SWEDES: TheWayTheyWere
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    • The Bethany Artist & the Bethany Scientist: Lydia & Emil >
      • ​"First Swedish Agricultural Company" Lindsborg Founders, 1868 >
        • Swedish Pastor Olof Olsson Immigrating to Lindsborg 1869, June 27th Arrival >
          • Church and Lindsborg Founder Pastor Olsson, 1869 - 1876 >
            • ​"He Gave God Glory" The Story of Olof Olsson, ​1841 - 1900
      • Their "Bethany Lutheran Church" 1869 >
        • Their "Augustana Lutheran Synod," 1860 - 1962 >
          • The Augustana Heritage Association, 2000 - 2016
        • Their "Augustana Women's Missionary Society," 1892
      • Their "Bethany Lutheran Home" Since 1907
      • Their Lindsborg's "First" Swedish Smoky Valley Community Chronicle 1909 and Their "Second" 1919 >
        • "Pioneer Swedish-American Culture in Central Kansas," 1965 >
          • "The Smoky Valley in The After Years," 1969
      • Their 1920s Coronado Heights Photographs and their Smoky Valley Historical Association (SVHA)
      • Their 1936 1873 Swedish Homestead, "The Old Deere Farm," The Peter J. Larson Farm, etc. >
        • Their 1873 Swede House
        • A Smoky Valley Swedish Virtual Memorial - ​"Dedicated to the Memory of the Smoky Valley Swedish Settlements" >
          • Recognizing & Thanking >
            • - Claude Koehn -- The Before and After
      • Their 1940 Deere Home >
        • Emil's and Nina's 1961 Thunderbird
      • 1943, After Lydia--The Building of the Lindsborg Hospital
    • Their Bethany College Handel's "Messiah" Performances, 1882 on... >
      • "Messiah" Performers, Venues & Audiences, Press and Broadcasts
    • Their Bethany College 1899 Swedish Artists' Midwest Art Exhibition
    • Their Bethany College 1902 "Terrible Swedes," Coach Bennie Owen, Their 1903 "Rockar Stockar"
    • Their Bethany College 1904 St. Louis World's Fair Swedish Pavilion
    • Their Bethany College Anniversary Celebrations: 15, 20, 25, 100 years >
      • Their Celebrating 15 Years of Bethany College, 1881-1896. The First Bethany Annual, 1895-96
      • Their Celebrating 20 Years of Bethany College, 1881-1901. The "Forget-Me-Not," 1902 >
        • The King of Sweden's Emissary, 1901
        • Yale University's Bethany Club
      • Their Celebrating 25 Years of Bethany College, 1881-1906, "Souvenir of Lindsborg and Bethany College"
      • Their Celebrating 100 Years of Bethany College, 1881-1981, "The Centennial of Bethany College"
    • Their "I WAS THERE" Coin ~ Bethany College Celebration, 1902
    • Their Bethany College's 1937 Introduction to New Sweden, founded in 1638 >
      • Deere's Introduction to New Sweden
    • Their friend, Emory Lindquist, and his 1975 "Bethany in Kansas, the history of a college" >
      • Their friend, Emory Lindquist, and his 1953, "Smoky Valley People, A History of Lindsborg, Kansas"
    • Their friend, Leon Lungstrom, and his 1990 "History of Natural Science and Mathematics at Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas"
  • Swedish Immigration Story, 1854
    • "The Story of the Old Spoon" by Ingrid Anderson Sohlberg & Daughter Lydia Sohlberg Deere, 1937
    • Who They Left Behind
    • From Sweden with Love Collections >
      • The Swedish Sohlberg Kosta Portraits, 1867 >
        • The Swedish Sohlberg Kosta Glass
        • The Swedish Sohlberg Letters
      • The Swedish Sohlberg Royal Gold Thread Embroidery Sampler (c1890s)
      • The Swedish Sohlberg Post Cards (c1890s)
      • The Swedish Sohlberg Magazines, (c1940s)
