"The Other Swedes"
Honoring Them and Remembering Them
~ The Groupings, including Swedes from Sweden
1977
Swedish Emigrant Institute Staff from Växjö, Småland, Visits Lindsborg
October 16-18
Honoring Them and Remembering Them
~ The Groupings, including Swedes from Sweden
1977
Swedish Emigrant Institute Staff from Växjö, Småland, Visits Lindsborg
October 16-18
Lindsborg in the 1970s was certainly a busy destination for Swedes from Sweden to come to America for documenting Swedes who had emigrated to America. This staff from the Swedish Emigrant Institute of Växjö, Småland was traveling around the U.S. doing just that.
I had finished up my world travels with the Aussies from 1976 to 1977, then I was spending the rest of 1977 and most of 1978 helping my mother, Lois Fry Cochran, at the Deere home with the Deere Sohlberg Estate, while also working in the evenings at Bethany Home. Therefore, I was home when Mr. Lennart Setterdahl of the House of Emigrants interviewed my mother, Lois Fry Cochran, regarding our Swedish ancestor's immigration story. We had the book that Lydia wrote as her mother Ingrid Sohlberg dictated it, titled "The Story of the Old Spoon" published in 1937, that my mother let him microfilm. He said, the story was as ever interesting as that of the 1949 novel, "The Emigrants," by Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1972).
The article ends with this paragraph which is worth reading it twice to see how Lindsborg was thought of as a "Swedish Center of the Midwest" forty-five years ago [2022].
"Dr. Beibjom is convinced that Swedish Americans need to combine their efforts and unite for the purpose of preserving the records of Swedish immigration. "There should be state or provincial bases, he said. "Lindsborg should be a Center for the Midwest. Above all you need an archivist who can set about the task of properly preserving your growing amount of records and artifacts. Such a person could also be a specialist in Scandinavian history, language, and literature," he suggested."
I had finished up my world travels with the Aussies from 1976 to 1977, then I was spending the rest of 1977 and most of 1978 helping my mother, Lois Fry Cochran, at the Deere home with the Deere Sohlberg Estate, while also working in the evenings at Bethany Home. Therefore, I was home when Mr. Lennart Setterdahl of the House of Emigrants interviewed my mother, Lois Fry Cochran, regarding our Swedish ancestor's immigration story. We had the book that Lydia wrote as her mother Ingrid Sohlberg dictated it, titled "The Story of the Old Spoon" published in 1937, that my mother let him microfilm. He said, the story was as ever interesting as that of the 1949 novel, "The Emigrants," by Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1972).
The article ends with this paragraph which is worth reading it twice to see how Lindsborg was thought of as a "Swedish Center of the Midwest" forty-five years ago [2022].
"Dr. Beibjom is convinced that Swedish Americans need to combine their efforts and unite for the purpose of preserving the records of Swedish immigration. "There should be state or provincial bases, he said. "Lindsborg should be a Center for the Midwest. Above all you need an archivist who can set about the task of properly preserving your growing amount of records and artifacts. Such a person could also be a specialist in Scandinavian history, language, and literature," he suggested."
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Lindsborg News-Record: Thursday October 28, 1977
Front Page
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Lindsborg News-Record: Thursday October 28, 1977
Front Page
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"HOUSE OF EMIGRANTS" -- Lennart Setterdahl (left) and Dr. Ulf Beijbom of the Växjö, Sweden, Emigrant Institute, investigate Swedish-American cultural attitudes with Mrs. Estred Schwantes, assistant in public relations at Bethany College. Dr. Beijbom toured Lindsborg October 16-18 while on a U.S. visit for Scanpresence II. Setterdahl continues to use Lindsborg as an area headquarters for his microfilming early Swedish-American records--an Institute project now in its tenth year.
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ARTICLE
Emigrant Institute Director Visits Lindsborg
Emigrant Institute Director Visits Lindsborg
Dr. Ulf Beibjom, Director of the Emigrant Institute, Växjö, Småland, Sweden, visited Lindsborg and other U.S. communities during October with extended stops in Swedish American communities. Here he was a guest of the Great Plains Chapter of the American Scandinavian Foundation, October 16-18.
