"The Other Swedes"
~ Celebrating Them ~
~ The Smoky Valley Writers ~
REWORKING THIS
Mr. Chris A. Abercrombie
~ President of the Smoky Valley Historical Association, creator of the Website and Vår Historia --the newsletter and much more as
a historian, writer, researcher, interviewer, video producer and collector
~ Celebrating Them ~
~ The Smoky Valley Writers ~
REWORKING THIS
Mr. Chris A. Abercrombie
~ President of the Smoky Valley Historical Association, creator of the Website and Vår Historia --the newsletter and much more as
a historian, writer, researcher, interviewer, video producer and collector
Mr. Chris Abercrombie
(1949-2017)
Courtesy of Smoky Valley Historical Association
Chris left us before my desired appointment to interview him. His brother said that on top of all of his papers was my most recent email concerning a “virtual museum” that I wanted to discuss with him along with the interview which would have involved his work, projects and dreams concerning local history and of his collection of labeled artifacts important to Lindsborg, Bethany College and the Smoky Valley area, which some say is extensive.
His very large home collection would have presented a smorgasbord of subjects to write about. I wished only that someone could have really interviewed this modern historian on the Swedish Smoky Valley's past.
Chris was a very interesting person who contributed several wonderful articles usually with illustrations to the Lindsborg News-Record as former owner and editor John Marshall recalls, stating that his articles were "engaging, important, and well written." Even before Mr. Marshall's tenure, Chris had been submitting ongoing articles to the LNR.
Mr. Marshall mentioned that he recalled one among many of his stories that of his grandmother Ebba Fornberg, a strong-willed banker in the 1930s who saved the Lindsborg Farmers State Bank during the depression. "How she did it was one of many classic pegs of history, on which Chris hung more than a few great stories," so he remarked.
His very large home collection would have presented a smorgasbord of subjects to write about. I wished only that someone could have really interviewed this modern historian on the Swedish Smoky Valley's past.
Chris was a very interesting person who contributed several wonderful articles usually with illustrations to the Lindsborg News-Record as former owner and editor John Marshall recalls, stating that his articles were "engaging, important, and well written." Even before Mr. Marshall's tenure, Chris had been submitting ongoing articles to the LNR.
Mr. Marshall mentioned that he recalled one among many of his stories that of his grandmother Ebba Fornberg, a strong-willed banker in the 1930s who saved the Lindsborg Farmers State Bank during the depression. "How she did it was one of many classic pegs of history, on which Chris hung more than a few great stories," so he remarked.
>>>>>>> Background
Chris Abercrombie was a Scotsman whose antecedents first arrived in the Smoky Valley in 1877. This was eight years after the founding of Lindsborg, where he was born on January 25, 1949. Graduating from Lindsborg schools, he was a 1971 Bethany College graduate. He was a former radio personality and advertising executive in Salina, Kansas. He was a member of Messiah Lutheran Church that belonged to the 1860 Swedish Augustana Lutheran Synod.
When he returned to Lindsborg, he became a member of the Hyllningsfest Committee and joined the Smoky Valley Historical Association and was found to be closing working with the former President of the Board of Directors Chester Peterson, of whom he succeeded after the latters retirement.
>>>>>>> Leader of the Coronado Heights' projects
Chris' most important accomplishment with the SVHA was found in his leadership to secure funds for the renovation of Coronado Heights.
Yet there was always the ongoing maintenance of Coronado Heights that each president of the SVHA was responsible for. Chris' tireless work concerning his leadership with his members to fulfilling the ongoing needs of Coronado Heights was overwhelming. In short, the Coronado Heights' project was Chris' most passionate project!
Chris left to the Smoky Valley people an incredible legacy of SVHA leadership and through his gifts of writing, research, interviewing and recording history and collecting.
>>>>>>> Sharing his historical Swedish American Smoky Valley video productions with the world
With tape recorder in hand, he worked tirelessly visiting Bethany Home and through the years hundreds of the elderly Swedes living there to record their stories of family members immigrating from Sweden to Lindsborg. Eventually, the tape recording gave way to video tapping Lindsborg's Swedish persons and events throughout his years.
A major contribution that Chris made available to the world was his production of YouTube videos about Lindsborg, Bethany College and the Smoky Valley people highlighting notable persons -- interviewing them, and showing events and traditions of their times. There was a time from approximately 2006 to 2016 when I counted around 65 videos that he produced accessible through YouTube. That number has been reduced to around 38. Some of these are found within SWEDES.
To view the videos which remain, click on his name: Chris Abercrombie, and then press Videos on the left corner.
Two important ones you can find here:
The audio production interview of Bethany College Drs. Deere on Bethany College Founder Rev. Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson and HERE on The 2006 Abercrombie interview with Ken Sjogren on Bethany's challenging times, 1960s to early 70s. HERE
They and he made lasting contributions to the community as you will see in an online article titled, "Abercrombie's -- 131 Years Of Lindsborg Growth."
