SWEDES: TheWayTheyWere
  • Home
    • 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
      • Miss Alma Luise Olson ~ Remembering her as Sweden remembers her as "First Honored American Woman by Sweden," and more
      • Swedish 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
      • American 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
      • Ms. Rebecca Copley ~ Honoring her as Bethany College's “first” graduate to become an International Opera Singer
      • Mr. Bruce Karstadt ~ Honoring him as Bethany College's "first" graduate tohead a national Swedish American institution
      • Dr. Greta Swenson & Mr. and Mrs. Mark Esping ~ Honoring them as Bethany College’s “first” graduates who founded Lindsborg's "first" "Swedish-American Folklife Institute of Central Kansas." 1986 >
        • Recognizing their Folklife Institute's "Swedish-American Heritage Center," 1996
      • 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
    • 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 ...
      • 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 Swedish Royal Legacy Listing
    • 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: "Ljuskröna and Apple Tree Exhibit" online presentation
      • 2020 Christmas; 'Welcome to Annandag Jul Worship from Sunnemo & Lindsborg"
    • ​For Bethany College, 1881, CONTACT Today
    • Traveling through SWEDES & Closing Remarks >
      • The Swedish American Legacy Photographs >
        • ​Lydia's Lindsborg's Photography​, ​1900 - 1925
        • Lydia's Bethany's Photography, ​1906 - 1925
Scientist Emil O. Deere

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<>  The Legacy "Messiah" Performances  <>
"In Lindsborg, the Messiah is religion...a conviction of truth... high purpose … that lifts... resounds in  'Hallelujahs.' " - New York Times, 1939*
It is the Oberammergau of the Plains ...Its Messiah festival is called by critics "the finest of its kind in the world" - Reader's Digest April 1944 *

​Swensson's Musicians' and Singers' Messiah,1882 on …

Alma Swensson, ​Hagbard Brase, Samuel Thorstenberg, Thure Jaderborg, Oscar Thorsen,  Oscar Lofgren . . .

Due to Swedish American Bethany College founder and second president Dr. Rev. Carl Aaron Swensson's and his wife Alma Christina Lind Swensson's love for music, and, especially, the Messiah, with a growing chorus  which would one day exceed 500 singers, the wheels were set in motion for little Swedish Lindsborg and Bethany College to become worldwide known to highbrow musical circles and societies due to the excellent Swedish and Swedish American professors of the Bethany College Music Department, most notably Alma Swensson, ​Hagbard Brase, Samuel Thorstenberg, Thure Jaderborg, Oscar Thorsen and their "first dean" of the College of Fine Arts, professor Oscar Lofgren, a position he filled from 1918 to 1948.
​However, Pastor Olof Olsson, the founder of Lindsborg and Bethany Church, first brought sacred music to the great plains of Kansas to this community in 1869.  Swedish American author Karen A. Humphrey's in her 2012 Grace, Faith and the Power of Singing -- The Alma Christina Lind Swensson Story, on pages 24-26, eloquently describes this so well: 

     "The congregation officially organized now, Olof Olsson had another task before him, one that he loved.  Before entering the seminary, the beloved preacher, teacher, and friend was trained to be a church musician.  He studied with Anders Fredrik Sedstr
öm, the choirmaster, cantor, and organist at Fredsberg in Västergötland, who was a graduate of the Academy of Music in Stockholm.  Olof had been tutored daily in harmony, singing, and organ, and he deeply believed in the importance of music to the worship service.  Now on the Kansas prairie, he brought the best singers together as a choir (Anna Lisa was one of them), and with a tuning fork and numbering system that he devised, he taught his choir to read music and to sing four-part harmony.

     "And all during the autumn, on this flat prairie valley, a sanctuary was built by the hands of volunteers.  They located the church on a slight rise in the landscape near the center of Section 7.  The walls were dark ochre sandstone, brought by horse-drawn wagons from nearby bluffs.  Blocks of sod were cut and stacked on the gable ends.  The roof was made of slough grass, laced to the structural poles.  On each side, three small windows allowed some light.  There was a dirt floor, no ceiling; rough-hewn planks propped up on cottonwood tree stumps served as pews.  The altar, a table made by immigrant Olof Erickson, was placed so that the congregation faced east.  The humble prairie sanctuary was thirty-six by thirty-four feet, and it was ready for Julotta, Christmas Day, 1869.  But a roaring prairie blizzard kept everyone at home.
   
     "In a week's time the prairie was quiet again, and the congregation came to their church for the first worship service on New Year's Day, 1870.  Pastor Olsson led the choir as it sang out across the valley of the Smoky Hill River.  Their anthem was "St
äm in i änglers chor" (Join in the angel's choir).  The melody and harmony are to the tune "Thesaurus Musicus," London 1744, known to generations of Americans as "My County 'tis of Thee." A choir had begun the new year, and the settlers at Lindborg began a love affair with choral singing."

Mrs. Humphrey's book of 2012, gives a comprehensive clarity on this Swedish American Lutheran woman of faith, strength, integrity and graciousness, who, for a season, through her gifts of music and hospitality brought worldwide musical attention to a little Swedish town located on the Great Plains of Kansas!
  To learn more about the book on Mrs. Swensson, click on her portrait below.
PictureSource: Augustana College Archives
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This image is to impress how treeless Lindsborg would have been at its founding, for this Bethany Academy building photograph was taken 17 years later in 1886 to visually document "the third" Bethany Academy Graduates' commencement exercises which took place at Bethany Church.
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- The patrons of a Holy Easter Messiah on their way to Messiah Auditorium later referred to as Ling Auditorium -
mid-1890s

Picture
Photograph by Lydia Sohlberg Deere
From fourth Swedish American Bethany College President Emory Lindquist in his 1975 book, Bethany in Kansas, a history of a college, on page 39, we read about Swensson's lovely wife, Alma -- touching on a significant role she played in the creation of the Messiah performances:

      "The great career of Carl Swensson was shared and supported by his wife, Alma.  She came as his young bride to Lindsborg in September 1880, from Moline, Illinois.  She was a talented singer and organist.  The Swenssons planned together the presentations of the Messiah and Alma served as the conductor in rehearsals the first year, and at the renditions she was a soloist.

      "Alma Swensson had an outstanding record in women’s work within the Augustana Lutheran Church.  Its national Women’s Missionary Society was organized in her home in June, 1892, and she served as the recording secretary.  She was the first and long-time editor of the official periodical of the Society.  Mrs. Swensson taught music in the early years of the College and served as organist of the Bethany Lutheran Church for forty (40) years.  She was a member of the Oratorio Society Chorus [for 55 years] until two years before her death."

 - Alma Christina Lind Swensson - 
1859 - 1939
Picture
Source: Forget-Me-Not, The Annual of Bethany College, 1902, page 96.

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And, to follow this incredible "sacred musical story" found in this rural Main Street Swedish American town, click on Their Bethany College Handel's Messiah Performances; then, on  Messiah Performers, Venues, Press, Broadcasts & Audiences; and finally on "Messiah" Auditorium, Ling Auditorium, Auditorium, Ling Gymnasium.
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​
*Source: Emory Lindquist's Bethany in Kansas, the history of a college, page 168.
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~ restoring lost local histories ~

reconnecting past to present
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