~ Author Ms. Karen Humphrey detailing Miss Olson's Extraordinary Life and Career ~
for her most moving narrative on this most extraordinary independent woman from Lindsborg
for her most moving narrative on this most extraordinary independent woman from Lindsborg
ALMA LUISE OSON:
Normandale Lutheran Church
March 11, 2020
Joan Jensen, history professor emerita at New Mexico State University writes “The immigrant experience is still our great American epic: It has a million faces—the faces of men and women—and consideration, now to the women’s faces, and voices, and presence in the story.”
What is the story of one Alma Luise Olson, daughter of Swedish immigrants—and what is her place in the great American epic that we’re all part of?
Finding a person and weaving together a life is an adventure taking one down many roads. This weaving requires creative thinking to see how a life story fits together.—many of you have done this through genealogy.
I had the fortune of a box of “papers”.
AND a book!
Maybe you ran across this book while scanning your grandparents’ bookshelves—maybe it was stored in a box of things that no one quite knew what to do with—you know those sorts of boxes….
Scandinavia: the Case for Neutrality, was published on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway, journalist Alma Luise Olson writes,“Glance at any map of Europe that you may find in your morning paper or in current summaries of the international situation, and you are likely to see the whole of the continent stretching out before you… On the maps you might note merely the lower tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, comprising Sweden and Norway, and a little sliver of southern Finland. Because of its location, all of Denmark might be included, although its contours would be vague and shadowy. Iceland, not to mention Greenland, Svalbard, and the Faroes, ordinarily did not find room within the range of world interest.”[1]
Alma Luise Olson wrote the manuscript for her book while living in Stockholm as the Scandinavian correspondent for the New York Times, 1929-1939. A keen observer and reporter on culture and history, her career and the resulting manuscript was the culmination of an impetus begun twelve years earlier. She recalls a certain conversation before she sailed from New York for her first visit to Sweden in 1927:
….. a dinner with friends in Park Avenue when a Daughter of the American Revolution took alarm at my weird and alien-sounding venture of booking on the Gripsholm which makes port in Gothenburg. Reassuring herself fully once more of something she knew all too well—that by birth I was a compatriot of hers—she asked, ‘However, were also your parents born in this country?’ And to my negative reply, she murmured sadly, ‘Ah, but then you have no ancestors.’”[2]
She suggests in her book, “Isolationist ignorance and misunderstanding” have prevailed in the United States, “and until a few years ago the five states of the the North were decidedly ‘off the map’ of popular American consciousness.”[3] And, in truth, Alma Luise had relatives and ancestors in abundance in Örebro.
Six months after that conversation, Alma Luise returned from Sweden with an abundance of material to write substantive articles for the American press. Then, in 1929 she moved to Stockholm and for the next ten years,with datelines for the New York Timesfrom Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, reported on the arts, history, theatre, politics, and the literary scene of Scandinavia. While doing so she introduced the vast American readership of the nation’s largest newspaper to the Nordic countries. As an eye witness to those turbulent years in Scandinavia and on the continent, she became a pacifist, and for the rest of her life engaged in organizations supporting peace. She is the first American to be awarded the Royal Medal of Vasa, Sweden’s highest award for women.
Alma Luise was born 31 March 1884 on a farm just southeast of the deeply Swedish American community, of Lindsborg, Kansas, to John Erik and Lovisa Mathilda (Peterson) Olson who emigrated from Örebro and were married 1 November 1872 in Ishpeming, MI, and in 1879, John bought the farm near Lindsborg where he moved his family permanently. While John became one of the most successful farmers in the region, he and Lovisa Mathilda suffered the death of six of their eight children. Only Alma Luise and her older sister Elin (later pronounced Ellen) would survive beyond the age of 20.
Alma Luise was baptized by the Augustana Lutheran Pastor Johan Seleen at Fremont, the first Swedish Lutheran Church in the Smoky Valley. Her education began one mile south of the farm, at McPherson County District 4. She enrolled at Bethany Academy, Lindsborg, for the years 1896-1901, and in the spring of 1900 was one of twenty-eight confirmands at Bethany Lutheran Church, Lindsborg. Their pastor, Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson, was the visionary founder of Bethany Academy and Bethany College and now its second president.
In the autumn of 1901, Alma Luise began her studies at Bethany College. While earning top grades in Christianity, English, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Latin, History, Aesthetics[4] she revived the College newspaper, the Bethany Messenger, and served as editor[5]. She portrayed both Bassiano and Nerissa in a production of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, played right forward on the first woman’s basketball team, and, in her senior year, won first prize in the W.W. Thomas Contest in English Oratory with her speech “The Spirit of Unrest.”.[6] She was the only woman of ten contestants.
Alma Luise was one of 105 students who graduated from Bethany College 29 April 1903. Two others in her class would also become notable alumnae—Annie Theo Swensson, whose distinguished career as professor of English, Dramatics, and Speech, and Dean of Women at Bethany College spanned more than 40 years; and Oscar Brousse Jacobson[7], who mentored the Kiowa Six while Director of the University of Oklahoma’s Art School, 1915-1954. The diplomas for the Bethany College Class of 1903 were signed by Swensson—the last graduating class before his untimely death on 7 February 1904.
Following graduation, Alma Luise taught at McPherson County District 5 until 1905 when she joined the faculty at Bethany College to teach English, Spanish, and as Librarian, supervised preparations for the new Carnegie Library opened in 1908 and shared by both college and community.