      • The Swedish Sohlberg Books, 1819/1886 to 1899
      • The Swedish Sohlberg Albums, late 19th early 20th centuries
      • The Swedish Deere Coins -- 1801-1929
    • Lydia Sohlberg Deere's 1927 "Lindsborg Swedish Club's" Handwork >
      • Lydia's Signatured Black Book of Her Handwritten Sewing Instructions >
        • Nina Sohlberg's Child's Sewing "Little Dots" PICTURE BOOK >
          • The Lindsborg Swedish Club's "Allers Monster-Tidnings" magazine, 1940
  • Artist Lydia Sohlberg Deere
    • Lydia's Lindsborg Photography, 1900-1925 >
      • The Hats
      • The Smoky River
      • The Smoky Hill Bluffs
      • Coronado Heights -- One Winter's Day
      • In and Around Lindsborg
      • Sohlberg House with Parents >
        • Our Sohlberg Home and Neighbor Alma Luise Olson
      • Sohlberg House with Emil 1916 to 1920 >
        • Lydia's Travels with Deere 1916 - 1930s >
          • Lydia's California Photographs for Painting
          • Lydia's Palm Springs Pictorial Magazine, 1938-1939
          • Lydia's California Pressed Wild Flowers, c1930
      • "LYDIA'S WORLD" Photography Exhibitions in Lindsborg, 2005 - 2011
    • Lydia's Art, 1919-1938 >
      • Lydia's Art: The Kansas Collection >
        • The Sketches
      • Lydia's Art: The Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico Collection >
        • The Sketches
      • Lydia's Art: The California Collection >
        • The Sketches
    • Lydia's Art Professor Sven Birger Sandzén, 1871-1954 >
      • Lydia's Assignments for Professor Sandzén >
        • Students of Sandzén 2019 Exhibition
        • Bethany Home ~ Celebrating Artist Birger Sandzén through His Students' Paintings
    • Lydia's Art Professor Birger Sandzén's "Art Exhibitions" ... 1893-1940 >
      • Lydia's Art Professor Sandzén's Exhibition at the Babcock Gallery in New York, 1922
    • Lydia's Sandzén's Body of Work Reviewed by N.Y.C, 1984 "American Impressionism," author William H. Gerdts
    • Lydia's and Sandzén's Swedish Artist Friend Charles Edward Hallberg, 1855-1940
    • Lydia's and Sandzén's Swedish Artist Friend Oscar Brousse Jacobson, 1882-1966
    • Lydia’s Sohlberg Family Connection to Sandzén, 1880-1894-1993
  • Scientist Emil O. Deere
    • Deere's & Lydia's Bethany -- Lydia's Photography, 1906-1925 >
      • Bethany College "Campus from Above"
      • Bethany College "The Gateway" 1917 and "Bethany Campus Association" 1912
      • Bethany College "College Street," today's "North First Street"
      • Bethany College "Campus Life"
      • "Bethany College's Earliest Buildings" >
        • Bethany College "​Ladies Dormitory" / "Lane Hart Hall" 1883 - 1899 - 1983
        • Bethany College "Old Main" 1887-1968 >
          • Lydia's and Emil's Old Main Apartments, 1920 to 1940
          • Deere's Bethany College Classes in Old Main
        • Bethany College "Messiah Auditorium" / "Ling Auditorium" / "Ling Gymnasium" 1895 - 1946
        • Bethany College "Swedish Pavilion" 1904
        • Bethany College "​Carnegie Library" / "Bethany Library" 1908 - 1980
        • Bethany College "​Bethany Academy" 1882 -- Swensson's Bethany's Beginnings
    • Deere's 1959 Interview on Rev. Dr. Carl A. Swensson (On YouTube) >
      • Rev. Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson, 1857-1904 >
        • Swensson's "Bethany Lutheran Church" and the "Augustana Lutheran Synod"
        • Swensson's Bethany's Beginnings: "The Bethany Academy of 1882"
        • Swensson's Musicians' and Singers' "Messiah", 1882 on ... >
          • Thure Olof Jaderborg