His most important contribution to the Smoky Valley Historical Association was the >>>>>>> Creator of the 2013 website 2013
Another more personal and more valued contribution was his membership in the Smoky Valley Historical Association for decades and his services to that, one major one was the creation of its website design with his written content and the collection of photographs for it from those gathered from individuals and the Old Mill Museum to tell the stories of the Smoky Valley. The SVHA website was first published in 2013.
was the website and the newsletter story which he founded.
Chris Abercrombie was a Scotsman whose antecedents first arrived in the Smoky Valley in 1877. This was eight years after the founding of Lindsborg, where he was born on January 25, 1949. Graduating from Lindsborg schools, he was a 1971 Bethany College graduate. He was a former radio personality and advertising executive in Salina, Kansas. He was a member of Messiah Lutheran Church that belonged to the 1860 Swedish Augustana Lutheran Synod.
When he returned to Lindsborg, he became a member of the Hyllningsfest Committee and joined the Smoky Valley Historical Association and was found to be closing working with the former President of the Board of Directors Chester Peterson, of whom he succeeded after the latters retirement.
>>>>>>> Leader of the Coronado Heights' projects
Chris' most important accomplishment with the SVHA was found in his leadership to secure funds for the renovation of Coronado Heights.
Yet there was always the ongoing maintenance of Coronado Heights that each president of the SVHA was responsible for. Chris' tireless work concerning his leadership with his members to fulfilling the ongoing needs of Coronado Heights was overwhelming. In short, the Coronado Heights' project was Chris' most passionate project!
Chris left to the Smoky Valley people an incredible legacy of SVHA leadership and through his gifts of writing, research, interviewing and recording history and collecting.
>>>>>>> Sharing his historical Swedish American Smoky Valley video productions with the world
With tape recorder in hand, he worked tirelessly visiting Bethany Home and through the years hundreds of the elderly Swedes living there to record their stories of family members immigrating from Sweden to Lindsborg. Eventually, the tape recording gave way to video tapping Lindsborg's Swedish persons and events throughout his years.
A major contribution that Chris made available to the world was his production of YouTube videos about Lindsborg, Bethany College and the Smoky Valley people highlighting notable persons -- interviewing them, and showing events and traditions of their times. There was a time from approximately 2006 to 2016 when I counted around 65 videos that he produced accessible through YouTube. That number has been reduced to around 38. Some of these are found within SWEDES.
To view the videos which remain, click on his name: Chris Abercrombie, and then press Videos on the left corner.
Two important ones you can find here:
The audio production interview of Bethany College Drs. Deere on Bethany College Founder Rev. Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson and HERE on The 2006 Abercrombie interview with Ken Sjogren on Bethany's challenging times, 1960s to early 70s. HERE
They and he made lasting contributions to the community as you will see in an online article titled, "Abercrombie's -- 131 Years Of Lindsborg Growth."
His most important contribution to the Smoky Valley Historical Association was the >>>>>>> Creator of the 2013 website 2013
Another more personal and more valued contribution was his membership in the Smoky Valley Historical Association for decades and his services to that, one major one was the creation of its website design with his written content and the collection of photographs for it from those gathered from individuals and the Old Mill Museum to tell the stories of the Smoky Valley. The SVHA website was first published in 2013.
was the website and the newsletter story which he founded.
As a tribute to Chris after his passing, the Smoky Valley Historical Association shared with its members through the Vår Historia (the bi-monthly Newsletter, which Chris had founded) issue of October 3, 2017, titled,
"Abercrombies -- 131 Years Of Lindsborg Growth."
To read it, go HERE.
Mr. Tim Steward, now president of the SVHA, continues producing and writing local histories of Smoky Valley people as Mr. Abercrombie did, for the SVHA Newsletter, Vår Historia.
Access to Mr. Abercrombie obituary can be found HERE. In it, there are traces of his Lindsborg contributions, commented kindly by others found on the "Tribute Wall."
This SWEDES' panorama photograph of the Smoky Valley's Lindsborg that I took in 2006 as shown below, Chris confirmed it to be, in an email, "an historical photograph" because now there are new grain elevators near the old white ones.
"Abercrombies -- 131 Years Of Lindsborg Growth."
To read it, go HERE.
Mr. Tim Steward, now president of the SVHA, continues producing and writing local histories of Smoky Valley people as Mr. Abercrombie did, for the SVHA Newsletter, Vår Historia.
Access to Mr. Abercrombie obituary can be found HERE. In it, there are traces of his Lindsborg contributions, commented kindly by others found on the "Tribute Wall."
This SWEDES' panorama photograph of the Smoky Valley's Lindsborg that I took in 2006 as shown below, Chris confirmed it to be, in an email, "an historical photograph" because now there are new grain elevators near the old white ones.
This Swedes: TheWayTheyWere photograph
Chris proclaimed as historical in an email to me.
It is dedicated to him.
* * *
"Let Us Celebrate Them"
* * *
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.
"Let Us Celebrate Them"
* * *
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.