Dr. Beibjom participated in Scanpresence II, a conference dealing with the Scandinavian presence in America, October 6-8, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Before returning to Sweden on October 21, he also visited Willmar, Minnesota; Rockford, Rock Island, Bishop Hill and Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Beibjom has been director of the 11-year-old Emigrant Institute, and the House of Emigrants Museum which the Institute sponsors, since its founding. The Institute is supported by the Swedish Government and is charged with responsibility for amassing information and varied source materials on the major 1860-1930 emigration period, when 1.25 million Swedes left their homeland, mainly for America.
"One out of five of those emigrants came from Småland," Dr. Beibjom said, "so that the province was almost depopulated. The immensity of the emigration is better understood when one realizes that in 1850 Sweden had a total population of only 4 million.
Because Småland was the center of emigration, the Emigrant Institute and its House of Emigrants is now located in Växjö in Småland. However, the Institute concerns itself with the impact of the emigration on the entire country. It does little work in Värmland, because that province has its own institute in Karlstad. The two institutes cooperate in all their work.
Dr. Beibjom described the vast extent of materials available from his organization. There are index files, registers, microfilm; bound volumes of emigrants leaving from various ports; U.S. census records, church membership lists, and city directories from the period. The Institute is a treasure-house for persons researching their family histories.
"Mr. Lennart Setterdahl, representative of the Institute in the United States for the past ten years, continues to microfilm materials for us," Dr. Beibjom pointed out." Mr. Setterdahl has spent several weeks in Lindsborg during the past year carrying out his work. Both Setterdahl and Beibjom remarked that this is a particularly fruitful time to gather material. "When the older generation dies, the survivors are more inclined to share letters, records, diaries, and other memorabilia with us," they said.
Dr. Beibjom is convinced that Swedish Americans need to combine their efforts and unite for the purpose of preserving the records of Swedish immigration. "There should be state or provincial bases, he said. "Lindsborg should be a Center for the Midwest. Above all you need an archivist who can set about the task of properly preserving your growing amount of records and artifacts. Such a person could also be a specialist in Scandinavian history, language, and literature," he suggested.
A reception honoring Dr. Beibjom was held at the home of Rev. and Mrs. Roy Molander on Sunday afternoon, October 16.
Dr. Beibjom participated in Scanpresence II, a conference dealing with the Scandinavian presence in America, October 6-8, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Before returning to Sweden on October 21, he also visited Willmar, Minnesota; Rockford, Rock Island, Bishop Hill and Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Beibjom has been director of the 11-year-old Emigrant Institute, and the House of Emigrants Museum which the Institute sponsors, since its founding. The Institute is supported by the Swedish Government and is charged with responsibility for amassing information and varied source materials on the major 1860-1930 emigration period, when 1.25 million Swedes left their homeland, mainly for America.
"One out of five of those emigrants came from Småland," Dr. Beibjom said, "so that the province was almost depopulated. The immensity of the emigration is better understood when one realizes that in 1850 Sweden had a total population of only 4 million.
Because Småland was the center of emigration, the Emigrant Institute and its House of Emigrants is now located in Växjö in Småland. However, the Institute concerns itself with the impact of the emigration on the entire country. It does little work in Värmland, because that province has its own institute in Karlstad. The two institutes cooperate in all their work.
Dr. Beibjom described the vast extent of materials available from his organization. There are index files, registers, microfilm; bound volumes of emigrants leaving from various ports; U.S. census records, church membership lists, and city directories from the period. The Institute is a treasure-house for persons researching their family histories.
"Mr. Lennart Setterdahl, representative of the Institute in the United States for the past ten years, continues to microfilm materials for us," Dr. Beibjom pointed out." Mr. Setterdahl has spent several weeks in Lindsborg during the past year carrying out his work. Both Setterdahl and Beibjom remarked that this is a particularly fruitful time to gather material. "When the older generation dies, the survivors are more inclined to share letters, records, diaries, and other memorabilia with us," they said.
Dr. Beibjom is convinced that Swedish Americans need to combine their efforts and unite for the purpose of preserving the records of Swedish immigration. "There should be state or provincial bases, he said. "Lindsborg should be a Center for the Midwest. Above all you need an archivist who can set about the task of properly preserving your growing amount of records and artifacts. Such a person could also be a specialist in Scandinavian history, language, and literature," he suggested.
A reception honoring Dr. Beibjom was held at the home of Rev. and Mrs. Roy Molander on Sunday afternoon, October 16.
Original Lindsborg News Record Clipping
October 27, 1977
October 27, 1977
Page 3
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"Let Us Celebrate Them"
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Swedes: TheWayTheyWere
~ restoring lost local histories ~
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