~ ...these Swedish immigrants coming to America were not the very poor or indigent, but had some financial means to assist settling in this new country ~
--Bill Carlson / Alf Brorson *
--Bill Carlson / Alf Brorson *
Swedes: TheWayTheyWere
~ A Slice of Swedish Americana ~
~ A Slice of Swedish Americana ~
Dear Viewers:
In the midst of the beautiful Smoky Valley located on the Great Plains of Kansas was established the little Swedish American city of Lindsborg in 1869 by a group of 35 pietistic Christian families, numbering 110.** Arriving in June of 1869 were the Swedish immigrants from the Värmland region, part of a larger group which were lead by Pastor Olof Olsson (1841-1900) who was born in Karlskoga, Sweden. In that same year in August, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church (today known as Bethany Lutheran Church) was founded by this twenty-eight-year-old (28) pastor who was educated at the Swedish universities of Stockholm and Upsala, and spent a year in the Missionary Institute at Leipzig, Germany. (Olsson would one day become a prominent Swedish American Lutheran clergyman and the third president of the Swedish Augustana Evangelical Lutheran College in Rock Island, Illinois.)
The First Swedish Agricultural Company organized in Chicago in 1868 purchased 13,160 acres of Kansas land in Saline and McPherson counties from the Union Pacific Railroad for the purpose of providing homesteads to the Swedes who were immigrating from Sweden. This resulted in scattered Swedish settlements throughout the Kansas Smoky Valley, including Pastor Olsson's group and the settlement of the Galesburg Company Swedes from Illinois. All members of the First Swedish Agricultural Company were required to be believing Christians adhering to the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
On February 20, 1869, the Lindsborg name was adopted at the meeting of the First Swedish Agricultura Company in Chicago. The name of Lindsborg, its first syllable of "Linds," was derived from the surnames of First Swedish Agricultural Company members such as Lindell, Lindh, Lindgren, Lindey and Lindberg. The second syllable of the name "borg" translated means "city" or "fortified place."
In 1881, on October 15th, this farming community with a population of 700, became the home of Bethany Lutheran Academy, later known as Bethany Lutheran College, founded by the dynamic twenty-four-year-old (24) Swedish American second pastor of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church, Carl Aaron Swensson (1857-1904).
Due to Swensson's faith, vision, leadership, eye and ear for talent, and "can do" spirit; and with the immediate beginnings of what would become a fine college museum, Bethany College was to be a cultural mecca of education. It would draw many to its superb music and art programs, culminating with the nationally and internationally known annual Easter Holy Week performances of the prominent German-British Baroque composer George Frideric Handel's Messiah and, in time, the College would give birth to an art movement created by Swedish artist college professor Birger Sandzén (1871-1954) whose works would grace the walls of Sweden's major art galleries, and who would be regionally and nationally acclaimed and specifically desired by Swedish American and Swedish art lovers to this day.
Traveling to Bethany College fresh from Paris in 1894, at twenty-three European taught artist Sven Birger Sandzén and student of renown Sweden's artist Anders Zorn, he was destined to establish in his teaching techniques, "a contagious love for art and its understanding" within this rural community that continues today. The year after Sandzén’s arrival, in the first Bethany Annual (the yearbook of that day), Swensson's ad, succinctly, powerfully and with great zeal, describes the disciplines of the College and notes that there was "no equal in the West for Bethany’s Music and Art Programs! "
In 1901, Swensson received the order of the "Knights of the North Star" from King Oscar II (1829-1907) of Sweden, as a result of his many contributions and promoting Swedish life through the church, the college, and beyond Lindsborg. Sandzén was also knighted by the Swedish Crown that same year of 1901 and would be again in 1940. These two Swedish gentlemen would be two (2) of fourteen (14) such Lindsborg residents of the Bethany College family to be honored in such a way by the Swedish Crown!