During this time frame, Lindsborg was evolving to an American community such that Teddy Roosevelt made two enthusiastic campaign stops. English is spoken in the classroom, but Swedish is the language at home, Bethany Lutheran Church, and created a certain milieu, especially at Bethany College, that enlightened a spirit of inquiry that likely resulted in Alma Luise’s chosen career. Several professors were recent graduates of old universities and conservatories in Sweden who came to Kansas for the opportunity to teach at this college on the American prairie: Olaf Grafström studied at the Stockholm Academy of Fine Arts where his classmates were Anders Zorn and Richard Bergh; Carl Lotave studied art in Stockholm and Paris; Hagbord Brasé studied music at Skara and the Royal Conservatory; Sigrid Laurin, a grand nephew of the Swedish troubadour Oscar Ahnfelt, studied music at Lund and the Royal Conservatory. Birger Sandzén, who taught French, Art History, painting and drawing studied at Skara, in Stockholm with Zorn and Bergh, and in Paris; Samuel Thorstenberg, who was born in the Smoky Valley and a Bethany graduate studied music in Stockholm as well as England and New York. Thorstenberg directed the Bethany Oratorio Society in performances of Handel’s Messiah, the centerpiece of the Messiah Festival of the Arts established in 1881 by Alma Lind Swensson and her husband Carl. Several societies on Bethany’s campus, such as the Linnean Association, Svea, and Tegnérförbundet, focused on Swedish language and culture. And the Swedish Pavilion from the 1904 World’s Fair graced the Bethany College campus as the center for art instruction. Designed by Ferdinand Boberg, the foremost Swedish architect of the day to resemble a typical Swedish manor house, the building was purchased after the World’s Fair and donated to the College by the Honorable W.W. Thomas Jr., U.S. Minister to Sweden and Norway.[8]
It is likely that living, studying, and working in this context suffused Alma Luise with a curiosity to see the wider world through Scandinavia. Sweden would be her base. Earning a Master’s Degree in Arts, Philosophy, and Science at the University of Chicago in 1911 helped pave the way for such a direction. She was soon appointed the associate editor of The Dial: A Fortnightly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information. Owned by the Browne Family, Alma Luise is the first non-family member to be listed on the masthead.[9]
In 1917, Alma Luise made her way to New York to be Editor of the Scarsdale Inquirer, the official newspaper of the Woman’s Club of Scarsdale, and in 1922 she becomes a free-lance writer. Her first by-line in the New York Times appears on 11 July 1926, and is a first indication of her interest in writing about Sweden: “Stonecutter is Swedish Premier: Carl Ekman First Laborer to Attain Chief Ministry in His Land—Carries Sledgehammer Technique into His Public Speaking”. Also that year, she collaborates with Victor Oscar Freeburg and Edwin Bjorkman in translating a collection of short stories by Prince William of Sweden, published by E.P. Dutton under the title “Roaring Bones”.[10]
The New York Times publishes her reviews of six books 1926-1927, including Alexandra David-Neel’s “My Journey to Lhasa: the Personal story of the Only White Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City.”[11] At the same time she is hired by Smith College and the Institute for the Coordination of Women’s Interest, developed by the American psychologist Ethel Puffer Howe, and corresponds with 200 women authors, including Ida Tarbell, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Kathleen Norris and Gertrude Atherton. Her research, with her editorial comment, results in the Institute’s first publication, a guide, “Free Lance Writing as an Occupation for Women.”[12]
It was while fulfilling her commitments to Smith College, that Alma Luise made arrangements for that first journey to Sweden. Following the dinner with friends on Park Avenue, Alma Luise sailed from New York on the Gripsholm in April 1927, to Gothenburg.
Now on her sojourn to Sweden, Alma Luise visited cousins, aunts and uncles in Grängesberg, Stalldalen, Holmsjöen, Bånghammar, Kopparberg, Bångbrodalen, Blåmansbäcken[13]. While traveling through Skåne she stopped at Smedstorp to meet the great-aunt of Charles Lindbergh whose successful solo flight from New York to Paris in May 1927 had captured the world’s adulation[14].
START HERE
Throughout her travels over that is month period Alma Luise gathered considerable material to work with doing the next two years back in New York. The New York Times published her reports on Swedish efforts to bring electric heating above the Arctic circle to grow vegetables[15], the Norwegian whaling fleet[16], and a review of Ragner Sohlman and Henrik Schuck’s hefty biography of Alfred Nobel[17]. In 1928, the National Geographic featured her lengthy article “Sweden: Land of White Birch and White Coal.”[18] Her 35-page history and tour guide of Dalecarlia for the Svenska Trafikförbundet was published in English by Victor Pettersons Bokindustiaktiebolag[19]. And she translated Einar Lundborg’s 221 page book “Nobile—the Narrative of the Swedish Spitsbergen Expedition sent in search of the Italian Arctic Expedition.” [20]
Ever more resolved to inform Americans about the Nordic countries, Alma Luise sails again on the Gripsholm for Helsingfors via Gothenburg in May 1929. She appears to have decided that she will base herself in Stockholm, and explore the Scandinavian countries from there. Her first dateline, Stockholm, appears in the New York Times on 24 November 1929: “As Stockholm Exposition of 1930 nears There is Much Talk of ‘Functionalism’”. Among her stories in 1932 is the collapse of Ivar Kreuger’s empire and the ensuing deep financial crisis following his unexpected death. Over the next ten years her book reviews are published in the New York Times, often under the title “The Literary Scene from Scandinavia.” Such reviews include Selma Lagerlof’s “A Child’s Memoirs, Continuing the Story of Mårbacka[21]; Knut Hamsun’s “August”, continuation of ‘Vagabonds’; Sigrid Undset’s “Gymnadennia” and “Den Braende Busk” [22]; Karen Blixen’s “The African Farm”.[23] Her reports on art exhibitions in Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki include the Swedish Art Congress of 1933, the painting of the immense frescoes by several Norwegian artists in the Oslo Town Hall[24], recent works of Bruno Liljefors, Edvard Munch, Per and Christian Krohg, and Carl Milles who often invites her to tea or supper at his home[25]. She is a frequent visitor to the studio of Gustav Vigeland witnessing and writing about his creation of the massive sculptures he’s preparing for Frogner Park.[26]
Alma Luise’s writings give the reader a descriptive setting for the subject and deeper cultural connections. In a report of her visit to Vigeland’s studio for the New York Times she references Norse folk tales for her readers:
“Out in the park, the stone-cutters have been working for years with the carving on the tall shaft of granite, more impregnable than that of the Sphinx, and already the little children of Oslo are telling the saga of the monolith.
