"The Other Swedes"
~ Honoring Them and Remembering Them ~ The Smoky Valley Writers ~
Ms. Karen A. Humphrey
~ Chronicling highlights of Swedish Augustana Lutheran Lindsborg and Bethany College culture
in the earliest years
~ Honoring Them and Remembering Them ~ The Smoky Valley Writers ~
Ms. Karen A. Humphrey
~ Chronicling highlights of Swedish Augustana Lutheran Lindsborg and Bethany College culture
in the earliest years
Ms. Karen A. Humphrey
Visiting Lindsborg in 1998, for my annual visit to my farmland and the Swede House ruins, I had the unexpected pleasure and opportunity to hear Ms. Karen A. Humphrey speak to a jampacked Bethany College Pihlblad Union dining room for the annual local gathering of "historical organizations" from Lindsborg and around the Smoky Valley. She spoke fluently and captivatingly about a local subject of key interest to these organizations. Although, I cannot remember the topic of her speech, I was totally pulled in by her storytelling delivery, as was the whole audience, which was my first "real" introduction to Lindsborg and Smoky Valley history by a professional.
Twenty-two years from that event, the same can be said about her storytelling in her 2012 book: Grace, Faith and the Power of Singing: The Alma Christina Lind Swensson Story. Ms. Humphrey's book is fastmoving, entertaining, enlightening, delightful, historical and so well documented. It is "timeless!"
This is a book that everyone and anyone who is interested in the earliest years of Bethany Church and Bethany College should read, if they have not already, especially college administration, professors and students, to get a real feel of what life was about at the top-level of this prestigious Swedish Augustana Lutheran College, populated with art and music European credentialed professors fresh from Sweden, adding to its equally well qualified growing faculty. And, within this context, we, the readers, travel comfortably and enjoyably learning about Mrs. Rev. Dr. Swensson (as Alma was addressed then) and her life endeavors that would gracefully change the Lindsborg culture, its cultural musical landscape and missionary work forever, thus producing good fruit, of a far reaching impact, nationally and globally!
I see Ms. Humphrey's book as "a gift" that keeps on giving, particularly to the Augustana Lutheran Synod Swedish Americans of Lindsborg that are found at its Bethany Church and Bethany College, and similarly to those found at the Smoky Valley Freemount and Falun-Salemsborg Lutheran Churches, while, yet, more broadly to those others found in former Augustana Lutheran Synod Swedish American churches, all of which had to give up their Swedish Synod identity when merged in 1962 into the Lutheran Church of America, LCA, which in 1986 merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, ELCA, that is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
As a graduate from the University of Minnesota and growing up and living in a central Minnesota gathering place for immigrant Swedes most of her life, Ms. Humphrey sees "Lindsborg, Kansas, as the most Swedish of American communities." This conclusion most certainly would have been arrived at when she and her husband, Rev. Charles W. Humphrey, was the pastor for the Bethany Lutheran Church from 1998 to 2006. The couple has two children: Karna and Kirk.
During his tenure, Ms. Humphrey's tenure would be taken up with a job at Bethany College where she held the position of Vice President of Institutional Advancement with other additional duties, one of which would be coordinating the introduction of the prestigious Pearson Distinguished Professor of Swedish Studies Program. And, another one would be that of overseeing Bethany College's 125th Anniversary Celebration, with the theme "From the Plains to the World," which started October 15, 2005 and would end December 3, 2006.
Ms. Humphrey's heritage is mostly Norwegian, yet her early life experiences were those of being immersed in Swedish culture and history. This was from attending, being baptized and confirmed by Dr. Pastor Emeroy Johnson of Minnesota's Norseland's Scandian Grove Lutheran Church which was founded by Swedish immigrants in 1858. Her pastor would take on the task of chronicling the Minnesota Swedish Immigrant Lutheran Churches and from that, no doubt, her young child interest in local history and Swedish church history would only grow.
This is a book that everyone and anyone who is interested in the earliest years of Bethany Church and Bethany College should read, if they have not already, especially college administration, professors and students, to get a real feel of what life was about at the top-level of this prestigious Swedish Augustana Lutheran College, populated with art and music European credentialed professors fresh from Sweden, adding to its equally well qualified growing faculty. And, within this context, we, the readers, travel comfortably and enjoyably learning about Mrs. Rev. Dr. Swensson (as Alma was addressed then) and her life endeavors that would gracefully change the Lindsborg culture, its cultural musical landscape and missionary work forever, thus producing good fruit, of a far reaching impact, nationally and globally!
I see Ms. Humphrey's book as "a gift" that keeps on giving, particularly to the Augustana Lutheran Synod Swedish Americans of Lindsborg that are found at its Bethany Church and Bethany College, and similarly to those found at the Smoky Valley Freemount and Falun-Salemsborg Lutheran Churches, while, yet, more broadly to those others found in former Augustana Lutheran Synod Swedish American churches, all of which had to give up their Swedish Synod identity when merged in 1962 into the Lutheran Church of America, LCA, which in 1986 merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, ELCA, that is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
As a graduate from the University of Minnesota and growing up and living in a central Minnesota gathering place for immigrant Swedes most of her life, Ms. Humphrey sees "Lindsborg, Kansas, as the most Swedish of American communities." This conclusion most certainly would have been arrived at when she and her husband, Rev. Charles W. Humphrey, was the pastor for the Bethany Lutheran Church from 1998 to 2006. The couple has two children: Karna and Kirk.
During his tenure, Ms. Humphrey's tenure would be taken up with a job at Bethany College where she held the position of Vice President of Institutional Advancement with other additional duties, one of which would be coordinating the introduction of the prestigious Pearson Distinguished Professor of Swedish Studies Program. And, another one would be that of overseeing Bethany College's 125th Anniversary Celebration, with the theme "From the Plains to the World," which started October 15, 2005 and would end December 3, 2006.
Ms. Humphrey's heritage is mostly Norwegian, yet her early life experiences were those of being immersed in Swedish culture and history. This was from attending, being baptized and confirmed by Dr. Pastor Emeroy Johnson of Minnesota's Norseland's Scandian Grove Lutheran Church which was founded by Swedish immigrants in 1858. Her pastor would take on the task of chronicling the Minnesota Swedish Immigrant Lutheran Churches and from that, no doubt, her young child interest in local history and Swedish church history would only grow.
2012 Published, 126 Pages
Go HERE to 2012 "Grace, Faith and the Power of Singing: The Alma Christina Lind Swensson Story"
~The Words of Ms. Humphrey
Go HERE to 2012 "Grace, Faith and the Power of Singing: The Alma Christina Lind Swensson Story"
~ Contents & Illustrations
Go HERE to Mrs. Alma Christina Lind Swensson
~ Remembering her as Ms. Rev. Dr. Swensson, the “First Lady” of Lindsborg
~ "Highlights" from Ms. Karen A. Humphrey’s book
[NOTE: "First Lady" was coined by me [FC] after learning all about Mrs. Swensson in Ms. Humphrey's book.]
Go HERE to Their 1892 "Augustana Women's Missionary Society"
~ An account by Ms. Karen A. Humphrey
"Let Us Remember 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.
* * *
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.