Driving those pioneer and post-pioneer years of the Swedish Kansas Smoky Valley Lindsborg and its surrounding Swedish enclaves, however, was the unmovable foundation of a Christian faith found in the Bethany Lutheran Church, the Salemsborg Lutheran Church, and the Freemount Lutheran Church -- all of which belonged to the Augustana Lutheran Synod, and all which were founded when Lindsborg was founded in 1869, 150 years ago! Three decades later, in 1908, the first English speaking Lutheran church in Lindsborg was founded as the Messiah Lutheran Church. Yet, to these early Lutheran congregations, also, other smaller denominations soon settled in Lindsborg -- the Swedish Baptist Church, Swedish Methodist Church, Swedish Mission Church, Free Mission Church and English Methodist Church.
Lindsborg as well as all Swedish American communities is the United States in 1937 was called to task in establishing a $750,000 endowment for Philadelphia’s American Swedish Historical Museum for the 1938 300th Anniversary of the founding of New Sweden. As they were addressed then in an instructional brochure as the "Sons and Daughters of a People that Helped Lay the Foundations of the Republic," they too were hard at work to ensure that this great museum's life would go on into perpetuity!
Somewhere in the early 1960's, the Lindsborg of Kansas became known as "Little Sweden, U.S.A." Earlier, it may be that Lindsborg was referred to as "Little Swedish Lindsborg," so described in Swensson's 1897 book, Again in Sweden, in the first chapter, "Off for Sweden," in the second paragraph where Swensson writes: "But as of yet, I am still in, little, Swedish Lindsborg, in faraway Kansas."
In the midst of the beautiful Smoky Valley located on the Great Plains of Kansas was established the little Swedish American city of Lindsborg in 1869 by a group of 35 pietistic Christian families, numbering 110.** Arriving in June of 1869 were the Swedish immigrants from the Värmland region, part of a larger group which were lead by Pastor Olof Olsson (1841-1900) who was born in Karlskoga, Sweden. In that same year in August, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church (today known as Bethany Lutheran Church) was founded by this twenty-eight-year-old (28) pastor who was educated at the Swedish universities of Stockholm and Upsala, and spent a year in the Missionary Institute at Leipzig, Germany. (Olsson would one day become a prominent Swedish American Lutheran clergyman and the third president of the Swedish Augustana Evangelical Lutheran College in Rock Island, Illinois.)
The First Swedish Agricultural Company organized in Chicago in 1868 purchased 13,160 acres of Kansas land in Saline and McPherson counties from the Union Pacific Railroad for the purpose of providing homesteads to the Swedes who were immigrating from Sweden. This resulted in scattered Swedish settlements throughout the Kansas Smoky Valley, including Pastor Olsson's group and the settlement of the Galesburg Company Swedes from Illinois. All members of the First Swedish Agricultural Company were required to be believing Christians adhering to the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
On February 20, 1869, the Lindsborg name was adopted at the meeting of the First Swedish Agricultura Company in Chicago. The name of Lindsborg, its first syllable of "Linds," was derived from the surnames of First Swedish Agricultural Company members such as Lindell, Lindh, Lindgren, Lindey and Lindberg. The second syllable of the name "borg" translated means "city" or "fortified place."
In 1881, on October 15th, this farming community with a population of 700, became the home of Bethany Lutheran Academy, later known as Bethany Lutheran College, founded by the dynamic twenty-four-year-old (24) Swedish American second pastor of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church, Carl Aaron Swensson (1857-1904).
Due to Swensson's faith, vision, leadership, eye and ear for talent, and "can do" spirit; and with the immediate beginnings of what would become a fine college museum, Bethany College was to be a cultural mecca of education. It would draw many to its superb music and art programs, culminating with the nationally and internationally known annual Easter Holy Week performances of the prominent German-British Baroque composer George Frideric Handel's Messiah and, in time, the College would give birth to an art movement created by Swedish artist college professor Birger Sandzén (1871-1954) whose works would grace the walls of Sweden's major art galleries, and who would be regionally and nationally acclaimed and specifically desired by Swedish American and Swedish art lovers to this day.