“Vigeland found this solid block asleep in one of the mountain ranges and had it brought down the waterways by barge to a city harbor. Thence it was hauled overland along roads and winding streets. At a difficult turn, advancing centimeter by centimeter, crawling imperceptibly forward, it at time obstructed the ordinary traffic for days. And by the time it was swung into place at the crest of the Vigeland Park it had also made its way into the hearts and the consciousness of the people of Oslo. “It is true, then,” they will tell you, “that there are giants asleep in the mountains of Norway.”[27]
She piques her readers’ interest in Värmland’s folktales and storytellers when she writes about the Fryken lake district in her National Geographic article:
These are the Swedish Windermeres, Comos, Lemans, and Lucernes, and love for their beauty of turquoise waters and bird-lined shores runs like a golden thread through the poetry and folklore of the people.[28]
Her understanding of art and history come together in a dateline from Oslo, 21 December 1930:
“An artist should paint for you the somber browns and grays, shifting from the silvery hoar frost of a sunlit morning to leaden skies full of tempest. Here is a miniature world of fantastically elongated shadows, even at noon. The sun describes a briefer and briefer arc on a far horizon of the foothills of the fields that encircle Oslo. It drops out of sight; twilight comes swiftly.
“Gales have stripped the trees, and they are modernistic in their barrenness. The branches of the oaks have the queer and twisted lines that Per Krohg delights to draw. Up in the foothills the wind seizes the pines and spruces and makes a fresco of the landscape with the bold, broad brush work of Edvard Munch.
“This whole world of the North is riding once more toward a seasonal Ragnarök, the Winter solstice. But the mood in Norway is one of adventure. The keynote of Oslo one catches in the questioning, upward lilt of musical voices heard on the streets.”[29]
Writing on the death of Selma Lagerlöfin March, 1940, Alma Luise provides a sense of place for the beloved author’s life work:
“Under the sunlit dome of deep azure skies, springtime comes tiptoeing back to the North, to Sweden, to the Lake District of its central Province of Värmland, to Mårbacka, a stately manor-house with lemon walls and dark slate roof that has become one of the outstanding literary landmarks of the country. The coral of the bursting buds of the white birches is shifting rapidly through a faint yellowish tinge to a tender, cool emerald. In the background the hoary spruces and pines are shaking off their burden of wintry snows.
“But this year, as the wind begins anew its song of life while it strums the lacy tops of the birches or picks up the deeper alto in the murmuring evergreens, its chant becomes also an elegy, not sorrowful but triumphant, in memory of the departed mistress of Mårbacka. Selma Lagerlöf’s own saga has ended.”[30]
During the conflicted years leading to war, Alma Luise’s credentials as a journalist allow her to become an eyewitness to peace efforts in Geneva and Stockholm; to Heidelberg where “the streets had been crimson with the swastika flag, and at dawn I had been awakened by the sound of marching feet of men in uniform”; to Italy when “Mussolini is calling young men to the colors for the Ethiopian campaign”, and in Florence where “anxious mothers and fathers scanned the bulletins that summoned the young men, and despite all official assurances to the contrary there were no visible traces of public enthusiasm.”.[31] Her lengthy article in the New York Times describes the Baltic countries pursuing a policy of peace with the Scandinavian countries [32], another article explains Iceland preparing for full self-rule [33] Even earlier, in 1930, she advises politicians to pay attention to the art of Finnish sculptor Väinö Aaltonen:
It is Finland that Aaltonen consistently pictures; a Finland challenging defying, somber, freedom-loving, steadfast in its turbulence. His work should be a profound inspiration, say to the leaders of political parties that are constantly clashing and meeting in a mob atmosphere on the Senate Square in Helsingfors [HELSINKI] , for he portrays the very steadfastness they seem to lack. In Aaltonen’s art there is never confusion. It is penetrating art, like a shining shaft of light. He does not ennoble life, he discovers its nobility.[34]
In 1938, Alma Luise writes home that she is waiting for the publisher to announce her book[35]. She has had a deep well to draw from as she drafted her manuscript, living and exploring all the Scandinavian countries for a dozen years with a journalist’s perspective immersed in literature, art, architecture, history, economics, and politics. She spoke the languages so fluently that, her contemporaries were known to have remarked she could move seamlessly from one country to the next.
With Europe roiling, and an impending invasion of Denmark and Norway, Alma Luise returns to New York on 14 February 1939 and is never able to get a passport to return to Scandinavia. But Lippincott announces the publication of her book on 3 January 1940, “Scandinavia: the Background for Neutrality”. She dedicates her book to the “unconquerable spirit of a North where traditions of liberty, of law and order are nestled in hidden valley, on lofty crag, in forest stillness.” She writes of each country’s independence and the deep, enduring cultural values the Scandinavians seem to share, yet she presents a sensitivity and a nuanced appreciation for the each country’s tradition and history.
