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Their 1909 and 1919 Swedish Smoky Valley Community Chronicles
~ Compiled and written by Bethany Lutheran Church Rev. Dr. Alfred Bergin, members and others
~ Compiled and written by Bethany Lutheran Church Rev. Dr. Alfred Bergin, members and others
This work was authorized by a decision of the Bethany Congregation at its annual meeting in January, 1908, “. . . that the church board is authorized to have a book printed concerning the history of the Lindsborg settlement for its fortieth anniversary: The Church board later decided that “. . . the pastor alone be responsible for this publication, but may ask anyone for help.” -- [Foreword] by Alfred Bergin, Lindsborg, Kansas, New Year’s Day 1909
When Lydia and Emil arrived in Lindsborg, it must have been a time of great anticipation and excitement for building the community and Bethany College!
Lydia's family, after living in Minnesota for eighteen years, would arrive in McPherson, Kansas in 1880, twelve years after the founding of the First Swedish Agricultural Company in 1868, and 13 years after the founding of Lindsborg in 1869; and one year before the founding of Bethany College.
She would move to Lindsborg with her two sisters in 1900 after graduating from McPherson College. As a youngster to 1900, she had helped her father Anders Gustaf Sohlberg in his McPherson Sohlberg Mercantile business on Main and Kansas Streets. This on-the-job-training with her degree in Commerce readied her to open up her own business in Lindsborg, a millinery shop, on Main Street.
Emil would arrive in Lindsborg in 1899 from his Manhattan Agricultural College studies to continue them there at the request of Bethany College founder and president Dr. Rev. Carl Aaron Swensson. This would be 18 years after the founding of Bethany and 30 years after the founding of Lindsborg.
With their membership at the Bethany Lutheran Church, they would have experienced the compilation of two books written in the Swedish language, the one in 1909 was "Lindsborg, Bidrag Till Svenskarnas och Den Lutherska Kyrkans Historia i Smoky Hill River Dalen" which would be translated in 1965 to "Pioneer Swedish-American Culture in Central Kansas, " the second in 1919 was "Lindsborg Efter Femtio Ӓr" which would be translated in 1969 to "The Smoky Valley in The After Years."
The sole responsibility to produce these two Swedish books rested with their pastor, the Swedish Bethany Lutheran Church Rev. Alfred Bergin (1866-1944) who would ask for assistance from his congregation to produce these chronicles on the settling and developing of Lindsborg and the neighboring Swedish enclaves in the Smoky Valley. Other than the local newspaper and other publications from the College beginning in 1881, these would be the books that future Smoky Valley writers would go to, not to mention the Church archives, in their endeavors to create their own literary works on the Swedes of the Valley found in its various communities and at its Bethany Lutheran College.
One such writer to do so would be Dr. Emory K. Lindquist (1908-1992) the fourth Swedish American President of Bethany College when he wrote and published the Smoky Valley People, A History of Lindsborg, Kansas in 1953. This would be "the" premier and only comprehensive accurate book on Lindsborg as her citizenship of Swedish and Swedish American descendants would agree as no other such book on "Little Sweden, U.S.A." has ever been written in such detail with such dedication. A beginning of a review of it is found HERE.
Lydia's family, after living in Minnesota for eighteen years, would arrive in McPherson, Kansas in 1880, twelve years after the founding of the First Swedish Agricultural Company in 1868, and 13 years after the founding of Lindsborg in 1869; and one year before the founding of Bethany College.
She would move to Lindsborg with her two sisters in 1900 after graduating from McPherson College. As a youngster to 1900, she had helped her father Anders Gustaf Sohlberg in his McPherson Sohlberg Mercantile business on Main and Kansas Streets. This on-the-job-training with her degree in Commerce readied her to open up her own business in Lindsborg, a millinery shop, on Main Street.
Emil would arrive in Lindsborg in 1899 from his Manhattan Agricultural College studies to continue them there at the request of Bethany College founder and president Dr. Rev. Carl Aaron Swensson. This would be 18 years after the founding of Bethany and 30 years after the founding of Lindsborg.