        • Swensson's Swedish Artists of the 1890s
        • Swensson's "Bethany College Museum," 1882 - 1966
      • In Memorium**Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson, 1904
    • Deere's Rev. Dr. Ernst F. Pihlblad, 1873-1943 >
      • In Memoriam**Dr. Ernst F. Pihlblad, 1943
      • Rev. Dr. Pihlblad on Bethany College, 1904 - 1941
    • Deere's Swensson's "Bethany College Museum" 1882 - 1966 >
      • Bethany College Museum Collections' New Location,1966 >
        • Articles on the Bethany College Museum Collections Move of 1966
    • Deere's Bethany College Field Trips -- Lydia's Photography, 1906-1925 >
      • Deere's Swensson's Bethany College Museum Collections >
        • Cliff Dwellers' Pottery Collection
        • Fossils Collection, "The Find"
        • Taxidermy Collection
    • Deere's Dr. Leon Lungstrom on the "Bethany College Museum"
    • Deere's Dr. Leon Lungstrom on "Three Pioneer Scientists of Swedish Descent"
    • Deere's Smithsonian Institution's Souvenir, 1904
    • Deere's 1940 Presidential Address to the Kansas Academy of Science
    • Deere's 1955 Letter to President Eisenhower re Tuttle Creek
    • Deere's Service, 1901-1966 >
      • Deere's Education & Degrees
  • "The Other Swedes"
    • Honoring them and their works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \\\\/ >
      • Mrs. Alma Christina Lind Swensson ~ Remembering her as Mrs. Rev. Dr. Swensson, the First Lady of Lindsborg
      • Photographer B.G. Gröndal ~ Remembering him for visually documenting Lindsborg and Bethany College in their earliest days
      • Miss Alma Luise Olson ~ Remembering her as "First Honored American Woman by Sweden" by Mrs. Elizabeth Jaderborg >
        • Remembering Miss Alma Luise Olson and her most extraordinary life at home and abroad by Ms. Karen A. Humphrey
      • Artist Birger Sandzén ~ Remembering him for "sharing his art with the world," starting "first" at Lindsborg's Bethany College >
        • Dr. & Dr. Mrs. Charles Greenough III ~ Remembering them for their gift of the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery
      • Artist Lester Raymer ~ Remembering him as the renown virtuoso artist and "behind the scenes" community supporter
      • Dr. Arvin W. Hahn ​​~ Remembering him for saving Bethany College from going under!​ >
        • Dr. Arvin W. Hahn (1923-2017) ~ Remembering him handing me my Bethany College Diploma on Sunday, May 26,1968
      • Dr. ​Elmer Copley ~ Remembering Bethany College's Oratorio Society Conductor who carried on "that" "Messiah" traditional excellence for 26 years, taking it to new levels >
        • Dr. Elmer Copley ~ Remembering him as the “Messiah” conductor for the Bethany College "Swedish King’s" performance, 1976 >
          • Dr. Elmer Copley ~ Remembering him as the "Messiah" conductor for the Bethany College "Centennial Celebration” performance, 1981
      • Dr. William Holwerda ( MD) ~ Remembering him at the founder of "Svensk Hyllningsfest"
      • Mrs. Elizabeth Jaderborg ~ Remembering her as the founder of the "Lindsborg Swedish Folk Dancers"
      • Mr. & Mrs. Hilding Jaderborg ~ Remembering them and their “Swedish Crafts Shop” – 65 years and 50 trips to Sweden
      • The Swedish Lindsborg Builders ~ Remembering them for the lovely homes they built
      • Dr. Greta Swenson and Mr. & Mrs. Mark Esping ~ Honoring them for founding Lindsborg's “first” "Swedish-American Folklife Institute of Central Kansas." 1986 >
        • Recognizing their Folklife Institute's "Swedish-American Heritage Center," 1996