On April 10, 1940, just three months after the book’s publication the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch prints an excerpt from her chapter on Norway on its opinion page while the front page headlines of the same paper reports the battle for Norway and the Nazi takeover.[36] Her book is selected by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for its recommended list.[37]
On 2 December 1940 Alma Luise is the guest of honor at a luncheon hosted by the American-Scandinavian Foundation for ninety people at the Park Lane Hotel. On behalf of Gustav V, Alma Luise is presented the Royal Medal of Vasa in gold from the Ambassador, Wollmar F. Boström “for the valuable work she has done in spreading knowledge of Sweden, its art and literature in the United States.”[38] The New York Times, the American Swedish Monthly, the Scarsdale Inquirer, and such Swedish language newspapers in the United States as Vestkusten all make note of her honor.
While World War II rages in Europe, and with Denmark and Norway under Nazi occupation, Alma Luise is a frequent contributor to the American Swedish Monthly reminding Swedish Americans, at least, of the extended travels of such notables to the U.S. as Fredrika Bremer, Jenny Lind, Nathan Soderblom, in a series of articles “Envoys of Good Will”. In a memoir of her visit with Selma Lagerlöf, Alma Luise writes, though Ms Lagerlöf never visited the United States, she fondly recalled reading about the American immigrant experience in “En Prärieunjes Funderinger”—stories by Anna Olsson, the daughter of the the Rev. Olaf Olsson, founder of Lindsborg. [39]
After the war, Alma Luise becomes a frequent observer at the United Nations during its first general sessions held in Flushing, NY. In a letter to her family she notes there are Lindsborg connections:
Here I am at the United Nations to attend the sessions of the General Assembly. When I telephoned for tickets yesterday, I did not know what would be taken up today. The first business was to vote on and admit the three nations, Afghanistan, Iceland, and Sweden.
North Park College, Chicago, invites Alma Luise to their summer school to present a lecture on Sweden’s Contributions to Democracy and Peace.[40]
In the autumn of 1946, Alma Luise returns home to Lindsborg to live with her sister Ellen at 328 North First Street, the large house built by their father almost a half-century earlier. Next to the mailbox on the front porch she installs a large wooden box to receive her daily copy of the New York Times. Now as Assistant Professor of English at Bethany College, she also gave leadership to study groups discussing peace and the United Nations. Her students hold a United Nations rally, and she established an active chapter of UNESCO. In 1961 she coaches Bethany students who play such leading figures of the era at the UN as Kennedy, Castro, Nasser, Kruschev, and Hammarskjold.[41]
In addition to her faculty commitment and caring for her sister, Alma Luise continues to write, reviewing two book in 1952 for the Journal of Philosophy “Vilhelm Eklund and Nietsche” and “Methods and Results of Kirkegaard Studies in Scandinavia: A Historical and Critical Survey”.[42] In 1955 the Library of Congress notes that Alma Luise Olson reserves the copyright for a Drama “On the Road to Peace: a conversation in three scenes.”[43]
Well before her death on 25 April 1964, the New York Times published her obituary, citing her years as special correspondent in Scandinavia, her book which was praised for its understanding of Scandinavia, the awarding of the Vasa Medallion, that “she was an expert linguist, internationalist and supporter of the United Nations. Her ardent interest in the world organization brought her to many United Nations meetings in New York.” The New York Times obituary also noted that she lived alone in Lindsborg and had no immediate survivors.[44] Alma Luise is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Lindsborg, with her parents and seven siblings.
SO—what can be said about this woman, Alma Luise Olson?
This professional woman, even before woman suffrage, was she so comfortable in her intellect, so confident in her skills, her abilities, her education that she could go anywhere? She was inspired, perhaps by Carl Aaron Swensson who confirmed her in the faith in 1900, who signed her diplomas, and who believed that anything was possible.
She had as a role model Alma Lind Swensson who was a community leader, founder of the Oratorio Society, and the Augustana Women’s Missionary Society, one of the women who created a community of civilized values from the moment she stepped off the train in Lindsborg as a young bride, in 1880. An exceptional hostess, Alma Swensson welcomed bishops, archbishops, senators, governors , scholars to her home—along with members of the Bethany congregation—many of them farm families; and Bethany College graduates for their last event .
Alma is part of the generation, born in America, child of immigrants who sought new opportunities, yet to discover the values of the “old country” to show how far an American woman, born of immigrants, had come?
Perhaps Alma Luise wanted to discover for herself this land of her parents’ birth—this Sweden that so shaped her lineage, her community, her college, her Bethany Professors—many of them neighbors— who were all born and educated there: Grafström, Lotave, Laurin, Bedinger, Brase, Thorsen, Thorstenberg, Sandzén,
and then discovered Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland
She certainly wanted to explain these fascinating countries, to a larger audience—at least the large readership of the New York Times.
Alma Luise arranged her estate. She established the John E. Olson Family Fund at Bethany Lutheran Church with the interest earned during a ten year period be spent on inter-church education progress in Lindsborg and programs promoting world peace. Additional gifts were given to a scholarship fund in Alma Luise’s name at Bethany College. She lists the disposal of family household items, paintings, treasures from her travels, especially Scandinavia., and gifts to friends and cousins in Sweden. She states “With all my friends, named or unnamed, I share my faith in the divine values around us and my gratitude forthe spiritual grandeur of existence. Each passing year has for myself added profound depths to the mystery and miracle of life and death.”[45]
Normandale Lutheran Church
March 11, 2020
Joan Jensen, history professor emerita at New Mexico State University writes “The immigrant experience is still our great American epic: It has a million faces—the faces of men and women—and consideration, now to the women’s faces, and voices, and presence in the story.”
