My Great-Grandmother: Anna Teed
Swedish Names
The most common names for Swedish people are once again Anna and Lars, according to new statistics published on Thursday. But several new names popped up on this year's list.
Do you know a Swedish woman called Anna? You're not alone. There were over 108,000 registered as living in Sweden last year, according to new figures from Statistics Sweden (Statistiska Centralbyrån - SCB).
But the news comes as no surprise, as Anna has topped the charts since records began . . . .
source: http://www.thelocal.se/20140221/anna-and-lars-most-common-names-for-swedes
Independence Square in Kyiv
August 2005, in a photo that I took:
Yesterday, in a before-and-after photo I found on the web:
Thaw!
The temps topped 40 degrees today. Whoo-hoo! Let the melt begin!
Linn
Anders Celsius (1701-1774) of Uppsala, Sweden invented the temperature scale which took his name. He originally designated the boiling point as 0 degrees and the freezing point as 100.
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) of Smaland in southern Sweden (and educated in Uppsala) wanted to make Celsius' temperature scale more useful for botany. He reversed the designations for freezing and boiling to 0 and 100 degrees, respectively. That way positive numbers sustain plant life and negative numbers indicate death by freezing.
My own father is also a scientist. His middle name is Linne, and my parents feminized it for me: Mary
Linn Benson Stahlke. My ancestors came from southern Sweden.
Lincoln's Birthday
It's too much for this year, but one of these February 12s, I'm going to make Mary Todd Lincoln's "courtin' cake." For more information, see a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, which I quote here:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-02-07/news/ct-mary-todd-lincoln-cake-talk-0207-20140207_1_cake-mary-todd-lincoln-honest-abe
The story is told that Mary Todd's aristocratic family was introduced to the cake when a French dignitary came to visit their Lexington, Ky., home and brought his own chef. The Todd family requested the recipe, and later Mary Todd took the recipe along when she moved to Springfield in 1839. She served the cake to Lincoln as he came courting, and it was his favorite.
Some say the first lady continued to bake the cake when the Lincolns lived in the White House from 1861 to 1865. Mary Todd Lincoln loved to bake and frequently made news for the astonishing amount of flour and sugar she would buy on her outings. White House chefs found the "courtin' cake" too plain for important guests, and they made it into a layered cake with rich vanilla frosting instead of the traditional powdered sugar topping.
The simpler version is a very easy cake to make, although it had to be more difficult in Mary Todd Lincoln's days.
Mary Todd Lincoln’s white cake
Makes 12 servings
6 egg whites
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup blanched almonds, chopped in a food processor to resemble coarse flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat egg whites with a mixer on medium-high speed in a medium bowl until stiff, about 4 minutes; set aside. Sift together flour and baking powder 3 times in a medium bowl; set aside.
Beat together butter and granulated sugar with a mixer on medium speed in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Beat in flour mixture, alternating with the milk, beating after each addition. Stir in the almonds. Fold egg whites into the batter; stir in the vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10- to 12-cup bundt pan. Bake until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cool 15 minutes. Remove from pan to a wire rack; let cool 1 hour. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.
source of recipe: http://hnn.us/article/35279
My Dad
I returned last week from Virginia, and many of you have asked about my father. He is physically stronger than the last time I visited. He did not need oxygen, and ate two meals a day. Dad also moved his arms a lot more, and even sat up in bed a couple times a day, so he's getting a little bit of exercise. Last November and December, his breathing would become labored without oxygen, and at one point he stopped eating and drinking. While he is still on morphine and a sedative (for anxiety), the dosage is less than what he needed at the end of last year.
His confusion is much greater, but he still knew me. And Dad saved his energy for our goodbye last Wednesday, doing so with a focus that flooded me with amazement. What a gift!
Five Teenagers
February 10 is Paul’s twentieth birthday.
Today, our home is officially going from five teenagers to four.
Thank God!
That Tooth Fairy!
Peter lost a tooth a few days ago, and the tooth fairy gave him a dollar under his pillow. The next morning, he gave the bill to his father for safekeeping.
Then Peter lost another tooth, this time from a collision with another child during a basketball game. Luckily, the damaged tooth was not a permanent one.
The second tooth went under the pillow last night. The tooth fairy was caught off-guard and didn’t have money.
Luckily, Peter did not notice this morning that the two dollar bills he received this week from the tooth fairy were identical.
A Gift From My Father
Dad's voice breaks the silence with a memory from his childhood: "JOY! Let's play tag."
Sometimes he says a single word: "Mayhem!"
And then plays with it: "May-Him!" and "May-Her."
But a few times a day, he still makes sense. As I looked him right in the face and said good morning, he responded, "What a pretty picture!"
Made my day!