      • Ms. Rebecca Copley ~ Honoring her as Bethany College's “first” graduate to become an International Opera Singer
      • Mr. Bruce Karstadt ~ Honoring him as a Bethany College graduate for heading up a major national Swedish American institution
      • Mrs. Becky Larson-Anderson ~ Honoring her as Bethany College's “first” woman graduate to become mayor of "Little Sweden" USA
      • Dr. Mark Lucas ~ Messiah conductor bringing the Lindsborg “Oberammergau of the Plains" to a "new" world stage
    • The Smoky Valley Writers on "The Other Swedes" ​ ~ Their Swedish American Legacy Collection >
      • Mr. Bror Carlsson and Mr. Alf Brorson from Sweden ~ Chronicling Founder Pastor Olof Olsson's missionary journey to Lindsborg from Värmland, Sweden
      • Rev. Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson ~ An author of countless Swedish & English publications, newspapers, articles and books ...
      • Mrs. Margaret Dahlquist Eddy ~ Providing the only known history on Lindsborg and Bethany College's earliest Swedish photographer, B.G. Gröndal
      • Rev. Dr. Alfred Bergin ​~ Compiling foundational Swedish Smoky Valley Augustana Lutheran settlements' histories and more
      • Dr. Emory Lindquist ~ Chronicling Swedish Augustana Lutheran Lindsborg and Bethany College
      • Mrs. Elizabeth Jaderborg [Selma Lind] ​ ~ Chronicling the Lindsborg of her day, its early histories, and more
      • Dr. Leon Lungstrom ~ Chronicling college professors and providing the "only known written" account on the Bethany College Museum
      • Ms. Karen A. Humphrey ~ Chronicling highlights of Swedish Augustana Lutheran Lindsborg and Bethany College society and culture in the earliest years
      • Mr. A. John Pearson & Mr. Kenneth Sjogren ~ Chronicling the Bethany College Presidents
      • Mr. Bill Carlson ~ Chronicling Lindsborg's earliest and later histories with a personal connection
      • Mr. Chris Abercrombie ~ Remembering him as the "historian," the SVHA president and his body of work
      • Mr. Thomas N. Holmquist ~ Chronicling key Swedish Augustana Lutheran Smoky Valley settlements other than Lindsborg
      • Rev. Eugene K. Nelson and the Bethany Home Writers ~ Chronicling the "only known written" story on the beginnings of Bethany Home
      • Smoky Valley Historical Association Members ~ Researchers, compilers and writers of " Where Did They Live? "
    • ​Smoky Valley History Research Writers Website Designers ~ Their Swedish American Legacy Websites
    • Bethany College Swedish Knights and Honored Ladies ~ Their Royal Swedish Legacy Listings
    • His Majesty, Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden ~ Honoring him in Lindsborg and at Bethany College, 1976 >
      • Mr. Bill Carlson's Lindsborg's Bethany Home & the Swedish King's Visit
  • Contacts
    • For Lindsborg, 1869, CONTACT Today >
      • 2020 Christmas in Lindsborg ~ 'Welcome to Annandag Jul Worship from Sunnemo & Lindsborg"
      • 2020 Christmas in LIndsborg ~ the Ljuskröna and Apple Tree Exhibit" online presentation
    • ​For Bethany College, 1881, CONTACT Today
    • Closing Remarks & Traveling through SWEDES >
      • The Swedish American Legacy Photographs >
        • ​Lydia's Lindsborg's Photography​, ​1900 - 1925
        • Lydia's Bethany's Photography, ​1906 - 1925
"The Other Swedes"
Smoky Valley Writers on "The Other Swedes"
~ Honoring Them and Their Works ~
​
Ms. Karen A. Humphrey
~ Chronicling highlights of Swedish Augustana Lutheran Lindsborg and Bethany College society and culture
in the earliest years