What is the story of one Alma Luise Olson, daughter of Swedish immigrants—and what is her place in the great American epic that we’re all part of?
Finding a person and weaving together a life is an adventure taking one down many roads. This weaving requires creative thinking to see how a life story fits together.—many of you have done this through genealogy.
I had the fortune of a box of “papers”.
AND a book!
Maybe you ran across this book while scanning your grandparents’ bookshelves—maybe it was stored in a box of things that no one quite knew what to do with—you know those sorts of boxes….
Scandinavia: the Case for Neutrality, was published on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway, journalist Alma Luise Olson writes,“Glance at any map of Europe that you may find in your morning paper or in current summaries of the international situation, and you are likely to see the whole of the continent stretching out before you… On the maps you might note merely the lower tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, comprising Sweden and Norway, and a little sliver of southern Finland. Because of its location, all of Denmark might be included, although its contours would be vague and shadowy. Iceland, not to mention Greenland, Svalbard, and the Faroes, ordinarily did not find room within the range of world interest.”[1]
Alma Luise Olson wrote the manuscript for her book while living in Stockholm as the Scandinavian correspondent for the New York Times, 1929-1939. A keen observer and reporter on culture and history, her career and the resulting manuscript was the culmination of an impetus begun twelve years earlier. She recalls a certain conversation before she sailed from New York for her first visit to Sweden in 1927:
….. a dinner with friends in Park Avenue when a Daughter of the American Revolution took alarm at my weird and alien-sounding venture of booking on the Gripsholm which makes port in Gothenburg. Reassuring herself fully once more of something she knew all too well—that by birth I was a compatriot of hers—she asked, ‘However, were also your parents born in this country?’ And to my negative reply, she murmured sadly, ‘Ah, but then you have no ancestors.’”[2]
She suggests in her book, “Isolationist ignorance and misunderstanding” have prevailed in the United States, “and until a few years ago the five states of the the North were decidedly ‘off the map’ of popular American consciousness.”[3] And, in truth, Alma Luise had relatives and ancestors in abundance in Örebro.
Six months after that conversation, Alma Luise returned from Sweden with an abundance of material to write substantive articles for the American press. Then, in 1929 she moved to Stockholm and for the next ten years,with datelines for the New York Timesfrom Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, reported on the arts, history, theatre, politics, and the literary scene of Scandinavia. While doing so she introduced the vast American readership of the nation’s largest newspaper to the Nordic countries. As an eye witness to those turbulent years in Scandinavia and on the continent, she became a pacifist, and for the rest of her life engaged in organizations supporting peace. She is the first American to be awarded the Royal Medal of Vasa, Sweden’s highest award for women.
Alma Luise was born 31 March 1884 on a farm just southeast of the deeply Swedish American community, of Lindsborg, Kansas, to John Erik and Lovisa Mathilda (Peterson) Olson who emigrated from Örebro and were married 1 November 1872 in Ishpeming, MI, and in 1879, John bought the farm near Lindsborg where he moved his family permanently. While John became one of the most successful farmers in the region, he and Lovisa Mathilda suffered the death of six of their eight children. Only Alma Luise and her older sister Elin (later pronounced Ellen) would survive beyond the age of 20.
Alma Luise was baptized by the Augustana Lutheran Pastor Johan Seleen at Fremont, the first Swedish Lutheran Church in the Smoky Valley. Her education began one mile south of the farm, at McPherson County District 4. She enrolled at Bethany Academy, Lindsborg, for the years 1896-1901, and in the spring of 1900 was one of twenty-eight confirmands at Bethany Lutheran Church, Lindsborg. Their pastor, Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson, was the visionary founder of Bethany Academy and Bethany College and now its second president.
In the autumn of 1901, Alma Luise began her studies at Bethany College. While earning top grades in Christianity, English, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Latin, History, Aesthetics[4] she revived the College newspaper, the Bethany Messenger, and served as editor[5]. She portrayed both Bassiano and Nerissa in a production of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, played right forward on the first woman’s basketball team, and, in her senior year, won first prize in the W.W. Thomas Contest in English Oratory with her speech “The Spirit of Unrest.”.[6] She was the only woman of ten contestants.
Alma Luise was one of 105 students who graduated from Bethany College 29 April 1903. Two others in her class would also become notable alumnae—Annie Theo Swensson, whose distinguished career as professor of English, Dramatics, and Speech, and Dean of Women at Bethany College spanned more than 40 years; and Oscar Brousse Jacobson[7], who mentored the Kiowa Six while Director of the University of Oklahoma’s Art School, 1915-1954. The diplomas for the Bethany College Class of 1903 were signed by Swensson—the last graduating class before his untimely death on 7 February 1904.
Following graduation, Alma Luise taught at McPherson County District 5 until 1905 when she joined the faculty at Bethany College to teach English, Spanish, and as Librarian, supervised preparations for the new Carnegie Library opened in 1908 and shared by both college and community.