Traveling to Bethany College fresh from Paris in 1894, at twenty-three European taught artist Sven Birger Sandzén and student of renown Sweden's artist Anders Zorn, he was destined to establish in his teaching techniques, "a contagious love for art and its understanding" within this rural community that continues today. The year after Sandzén’s arrival, in the first Bethany Annual (the yearbook of that day), Swensson's ad, succinctly, powerfully and with great zeal, describes the disciplines of the College and notes that there was "no equal in the West for Bethany’s Music and Art Programs! "
In 1901, Swensson received the order of the "Knights of the North Star" from King Oscar II (1829-1907) of Sweden, as a result of his many contributions and promoting Swedish life through the church, the college, and beyond Lindsborg. Sandzén was also knighted by the Swedish Crown that same year of 1901 and would be again in 1940. These two Swedish gentlemen would be two (2) of fourteen (14) such Lindsborg residents of the Bethany College family to be honored in such a way by the Swedish Crown!
Driving those pioneer and post-pioneer years of the Swedish Kansas Smoky Valley Lindsborg and its surrounding Swedish enclaves, however, was the unmovable foundation of a Christian faith found in the Bethany Lutheran Church, the Salemsborg Lutheran Church, and the Freemount Lutheran Church -- all of which belonged to the Augustana Lutheran Synod, and all which were founded when Lindsborg was founded in 1869, 150 years ago! Three decades later, in 1908, the first English speaking Lutheran church in Lindsborg was founded as the Messiah Lutheran Church. Yet, to these early Lutheran congregations, also, other smaller denominations soon settled in Lindsborg -- the Swedish Baptist Church, Swedish Methodist Church, Swedish Mission Church, Free Mission Church and English Methodist Church.
Lindsborg as well as all Swedish American communities is the United States in 1937 was called to task in establishing a $750,000 endowment for Philadelphia’s American Swedish Historical Museum for the 1938 300th Anniversary of the founding of New Sweden. As they were addressed then in an instructional brochure as the "Sons and Daughters of a People that Helped Lay the Foundations of the Republic," they too were hard at work to ensure that this great museum's life would go on into perpetuity!
Somewhere in the early 1960's, the Lindsborg of Kansas became known as "Little Sweden, U.S.A." Earlier, it may be that Lindsborg was referred to as "Little Swedish Lindsborg," so described in Swensson's 1897 book, Again in Sweden, in the first chapter, "Off for Sweden," in the second paragraph where Swensson writes: "But as of yet, I am still in, little, Swedish Lindsborg, in faraway Kansas."
" Lindsborg - Where Culture and Agriculture Meet "
- a phrase from The Spur by Howard Lincoln so aptly described this little Swedish Kansas city - ***
viewed from Coronado Heights named for Spanish Explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado thought to have explored this area in 1541
Thus, this is the historical background for Swedes: TheWayTheyWere, aka Swedes, the information of which I gratefully gathered from the works of the "Smoky Valley Writers," while making periodic visits to the Smoky Valley Historical Association website www.smokyvalleyhistory.org, the written content of which was composed by Association president, writer and historian, the late Chris Abercrombie (1949-2017), who, in addition, continued making available valuable and countless YouTube presentations concerning Lindsborg, Bethany College and Coronado Heights history.
Although not finished, Swedes was first published on the eve of Lindsborg's 75th Svensk Hyllningsfest on October 8, 2015. This Swedish American online historical story consists of many collections composed of my research findings, photographs, images, and texts from and about the Swedish American Lindsborg relatives I have come to know well through the estate they left behind. This brought me face-to-face with their Swedishness, with tracing my family back to Sweden and traveling there in 2016 and 2017. But, most importantly, this experience introduced me to their Lindsborg and Bethany Swedish friends, to "The Other Swedes," to their contemporaries, and to the events and activities of their times, at the end of the 19th century to the mid twentieth century when the population grew from that 700 in 1881 to 2,383 in 1950.
