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Cream of Mushroom Soup

December 13, 2024

December is the season of the shortest days of the year. When the sun starts to sink at four p.m., people want to pamper themselves with warm and cozy things. This includes big helpings of comfort foods.

 

If you’re of a certain age, comfort food likely includes a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Many of the dishes we remember fondly are based on this little red can. Mom or grandma might have added it to almost any kind of meat (hamburger, pork, chicken, steak) to make a casserole meal. Cream of mushroom soup even makes an appearance on holiday tables in the form of green bean casserole.

 

Americans rely on canned cream of mushroom soup the way cooks in other countries rely on bechamel sauce. It’s the sauce that holds many of our recipes together. Campbell’s Soup Company brought out their recipe for cream of mushroom soup in 1934 when convenience foods were becoming popular. Cream of mushroom soup was the first soup meant to be used as both a soup and a sauce. Home cooks considered it a great way to stretch a little meat a long way.

 

Although I’ve bought hundreds of cans of cream of mushroom soup over the years, I’m sure that I’ve never eaten it as a soup. Like millions of other American women, I still drag out a can when I want to make a nostalgic meal. My mother had a handful of recipes using cream of mushroom soup. My favorite is her hamburger and noodle casserole. It’s simple to make and uses everyday staples. I don’t make it as often as Mom did, but when I want comfort food on a cold, dark day, it fills the bill.

Here’s her recipe:

 

Mom’s Hamburger and Noodle Casserole

 

1 lb ground beef

1 medium green pepper, diced

1 small onion, diced

 

Cook the above ingredients until the meat is browned and veggies are tender.

 

Add:

 

1 can of mushroom soup

1 ½ cups of milk

 

Boil:

 

8 ounces of egg noodles

 

When the noodles are done, drain them and add them to the other ingredients. Pour the mixture into a greased casserole dish.

 

Cover and cook in a 350-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

 

 

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society

Christmas at Sea

December 6, 2024

In December of 1867, Charles Fernelius began the journey that would change his life. His older brother Peter had emigrated from Sweden to America three years earlier. That fall Charles made the momentous decision to follow him.

 

Many people emigrating from Sweden joined groups to make the big trip easier. Charles was a teenager and impatient. He was unwilling to wait until enough others decided to emigrate. He decided to head out on his own.

 

In those days, passenger ships for the United States didn’t leave directly from Sweden. Many Swedes traveled to the Swedish port of Gothenburg. Most emigrants traveled in steerage. Bedding and eating utensils were not provided on the ships. Many Swedes spent a day buying supplies for the voyage. They then boarded a small steamer for Hull, England.

 

From Hull, emigrants took a train across England to the port of Liverpool. In Liverpool large passenger ships sailed across the Atlantic to ports in Canada and the United States. Many of the ships headed for New York City. It’s been estimated that more emigrants arrived in New York than in all the other ports combined.

 

Charles followed this typical migration path. Luckily for his descendants, Charles wrote a memoir about his trip. In it, he gives details about the voyage.

 

December in the north Atlantic is cold and dark. Icebergs and blizzards are common. Charles mentions that his ship was brushed by an iceberg which tore off a section of deck railing. They later ran into a storm, and a sailor was lost from one of the masts. For many passengers, seasickness was constant. As a healthy young man, Charles was never sick and walked on deck every day.

 

Even though he was the only Swede onboard and couldn’t communicate except through pointing and other gestures, Charles enjoyed his trip. Except for one thing: there was never enough food. Many passengers complained about the quality of food in steerage. Not Charles. He was a seventeen-year-old teenager. He would eat anything and a lot of it. Charles tried to communicate with gestures that he wanted bigger portions. Nothing happened.

 

Eventually Charles took note that some of his fellow passengers were getting larger helpings than he was. It seemed to Charles that when the other passengers said “fortoo,” they got extra food. He had no idea what the word meant, but he vowed to try it.

 

The next day was Christmas. When the stewards appeared with dinner, Charles saw that it was a special meal. Charles was starving. He needed a large portion of that delicious-looking food. When he got to the front of the line to present his dish, Charles looked at the steward and then said “fortoo.” The steward nodded and gave Charles large dollops of dinner.

 

Starvation averted, Charles enjoyed the rest of the trip, saying “fortoo” at every meal. When he got to America and learned some English, Charles learned what “fortoo” meant. The word was really “for two” and what someone said when he was asking for enough food for two people. Men often brought back food for wives or children, so it was a common phrase aboard ships.

 

All these years later, Charles’ Christmas food story is one of my favorite ancestor tales. I don’t know if Charles was just a growing boy who could eat a tremendous amount of food or whether the ship’s portions were small. Whatever the case, Charles handled the situation. It boded well for his future in America.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revisiting Newspaper Subscriptions

November 29, 2024

Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/ ) , Newspaper Archive (https://newspaperarchive.com/)  and Genealogy Bank (https://www.genealogybank.com/) are the big three when it comes to subscription historic newspaper websites. If you haven’t looked at any of them recently, now is a good time to check them out.

All three offer a free introductory period which means you can see whether you want to pay for a longer membership. Also, all three are offering holiday promotions of gift subscriptions at a discounted rate. A subscription would make a great gift for a genealogy friend, but there is no reason you can’t give a subscription to yourself.

Some newspapers will be available on all three sites. Others will only be available on one site. That’s why it’s a good idea to browse before you purchase. All three websites frequently add newspapers. If you last checked a year or more ago, you’ll probably find new titles and issues that weren’t available in the past.

Years ago, I found a brief notice in the Ogden Standard Examiner concerning a traffic ticket my grandfather received. It was just a brief article, and I didn’t save it. As part of a project, I wanted to check again to refresh my memory of the incident. Since Newspapers.com has the Ogden papers for the relevant period, I used that website. I entered my grandfather’s name, Victor Fernelius. I didn’t bother to narrow the search with a location or date since my grandfather’s name is unusual.

I’ve looked for articles about Victor in the past, so I wasn’t expecting anything new to pop up. Surprisingly, a series of articles from Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania were the first half dozen hits. They were from the early 1870s – before my grandfather was born.

My great grandfather and his family lived there shortly after they arrived in the U.S. from Sweden. These articles were from 1872, and all dealt with my great grandfather’s younger siblings: Mary, William, and Victor. This Victor was my grandfather’s uncle, and he died young. I’ve never known much about his short life.

The articles were honor roll listings for the young Fernelius siblings. Before I found the articles, I hadn’t known that they went to school after they arrived in America. It was a surprise to learn how well they did in school after only a short time in America.

I know that no one in the family spoke any English when they arrived in Pennsylvania. After their arrival, I’m sure that the family spoke Swedish at home. The children’s fluency in English may have been hastened by the fact that there were no other Swedes living nearby. According to the 1870 census, the Fernelius Family was the only Swedish family in the area.

Finding these unexpected articles has opened a window into my family’s early period in America. It has also reminded me that it’s important to periodically check various online sources for new information. Newspapers are a good source of information not found anywhere else, and the online databases are continually expanding.

Do yourself a favor and check them out, even if you’ve looked before. You may be surprised at what you find. I certainly was.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society