During this time frame, Lindsborg was evolving to an American community such that Teddy Roosevelt made two enthusiastic campaign stops. English is spoken in the classroom, but Swedish is the language at home, Bethany Lutheran Church, and created a certain milieu, especially at Bethany College, that enlightened a spirit of inquiry that likely resulted in Alma Luise’s chosen career. Several professors were recent graduates of old universities and conservatories in Sweden who came to Kansas for the opportunity to teach at this college on the American prairie: Olaf Grafström studied at the Stockholm Academy of Fine Arts where his classmates were Anders Zorn and Richard Bergh; Carl Lotave studied art in Stockholm and Paris; Hagbord Brasé studied music at Skara and the Royal Conservatory; Sigrid Laurin, a grand nephew of the Swedish troubadour Oscar Ahnfelt, studied music at Lund and the Royal Conservatory. Birger Sandzén, who taught French, Art History, painting and drawing studied at Skara, in Stockholm with Zorn and Bergh, and in Paris; Samuel Thorstenberg, who was born in the Smoky Valley and a Bethany graduate studied music in Stockholm as well as England and New York. Thorstenberg directed the Bethany Oratorio Society in performances of Handel’s Messiah, the centerpiece of the Messiah Festival of the Arts established in 1881 by Alma Lind Swensson and her husband Carl. Several societies on Bethany’s campus, such as the Linnean Association, Svea, and Tegnérförbundet, focused on Swedish language and culture. And the Swedish Pavilion from the 1904 World’s Fair graced the Bethany College campus as the center for art instruction. Designed by Ferdinand Boberg, the foremost Swedish architect of the day to resemble a typical Swedish manor house, the building was purchased after the World’s Fair and donated to the College by the Honorable W.W. Thomas Jr., U.S. Minister to Sweden and Norway.[8]
It is likely that living, studying, and working in this context suffused Alma Luise with a curiosity to see the wider world through Scandinavia. Sweden would be her base. Earning a Master’s Degree in Arts, Philosophy, and Science at the University of Chicago in 1911 helped pave the way for such a direction. She was soon appointed the associate editor of The Dial: A Fortnightly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information. Owned by the Browne Family, Alma Luise is the first non-family member to be listed on the masthead.[9]
In 1917, Alma Luise made her way to New York to be Editor of the Scarsdale Inquirer, the official newspaper of the Woman’s Club of Scarsdale, and in 1922 she becomes a free-lance writer. Her first by-line in the New York Times appears on 11 July 1926, and is a first indication of her interest in writing about Sweden: “Stonecutter is Swedish Premier: Carl Ekman First Laborer to Attain Chief Ministry in His Land—Carries Sledgehammer Technique into His Public Speaking”. Also that year, she collaborates with Victor Oscar Freeburg and Edwin Bjorkman in translating a collection of short stories by Prince William of Sweden, published by E.P. Dutton under the title “Roaring Bones”.[10]
The New York Times publishes her reviews of six books 1926-1927, including Alexandra David-Neel’s “My Journey to Lhasa: the Personal story of the Only White Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City.”[11] At the same time she is hired by Smith College and the Institute for the Coordination of Women’s Interest, developed by the American psychologist Ethel Puffer Howe, and corresponds with 200 women authors, including Ida Tarbell, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Kathleen Norris and Gertrude Atherton. Her research, with her editorial comment, results in the Institute’s first publication, a guide, “Free Lance Writing as an Occupation for Women.”[12]
It was while fulfilling her commitments to Smith College, that Alma Luise made arrangements for that first journey to Sweden. Following the dinner with friends on Park Avenue, Alma Luise sailed from New York on the Gripsholm in April 1927, to Gothenburg.
Now on her sojourn to Sweden, Alma Luise visited cousins, aunts and uncles in Grängesberg, Stalldalen, Holmsjöen, Bånghammar, Kopparberg, Bångbrodalen, Blåmansbäcken[13]. While traveling through Skåne she stopped at Smedstorp to meet the great-aunt of Charles Lindbergh whose successful solo flight from New York to Paris in May 1927 had captured the world’s adulation[14].
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Throughout her travels over that is month period Alma Luise gathered considerable material to work with doing the next two years back in New York. The New York Times published her reports on Swedish efforts to bring electric heating above the Arctic circle to grow vegetables[15], the Norwegian whaling fleet[16], and a review of Ragner Sohlman and Henrik Schuck’s hefty biography of Alfred Nobel[17]. In 1928, the National Geographic featured her lengthy article “Sweden: Land of White Birch and White Coal.”[18] Her 35-page history and tour guide of Dalecarlia for the Svenska Trafikförbundet was published in English by Victor Pettersons Bokindustiaktiebolag[19]. And she translated Einar Lundborg’s 221 page book “Nobile—the Narrative of the Swedish Spitsbergen Expedition sent in search of the Italian Arctic Expedition.” [20]
Ever more resolved to inform Americans about the Nordic countries, Alma Luise sails again on the Gripsholm for Helsingfors via Gothenburg in May 1929. She appears to have decided that she will base herself in Stockholm, and explore the Scandinavian countries from there. Her first dateline, Stockholm, appears in the New York Times on 24 November 1929: “As Stockholm Exposition of 1930 nears There is Much Talk of ‘Functionalism’”. Among her stories in 1932 is the collapse of Ivar Kreuger’s empire and the ensuing deep financial crisis following his unexpected death. Over the next ten years her book reviews are published in the New York Times, often under the title “The Literary Scene from Scandinavia.” Such reviews include Selma Lagerlof’s “A Child’s Memoirs, Continuing the Story of Mårbacka[21]; Knut Hamsun’s “August”, continuation of ‘Vagabonds’; Sigrid Undset’s “Gymnadennia” and “Den Braende Busk” [22]; Karen Blixen’s “The African Farm”.[23] Her reports on art exhibitions in Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki include the Swedish Art Congress of 1933, the painting of the immense frescoes by several Norwegian artists in the Oslo Town Hall[24], recent works of Bruno Liljefors, Edvard Munch, Per and Christian Krohg, and Carl Milles who often invites her to tea or supper at his home[25]. She is a frequent visitor to the studio of Gustav Vigeland witnessing and writing about his creation of the massive sculptures he’s preparing for Frogner Park.[26]
Alma Luise’s writings give the reader a descriptive setting for the subject and deeper cultural connections. In a report of her visit to Vigeland’s studio for the New York Times she references Norse folk tales for her readers:
“Out in the park, the stone-cutters have been working for years with the carving on the tall shaft of granite, more impregnable than that of the Sphinx, and already the little children of Oslo are telling the saga of the monolith.