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. 
2012 Published, 126 Pages
Picture
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 her husband, Rev. Charles W. Humphrey, was the pastor for the Bethany Lutheran Church from 1998 to 2006.

​
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.
If her husband had not been called to pastor at the Bethany Lutheran Church, her book would not have been written.  But he was, and years later this book was born in 2012.  To have an idea of Ms. Humphrey's wonderful writing style, and to learn a little about her subject, Mrs. Alma Christina Lind Swensson, the following is presented in her informative "Introduction:"

    "For eight years, I walked in the footsteps of Alma Christina Lind Swensson in Lindsborg, Kansas, where she lived 60 years of her life. I, too, was the wife of the pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church, and I always believed I was one of the inheritors of the great work Alma accomplished for the church, the college, and the community. My husband was called to be the pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in 1998. The church was founded by Swedish immigrant pastor Olof Olsson in 1869, and was served by Pastor Carl Aaron Swensson from 1879 to 1904. My own work in Lindsborg was for Bethany College, founded by Swensson in the sacristy of Bethany Lutheran Church in 1881.

     "Carl Aaron Swensson's name and image are everywhere – there is a plaster bust of him in every college building and one in the church, too, and an Italian marble statue is the centerpiece of the college campus.  Carl was president of the Kansas Conference of Augustana Lutheran Synod, served in the Kansas State House of Representatives, a member of the speakers bureau for McKinley and Roosevelt, the editor of several newspapers, wrote opinion pieces, devotional books, and toured Sweden twice in the 1890s. When he came home he published a doorstop of a volume about his experiences, travelogues of his journeys that were widely read throughout Sweden and Swedish America. He wrote in superlatives--in glowing terms to attract people to his community and capture his vision. He was a gifted orator, one who could take in his audience, convince farmers suffering from drought, depression, grasshoppers, low prices, and devastating wind storms that "tomorrow would be better" -- "i morgan blir det battre"--and help them see a future that they could never have imagined.

     "Carl Aaron Swensson was called “The Colossus of the Plains."  One of our neighbors, who was 92 and had lived in the community all her life, told the story of a class of Sunday school children in Lindsborg who were learning the creation story from Genesis. The kind teacher asked her eager students, 'Who created the heavens and earth?'  A little boy raised his hand and said, 'Why, it was Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson!'

     "At Bethany Lutheran Church and Bethany College, there are also portraits of a calm, serene woman, her white hair softly arranged to reveal a high forehead. She wears a black dress with a jewel neckline, a jacket with silk lapels, and a black velvet ribbon encircling her neck. Her metal rim glasses are round and bridge a rather broad nose. There are slight dimples as she smiles. This is Alma Christina Lind Swensson-- Mrs. Rev. Dr. Swensson, as she was called. She was the church organist and choir director for 40 years, and over the winter of 1881 and 1882 taught a choir of farmers, shopkeepers and homemakers, still speaking Swedish, the words and music of Handel's glorious oratorio, the Messiah. She herself sang the soprano solos when the Messiah was presented for the first time on March 28, 1882. Alma also served on the music faculty of Bethany College. She gave birth to two daughters and raise them in the public eye of the parsonage. She kept house, welcomed guests, and kept things going while Carl was on his many, many travels. And later in her life, after Carl’s untimely death, she touched the world.

     "There are snippets of Alma‘s life story here and there in the published histories of Lindsborg, Bethany College, and Bethany Church. In this volume, I hope to stitch together a whole story of her life."


In 2006, Karen and her husband returned to Minnesota when she was appointed to the staff of the Minnesota Historical Society in Saint Paul where she had served on the Board of Directors for 25 years and was the first woman to be President of the Society (1996-1998).  Karen also served on the board and was President of the Norwegian American Historical Association, the archive of the Norwegian Immigration to America housed at the Rolvaag Library at Saint Olaf College, Northfield.  However, somewhere and somehow in the busyness of her life between Lindsborg and Minnesota, the research and the writing about Swedish Lindsborg's "First Lady,"* Mrs. Alma Christina Lind Swensson, was destined to be accomplished and then published in 2012 by Lutheran University Press, An imprint of 1517 Media.

Go HERE
to 
Mrs. Alma Christina Lind Swensson ~  Remembering her as Mrs. Rev. Dr. Swensson, the First Lady of Lindsborg.

(Ms. Humphrey's book can be found at amazon.com.)​ 

​​* "First Lady" has become my other name for Mrs. Swensson after learning all about her in Ms. Humphrey's book.
*     *     * 
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.
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