With their membership at the Bethany Lutheran Church, they would have experienced the compilation of two books written in the Swedish language, the one in 1909 was "Lindsborg, Bidrag Till Svenskarnas och Den Lutherska Kyrkans Historia i Smoky Hill River Dalen" which would be translated in 1965 to "Pioneer Swedish-American Culture in Central Kansas, " the second in 1919 was "Lindsborg Efter Femtio Ӓr" which would be translated in 1969 to "The Smoky Valley in The After Years."
The sole responsibility to produce these two Swedish books rested with their pastor, the Swedish Bethany Lutheran Church Rev. Alfred Bergin (1866-1944) who would ask for assistance from his congregation to produce these chronicles on the settling and developing of Lindsborg and the neighboring Swedish enclaves in the Smoky Valley. Other than the local newspaper and other publications from the College beginning in 1881, these would be the books that future Smoky Valley writers would go to, not to mention the Church archives, in their endeavors to create their own literary works on the Swedes of the Valley found in its various communities and at its Bethany Lutheran College.
One such writer to do so would be Dr. Emory K. Lindquist (1908-1992) the fourth Swedish American President of Bethany College when he wrote and published the Smoky Valley People, A History of Lindsborg, Kansas in 1953. This would be "the" premier and only comprehensive accurate book on Lindsborg as her citizenship of Swedish and Swedish American descendants would agree as no other such book on "Little Sweden, U.S.A." has ever been written in such detail with such dedication. A beginning of a review of it is found HERE.
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- Alfred Bergin and His Family -
Adelle, Mrs. Bergin, Dr. Bergin, Ruth, Ester
&
Bethany Lutheran Church
- Alfred Bergin and His Family -
Adelle, Mrs. Bergin, Dr. Bergin, Ruth, Ester
&
Bethany Lutheran Church
Source: "The Smoky Valley in the After Years" by Ruth Billdt and Elizabeth Jaderborg, 1969.
During the time that the first Swedish book was being written in 1908 under the leadership of Rev. Bergin, on Easter of that year, the Church, the College and Lindsborg hosted the Swedish American Presidential candidate, the honorable John A. Johnson of Minnesota, during the Easter Holy Week. Below is Lydia's photograph of the very tall imposing Johnson in the center of his supporters and to the right, equally tall and imposing, is Rev. Bergin, all in front of Sohlberg House, the home of my great great grandparents, Anders and Ingrid Sohlberg.
Source: Lydia Sohlberg Photograph and found also in "The Smoky Valley in The After Years."
As a teenager, in 1965, living in Sohlberg House, I remember the exciting summer day of meeting Ruth Billdt in a hallway at the Bethany Home for the Aged one afternoon to pick up her autographed book just hot off the press for my mother. It was the translation into English from the Swedish of her father's book.
Go HERE, to learn about this 1965 book, "Pioneer Swedish-American Culture in Central Kansas" (translated from
"Lindsborg, Bidrag Till Svenskarnas och Den Lutherska Kyrkans Historia i Smoky Hill River Dalen")
"Lindsborg, Bidrag Till Svenskarnas och Den Lutherska Kyrkans Historia i Smoky Hill River Dalen")
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Swedes: TheWayTheyWere
~ restoring lost local histories ~
reconnecting past to present
* * *
All color photography throughout Swedes: The Way They Were is by Fran Cochran unless otherwise indicated.
Copyright © since October 8, 2015 to Current Year
as indicated on main menu sections of
www.swedesthewaytheywere.org. All rights reserved.
Swedes: TheWayTheyWere
~ restoring lost local histories ~
reconnecting past to present
* * *
All color photography throughout Swedes: The Way They Were is by Fran Cochran unless otherwise indicated.
Copyright © since October 8, 2015 to Current Year
as indicated on main menu sections of
www.swedesthewaytheywere.org. All rights reserved.