“Vigeland found this solid block asleep in one of the mountain ranges and had it brought down the waterways by barge to a city harbor. Thence it was hauled overland along roads and winding streets. At a difficult turn, advancing centimeter by centimeter, crawling imperceptibly forward, it at time obstructed the ordinary traffic for days. And by the time it was swung into place at the crest of the Vigeland Park it had also made its way into the hearts and the consciousness of the people of Oslo. “It is true, then,” they will tell you, “that there are giants asleep in the mountains of Norway.”[27]
She piques her readers’ interest in Värmland’s folktales and storytellers when she writes about the Fryken lake district in her National Geographic article:
These are the Swedish Windermeres, Comos, Lemans, and Lucernes, and love for their beauty of turquoise waters and bird-lined shores runs like a golden thread through the poetry and folklore of the people.[28]
Her understanding of art and history come together in a dateline from Oslo, 21 December 1930:
“An artist should paint for you the somber browns and grays, shifting from the silvery hoar frost of a sunlit morning to leaden skies full of tempest. Here is a miniature world of fantastically elongated shadows, even at noon. The sun describes a briefer and briefer arc on a far horizon of the foothills of the fields that encircle Oslo. It drops out of sight; twilight comes swiftly.
“Gales have stripped the trees, and they are modernistic in their barrenness. The branches of the oaks have the queer and twisted lines that Per Krohg delights to draw. Up in the foothills the wind seizes the pines and spruces and makes a fresco of the landscape with the bold, broad brush work of Edvard Munch.
“This whole world of the North is riding once more toward a seasonal Ragnarök, the Winter solstice. But the mood in Norway is one of adventure. The keynote of Oslo one catches in the questioning, upward lilt of musical voices heard on the streets.”[29]
Writing on the death of Selma Lagerlöfin March, 1940, Alma Luise provides a sense of place for the beloved author’s life work:
“Under the sunlit dome of deep azure skies, springtime comes tiptoeing back to the North, to Sweden, to the Lake District of its central Province of Värmland, to Mårbacka, a stately manor-house with lemon walls and dark slate roof that has become one of the outstanding literary landmarks of the country. The coral of the bursting buds of the white birches is shifting rapidly through a faint yellowish tinge to a tender, cool emerald. In the background the hoary spruces and pines are shaking off their burden of wintry snows.
“But this year, as the wind begins anew its song of life while it strums the lacy tops of the birches or picks up the deeper alto in the murmuring evergreens, its chant becomes also an elegy, not sorrowful but triumphant, in memory of the departed mistress of Mårbacka. Selma Lagerlöf’s own saga has ended.”[30]
During the conflicted years leading to war, Alma Luise’s credentials as a journalist allow her to become an eyewitness to peace efforts in Geneva and Stockholm; to Heidelberg where “the streets had been crimson with the swastika flag, and at dawn I had been awakened by the sound of marching feet of men in uniform”; to Italy when “Mussolini is calling young men to the colors for the Ethiopian campaign”, and in Florence where “anxious mothers and fathers scanned the bulletins that summoned the young men, and despite all official assurances to the contrary there were no visible traces of public enthusiasm.”.[31] Her lengthy article in the New York Times describes the Baltic countries pursuing a policy of peace with the Scandinavian countries [32], another article explains Iceland preparing for full self-rule [33] Even earlier, in 1930, she advises politicians to pay attention to the art of Finnish sculptor Väinö Aaltonen:
It is Finland that Aaltonen consistently pictures; a Finland challenging defying, somber, freedom-loving, steadfast in its turbulence. His work should be a profound inspiration, say to the leaders of political parties that are constantly clashing and meeting in a mob atmosphere on the Senate Square in Helsingfors [HELSINKI] , for he portrays the very steadfastness they seem to lack. In Aaltonen’s art there is never confusion. It is penetrating art, like a shining shaft of light. He does not ennoble life, he discovers its nobility.[34]
In 1938, Alma Luise writes home that she is waiting for the publisher to announce her book[35]. She has had a deep well to draw from as she drafted her manuscript, living and exploring all the Scandinavian countries for a dozen years with a journalist’s perspective immersed in literature, art, architecture, history, economics, and politics. She spoke the languages so fluently that, her contemporaries were known to have remarked she could move seamlessly from one country to the next.
With Europe roiling, and an impending invasion of Denmark and Norway, Alma Luise returns to New York on 14 February 1939 and is never able to get a passport to return to Scandinavia. But Lippincott announces the publication of her book on 3 January 1940, “Scandinavia: the Background for Neutrality”. She dedicates her book to the “unconquerable spirit of a North where traditions of liberty, of law and order are nestled in hidden valley, on lofty crag, in forest stillness.” She writes of each country’s independence and the deep, enduring cultural values the Scandinavians seem to share, yet she presents a sensitivity and a nuanced appreciation for the each country’s tradition and history.
