Christian Ditlev Ammentorp Hansen 1843-1916, a young chemist in Denmark, is credited with inventing a commercial Rennet Extract. He explained “rennet’s are calves stomachs prepared for cheese making, the farmers soak them in whey and add the liquid to the milk to curdle it, as a chemist he said why couldn’t a commercial extract be made in the Laborator and put on the market. In 1874 he founded the company later known as Chr.Hansen based on industrial production of cheese rennet. Since then the company has grown to a global bioscience company with production facilities on five continents. Their main production facilities in Denmark, France, USA, and Germany. The worlds number one provider of cheese cultures and coagulants.

Now comes the family mystery……which brother taught our gg grandmother the art of making cheese? Deborah had six siblings, JAS, RALF, REBECCA, VICTOR, BENJ and JOHN. Uncle Curt said one was the owner of Hansen Laboratories (possibly the New York lab). It would not be the Danish founder Christian, but possibly a family member who lived in New York ?? I will leave this question up to my cousins or grandchildren to solve.

A short history of Deborah Hansen. Born in New York in 1827 to John Nicholas Hansen and Alider (Lydia) Schenek. She married our gg grandfather James Guernsey on 29 March 1849, in Jefferson, Cass, Michigan. The 1870 showed them living in Garden Grove, Decatur, Iowa and 1880 census in Brookdale, Rush, Kansas.

I assume the country folks around Strong City, Oklahoma Territory, wondered how our grandmother learned to make such good cheese…we now know she had the best teacher in the world!
Also, I appreciated all those Hanson genes when I was struggling to pass Bio Chemistry in college.

Jim Lee