll try to post a picture of it. Seeming as how this print is describing Norrbotten, and our family was from Norrbotten, I wonder if they were looking at the same thing when they each made their pictures......

Chuggin' on down the svenska line...

Hej! Min hjärna gör ont från att söka svenska dokument hela dagen!

    
    I've been spending my time today scouring the messages and conversing with some very nice Swedes on Anbytaforum. A forum for the online magazine RÖTTER. 
     I signed up a year ago, about the time I made a few inquiries on my Jonsson and Stenman lines on Ancestry.com.  After not receiving any hits in the ancestry forum for a while, and the overwhelming feeling I got trying to search in a Swedish forum, (and, ok, to be honest, I had some awesome finds on some different lines and kind of left my Swedish lines in the dust).... I just forgot about it.  
     Fast forward a year later, and here I am thinking, well, I'm gonna try to google my great grandfather Helge, and see if anything pops up. BING. Oooh, hey look, something came up! Oh wait, that's just my post from a year ago. : /  Meh. I click on my own link anyway. Oooh, hey look, a couple replies! Alright!  I received the following information in response to my Ancestry Query:

It's been awhile since your post so you may have already found this, but:

Helge Sigurd Jonsson b. 13 Dec 1897 in Töre, Nederkalix, Norrbotten, Sweden to Gustaf Jonsson and Emma Ingeborg Lather (?Sather)
The HH 1891 to 1899
Gustaf Jonsson b 28 Jan 1858
Emma Ingeborg Lather/Sather b 19 Mar 1866
(married 7 Feb 1886)
Hulda Dortea b 29 Aug 1887
John Viktor b 23 Jun 1890
Emma Linnea b 15 Oct 1893
Helge Sigurd b 13 Dec 1897
Ingeborg Maria b 4 May 1900

Ester Eugenia Stenman b 25 Feb 1901 in Storön, Nederkalix to Nils Olaf Stenman and Anna Helena Johansson

The HH 1891-1899
Nils Olaf Stenman b 23 Oct 1861
Anna Helena Johansson b 21 Dec 1869
(married 10 Nov 1888)

Niels Albert b 1 Jun 1890
Hildma Helena b 4Jun 1892
Nanny Marie b 23 Oct 1894
Oskar Emanuel b 4 Feb 1897
Hulda Vilhelmina b 2 Apr 1899

And then this from another member:

Helge's father Gustaf Jonsson came from Markaryd parish in southern Sweden. He moved to Nederkalix in 1885.

Gustaf Jonsson b. 28 Jan 1858 is my great-greatgrandfather's cousin. As far as I know, almost everyone on Gustaf's father's side was born in Markaryd. Some have moved to other places later in life, but we still have many relatives in Markaryd.


YAAYYYYYYY, Happy dance! 
      So needless to say, this chipped out a little hole in the brickwall I had come to in my Grandfather's Jonsson line... and yes, of course, sparked an obsessive giddy searching spree.

    This spree led me back to the Anbytaforum. And this time, I wasn't going to let the Swedish language barrier stop me. Go Go Google Translator! Alright, after the first day, it did start to get to me again. But then I found their English discussion section, and all hope was renewed! :) 

     I received swift and knowledgeable responses from some resident Svenskar. Oh God Bless their hearts! And I learned a few very important details when it came to my Swedish Mysteries. 
     One being, things change in Sweden. A lot. Towns, parishes, counties. And not just that. The SURNAMES.... Oh heavens to betsy, the SURNAMES! There was a period of time until about the 1850's that they used a patronymical system. Then, some people did, and some people abandoned it, and just stuck with one single last name. Some soldiers were given new surnames. Some took on names of others in their town but were not related. Before 1900, women never took their husband's last name. Talk about a surprise to me! But, of course, before 1900, sometimes they did. aye aye aye. It seems there was no real conformity to surnames in the 19th century in Sweden. This scares me.
     But the best part about it were the helpful people on that forum who took time to explain all these things to an ignorant Swedish-American. And not only that, but also searched their records, and got me back another generation or two into my Swedish side. I was referred to the Nederkalix forum there (which is...don't panic...in Swedish.) and that people there will want to take a peek at all of this, since both my great grandparents, who had emigrated completely separately, but from the same Parish, ended up finding each other in the United States and marrying. So I made my attempts at posting in the Swedish language portion of the forum. Here's to hoping copious amounts of information come to follow! :)


   If you are a Swedish descendant, I highly recommend Anbytaforum. It has an extreme wealth of information and friendly people there to give you a hand. It's free to join, and with Google Translator on your side, you're golden. I'm bummed I didn't tap into it a year ago when I signed up. Well, that'll learn me.

Nederkalix, Sweden - Taken by my great grandfather Helge Jonsson