On April 10, 1940, just three months after the book’s publication the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch prints an excerpt from her chapter on Norway on its opinion page while the front page headlines of the same paper reports the battle for Norway and the Nazi takeover.[36] Her book is selected by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for its recommended list.[37]
On 2 December 1940 Alma Luise is the guest of honor at a luncheon hosted by the American-Scandinavian Foundation for ninety people at the Park Lane Hotel. On behalf of Gustav V, Alma Luise is presented the Royal Medal of Vasa in gold from the Ambassador, Wollmar F. Boström “for the valuable work she has done in spreading knowledge of Sweden, its art and literature in the United States.”[38] The New York Times, the American Swedish Monthly, the Scarsdale Inquirer, and such Swedish language newspapers in the United States as Vestkusten all make note of her honor.
While World War II rages in Europe, and with Denmark and Norway under Nazi occupation, Alma Luise is a frequent contributor to the American Swedish Monthly reminding Swedish Americans, at least, of the extended travels of such notables to the U.S. as Fredrika Bremer, Jenny Lind, Nathan Soderblom, in a series of articles “Envoys of Good Will”. In a memoir of her visit with Selma Lagerlöf, Alma Luise writes, though Ms Lagerlöf never visited the United States, she fondly recalled reading about the American immigrant experience in “En Prärieunjes Funderinger”—stories by Anna Olsson, the daughter of the the Rev. Olaf Olsson, founder of Lindsborg. [39]
After the war, Alma Luise becomes a frequent observer at the United Nations during its first general sessions held in Flushing, NY. In a letter to her family she notes there are Lindsborg connections:
Here I am at the United Nations to attend the sessions of the General Assembly. When I telephoned for tickets yesterday, I did not know what would be taken up today. The first business was to vote on and admit the three nations, Afghanistan, Iceland, and Sweden.
North Park College, Chicago, invites Alma Luise to their summer school to present a lecture on Sweden’s Contributions to Democracy and Peace.[40]
In the autumn of 1946, Alma Luise returns home to Lindsborg to live with her sister Ellen at 328 North First Street, the large house built by their father almost a half-century earlier. Next to the mailbox on the front porch she installs a large wooden box to receive her daily copy of the New York Times. Now as Assistant Professor of English at Bethany College, she also gave leadership to study groups discussing peace and the United Nations. Her students hold a United Nations rally, and she established an active chapter of UNESCO. In 1961 she coaches Bethany students who play such leading figures of the era at the UN as Kennedy, Castro, Nasser, Kruschev, and Hammarskjold.[41]
In addition to her faculty commitment and caring for her sister, Alma Luise continues to write, reviewing two book in 1952 for the Journal of Philosophy “Vilhelm Eklund and Nietsche” and “Methods and Results of Kirkegaard Studies in Scandinavia: A Historical and Critical Survey”.[42] In 1955 the Library of Congress notes that Alma Luise Olson reserves the copyright for a Drama “On the Road to Peace: a conversation in three scenes.”[43]
Well before her death on 25 April 1964, the New York Times published her obituary, citing her years as special correspondent in Scandinavia, her book which was praised for its understanding of Scandinavia, the awarding of the Vasa Medallion, that “she was an expert linguist, internationalist and supporter of the United Nations. Her ardent interest in the world organization brought her to many United Nations meetings in New York.” The New York Times obituary also noted that she lived alone in Lindsborg and had no immediate survivors.[44] Alma Luise is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Lindsborg, with her parents and seven siblings.
SO—what can be said about this woman, Alma Luise Olson?
This professional woman, even before woman suffrage, was she so comfortable in her intellect, so confident in her skills, her abilities, her education that she could go anywhere? She was inspired, perhaps by Carl Aaron Swensson who confirmed her in the faith in 1900, who signed her diplomas, and who believed that anything was possible.
She had as a role model Alma Lind Swensson who was a community leader, founder of the Oratorio Society, and the Augustana Women’s Missionary Society, one of the women who created a community of civilized values from the moment she stepped off the train in Lindsborg as a young bride, in 1880. An exceptional hostess, Alma Swensson welcomed bishops, archbishops, senators, governors , scholars to her home—along with members of the Bethany congregation—many of them farm families; and Bethany College graduates for their last event .
Alma is part of the generation, born in America, child of immigrants who sought new opportunities, yet to discover the values of the “old country” to show how far an American woman, born of immigrants, had come?
Perhaps Alma Luise wanted to discover for herself this land of her parents’ birth—this Sweden that so shaped her lineage, her community, her college, her Bethany Professors—many of them neighbors— who were all born and educated there: Grafström, Lotave, Laurin, Bedinger, Brase, Thorsen, Thorstenberg, Sandzén,
and then discovered Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland
She certainly wanted to explain these fascinating countries, to a larger audience—at least the large readership of the New York Times.
Alma Luise arranged her estate. She established the John E. Olson Family Fund at Bethany Lutheran Church with the interest earned during a ten year period be spent on inter-church education progress in Lindsborg and programs promoting world peace. Additional gifts were given to a scholarship fund in Alma Luise’s name at Bethany College. She lists the disposal of family household items, paintings, treasures from her travels, especially Scandinavia., and gifts to friends and cousins in Sweden. She states “With all my friends, named or unnamed, I share my faith in the divine values around us and my gratitude forthe spiritual grandeur of existence. Each passing year has for myself added profound depths to the mystery and miracle of life and death.”[45]