The story begins under the HOME section entitled, The Bethany Artist & the Bethany Scientist: Lydia & Emil, summarizing the founding of Lindsborg and the Bethany Lutheran Church to topics of the earliest books recording the settlements of the Swedes and expanding to the founding of Bethany College bringing in the lives of Lydia and Emil and their contemporaries within that context. Showcased, also, is this couple's 1873 Swedish homestead, their 1920's Coronado Heights' photograph project, their witness to the annual renown Messiah performances and the artists' Midwest Art Exhibitions, their 1902 "Terrible Swedes", their 1904 St. Louis World's Fair Swedish Pavilion, their Bethany College Anniversary Celebrations, their 1937 introduction to New Sweden, and their friends: Emory Lindquist, and his 1975 "Bethany in Kansas, the history of a college," and Leon Lungstrom and his 1990 "History of Natural Science and Mathematics at Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas."
From the HOME section across, Swedes grows exponentially -- from detailing the A.G. Sohlberg Swedish immigration experiences to highlighting the Kosta and Stockholm Ulric Sohlberg family Swedish collections; and, to the art endeavors in Lydia's life and the Bethany College endeavors of Emil's life while showcasing their Swedish Lindsborg Bethany College contemporaries.
Throughout Swedes are found early pieces of information, stories and anecdotes of their Swedish college, and of a few of the College and cultural activities and events of their times, while visually documenting some of these intermittently with Lydia's "black and white" photographs.
Swedes finishes, most importantly, with recognizing and honoring their friends, their contemporaries, the other Swedes in Lindsborg and at Bethany College, under the last section: "The Other Swedes," to whom it is dedicated including their Swedish descendants of today along with my relatives, Lydia Sohlberg Deere and Emil Olof Deere.
This 21st Century virtual environment experience has been created with the hope that one day some of these descendants' Swedish stories and collections will also be shared in other websites and linked to Swedes to provide a far more complete and richer Swedish tapestry of Lindsborg and its Bethany College for the history of Swedish America. Most importantly though, Swedes has been created for the restoration and preservation of some of the lost local histories to reconnect them to the present to bring them "alive" and to secure them for the future cultural sustainability of this unique community established by Swedes in 1869.
Now Begin your journey back to the end of the 19th Century moving into the 20th, to lives lived in this special Kansas Swedish community of "brick" main streets with its special Swedish College when the ties to Sweden were at their purest and strongest, and the mother language was spoken daily!
Njuta av (Enjoy),
Fran Cochran
Great grandniece of Swedish Americans' Lydia Sohlberg Deere and Emil O. Deere
Kansas Smoky Valley Swedish American 5th generation Lindsborg resident (1962-1968)
Lindsborg Rural High School & Bethany College Graduate (1964 & 1968)
San Francisco Bay Area Resident since 1968
For all topics that comprise this Home section, go below to the directory:
| home_for_swedesthewaytheywere_directory.docx |
* * *
" . . . no equal in the West for Bethany’s Music and Art Programs! "
THE "CAN DO" SPIRIT OF A SWENSSON AD FOR HIS DEAR BETHANY
THE "CAN DO" SPIRIT OF A SWENSSON AD FOR HIS DEAR BETHANY
Source: Annual 1895-1896
* * *
CARL AARON SWENSSON
1857 - 1904
(Born near Sugar Grove, Pennsylvania of Swedish parents from Smaland, Sweden)
CARL AARON SWENSSON
1857 - 1904
(Born near Sugar Grove, Pennsylvania of Swedish parents from Smaland, Sweden)
Founder & Second President of Bethany Lutheran College
Second (2nd) Swedish Pastor of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church
Second (2nd) Swedish Pastor of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church
Ordained at Uppsala Cathedral, Uppsula, Sweden, December 15, 1863
Swedish Founder and First Pastor of the
Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church
who officially led the first Swedish party from Värmland to settle in Lindsborg, Kansas.
(He would become the third President of the Swedish Evangelical Augustana Lutheran College.)
Swedish Founder and First Pastor of the
Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church
who officially led the first Swedish party from Värmland to settle in Lindsborg, Kansas.
(He would become the third President of the Swedish Evangelical Augustana Lutheran College.)
V Ӓ R M L A N D S W E D E N
- The region from where Pastor Olsson's group of Evangelical Lutheran Swedes immigrated to Lindsborg -
V Ӓ R M L A N D C O S T U M E S
Source: 1894 Algot E. Strand's "Fosterländska Minnen"
Source: picclick.co.uk
* NOTE THAT ON THESE POST CARDS THE SWEDISH SPELLING OF VӒRMLAND IS " VERMLAND"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SINCE OCTOBER 31, 1991
THE VӒRMLAND CITY OF "MUNKFORS" AND THE KANSAS CITY OF "LINDSBORG" HAVE BEEN "SWEDISH SISTER CITIES"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SINCE OCTOBER 31, 1991
THE VӒRMLAND CITY OF "MUNKFORS" AND THE KANSAS CITY OF "LINDSBORG" HAVE BEEN "SWEDISH SISTER CITIES"
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* * *
~ the little Swedish city, its Swedish church and its Swedish college evolved together ~
Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church
Founded 1869
(1874 original building, 1880 building expansion)
Then and Now
Founded 1869
(1874 original building, 1880 building expansion)
Then and Now
Alfred Bergin
1866 - 1942
(Born in Västergötland, Sweden)
Third (3rd) Swedish Pastor for the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Bethany Church for 38 Years
First (1st) Swedish Historian of Lindsborg and Smoky Valley
- destined as church leader with members to compile and write about Lindsborg and the Smoky Valley from the very beginning -
- publishing in 1909 & 1919 respectively
" Lindsborg, Bidrag Till Svenskarnas och Den Lutherska Kyrkans Historia i Smoky Hill River Dalen "
&
" Lindsborg Efter Femtio Ӓr "
In its beginnings, the Bethany Lutheran Church worship services were conducted in Swedish, and then, in time, additional English services were introduced, eventually giving way to all English services. However, before that time in 1908, an all English language Lutheran church was founded due to the initial efforts of G. N. Malm. The church, located on the Bethany College campus, was named the Messiah Lutheran Church.
* * *
Messiah Lutheran Church
Founded 1908
Located on the Bethany College Campus
Provided needed English worship services to non-Swede Bethany students and faculty, and Lindsborg residents!
Messiah Lutheran Church
Founded 1908
Located on the Bethany College Campus
Provided needed English worship services to non-Swede Bethany students and faculty, and Lindsborg residents!
Source: 1969, "The Smoky Valley in The After Years" by Ruth Billdt & Elizabeth Jaderborg: PLATE IX, after page 44
* * *
The Other Churches of Lindsborg Then
The Other Churches of Lindsborg Then
* * *
Some of "The Other Swedes" Were These
Supporting Swedish American Presidential Candidate Honorable John A. Johnson Governor of Minnesota
Messiah Easter Week 1908
Photographed by Lydia Sohlberg Deere at Sohlberg House
Some Were These
Bethany College
"Swedish Knights and Honored Ladies"
Below are their pictures arranged as to the years these Swedes received honor from the Swedish Crown for their many Swedish American endeavors.
Rows
1 -- Swensson 1901, Sandzén 1901 and 1940, Udden 1911, Pihlblad 1920, Lincoln 1930
2 -- Olson 1940, Brase 1947, Greenough 1963, A.W. Lindquist 1976, E.K. Lindquist 1976
3 -- Hahn 1976, Ristuben 1990, Sandzén-Greenough 1991, Karstadt 2010
Click on their pictures to learn of their Swedish honors. Click HERE to learn more.
Rows
1 -- Swensson 1901, Sandzén 1901 and 1940, Udden 1911, Pihlblad 1920, Lincoln 1930
2 -- Olson 1940, Brase 1947, Greenough 1963, A.W. Lindquist 1976, E.K. Lindquist 1976
3 -- Hahn 1976, Ristuben 1990, Sandzén-Greenough 1991, Karstadt 2010
Click on their pictures to learn of their Swedish honors. Click HERE to learn more.
Some Were These
The Bethany College "Terrible Swedes"
The Bethany College "Terrible Swedes"
Source: Near page 198 of Emory Lindquists' 1953 Smoky Valley People
- In "their day," this was their Bethany College -
Photography by Lydia Sohlberg Deere
And so it was with my own Swedish American family that 14 family members of 4 generations graduated from Bethany College. George Gustaf Sohlberg was the first to graduate in May of 1884 with Bethany's first graduating class when it was an Academy. I was the last Sohlberg to graduate in May of 1968, the day after which Swensson's wonderful Old Main building was to be torn down.
- May 1884 -
Anton S. Anderson, Otto Hawkinson, John Welin, George G. Sohlberg, Victor Swanson
became
"the first" Bethany Academy Graduates
commencement exercises taking place at Bethany Church
Source: Photo from the Sohlberg Papers, but can also be seen on page 10 of Bethany in Kansas
Then, this was their Bethany College
Bethany's "First Building" of 1882
- The very "heart" of the College -
- May 21, 1891 -
Eric Glad, J.A. Westerlund, Ernst F. Pihlblad, Julius Lincoln
became
"the first" Bethany College baccalaureate degree graduates
Source: "Bethany in Kansas" page 21
* * *
and
this was, and still is, their 1903 Swedish college cheer
ROCKAR! STOCKAR!
THOR OCH HANS BOCKAR!
KöR IGENOM! KöR IGENOM!
TJU! TJU! TJU!
BETHANIA
* * *
OLD MAIN
1887 - 1968
1887 - 1968
1887 SWEDISH MOTIF
- On OLD MAIN walls behind the 1968 Business Club meeting when I was president -
Source: 1968 Bethanian
1904
Swedish Pavilion Gift from Sweden to Lindsborg's Bethany College
Swedish Pavilion Gift from Sweden to Lindsborg's Bethany College
Source: Bror G. Gröndal Photographer
* * *
1976
- THE KING OF SWEDEN IN LINDSBORG -
Source: The Bethany Magazine, Spring Issue 1976, Editor A. John Pearson, Assistant Estred Johnson Schwantes.
Cover photo by Jim Turner.
These pioneer Swedes could have never dreamed (although Bethany College Founder Dr. Rev. Carl Aaron Swensson might have) that the King of Sweden would visit their little Swedish Lindsborg and its college. Yet, in 1976, that is just what happened on April 17th when King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden visited Bethany and Lindsborg.
- Munkfors, Värmland, Sweden "Sister City" of Lindsborg, Kansas, U.S.A. -
- Since October 31, 1991 -
(due to the initial efforts and foresight of Mayor Don Anderson, who held this office from 1989 to 2001)
Sohlberg Post Card
* Bill Carlson, from his 2010 book, Lindsborg Then and Lindsborg Now, page 21-22.
* Alf Brorson is an author, journalist and retired teacher from Torsby, Sweden whose column, A Sweden Letter, appears periodically in the Lindsborg News Record.
** Source: Fourth Swedish American Bethany College President Emory Lindquist's 1953 book, Smoky Valley People, page 14, Chapter II, "The Coming of the Swedes."
*** Taken from page 164 of Ruth Billdt's 1965 Pioneer Swedish-American Culture in Central Kansas, a translation of the 1909 "LINDSBORG, Bidrag Till Svenskarnas och Den Lutherska Kyrkans Historia i Smoky Hill River Dalen" by her father, Dr. Rev. Alfred Bergin of Bethany Lutheran Church.
* Alf Brorson is an author, journalist and retired teacher from Torsby, Sweden whose column, A Sweden Letter, appears periodically in the Lindsborg News Record.
** Source: Fourth Swedish American Bethany College President Emory Lindquist's 1953 book, Smoky Valley People, page 14, Chapter II, "The Coming of the Swedes."
*** Taken from page 164 of Ruth Billdt's 1965 Pioneer Swedish-American Culture in Central Kansas, a translation of the 1909 "LINDSBORG, Bidrag Till Svenskarnas och Den Lutherska Kyrkans Historia i Smoky Hill River Dalen" by her father, Dr. Rev. Alfred Bergin of Bethany Lutheran Church.
* * *
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, or obviously concluded it is not.
Copyright © 2019 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, or obviously concluded it is not.
Copyright © 2019 www.swedesthewaytheywere.org. All rights reserved.
