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
      • 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
Home
​

Lindsborg was their home and Bethany College was their life!
​
The Bethany Artist & the Bethany Scientist: Lydia & Emil
<>  Their Legacy Inheritance Passes On  <>​​
What they left behind:
  • Hers were the art work, the late 19th century and early 20th century Bethany College photographs, the Swedish and Scandinavian handwork,  the Bethany Campus Association first landscape projects, and, with the Class of 1917, "The Gateway" to Bethany;
  • His were his association with and service to Bethany College for 67 years (1899 - 1966), his 58 years developing the Bethany College Museum, his part in today's 1903 Bethany College Cheer of "Rockar Stockar, and much more"*
  • Theirs were the Swedish Collections, the Swedish Homestead, the Deere Home, and, most importantly, "their love" for Bethany College and her students.
*Emory Lindquist, 1975, Bethany In Kansas, the history of a college, pages 189-190.
Picture
Newlyweds, 1916
    Wedding Photographs of Lydia Sohlberg and Emil O. Deere
At 43, my great grandaunt Lydia (1873-1943) married my great granduncle Emil, 39,  (1877-1966) on August 9, 1916 in San Jose, California where her cousin Dr. H. C. Vetterling lived and gave her away. Honeymooning in the San Francisco Bay Area, the couple enjoyed touring the universities of Stanford and Berkeley, and what remained of the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair, also called the Panama Pacific International Exposition, and other sights the area had to offer. 
Picture

- Their 3 homes in Lindsborg -
​1916-1943

click on them
They did not have children, but what they did share together was a great love for the College, its student body, its founding church, and its community, and to these, in their individual ways as well as jointly, they devoted their time and energy.  This was to be their family and the many subjects of Lydia's photographs.
​​
~ A Wedding Anniversary Photograph ~
(photographer unknown)
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Lydia's Gateway to Bethany College with the Class of 1917
Picture
Photograph by Lydia Sohlberg Deere, 1917

​Gateway to Bethany
2011

​Emil, Lindsborg, and Bethany
Affectionately and respectfully, in Lindsborg and at Bethany, many referred to my Uncle and greeted him as Pop Deere! 
​
Emil was a fixture of Bethany College for 67 years, serving in a variety of administrative and academic positions.  He was "the source" from whom all generations of the Bethany College family could come regarding the history of the inner workings of the College.  He was seen then as the link connecting Bethany's past to her present.  Emil's unusually long relationship with the College began with its founding father, Swedish American Dr. Rev. Carl A. Swensson who called on him through his father Charles Deere to come to Bethany in 1899.  (Swensson was a close personal friend of Charles Deere from the early Moline and Rock Island Augustana Illinois days when Emil's father was working for John Deere as a foreman in his company.  This was the time that Emil's father's surname of Olsson was changed to Deere as offered by his boss John Deere.)

Emil was destined then to become colleague and friend to the founder of Bethany College and to its first seven (7) Swedish American presidents covering a period from 1899 to 1966!  He was recognized by Bethany College for his lifetime service when the  men's dormitory, Deere Hall, was named to honor him in 1957.  Other honors included:  
  Class of 1948:  Upsala College of East Orange, New Jersey, The Doctor of Laws Degree; May 1955: Honored as Bethany College Professor Emeritus of Biology; May 1955:  Honored as Kansas Association of College Deans “Dean Emeritus."  From Bethany College, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1902 and a Master of Arts Degree in 1907 -- his Master's thesis was titled, Geology of Study in the Area of the Smoky Valley Buttes; from the University of Chicago, he earned a Master of Science Degree in 1911; and, then, had spent several summers there working on his PhD which was nearly finished, but was not, due to the various ongoing pressing needs of the College.

- ​Deere Hall -
1957 - 2015

Picture
Photograph by Dale Hoag
After Lydia
Emil, Nina, Lois, Frances and Melinda

-  Living in Lindsborg in the 1960s  -
I did not know my Aunt Lydia who died in 1943, but I did know my Uncle Emil.  He and my grandmother Nina Sohlberg Fry, his and Lydia's niece, who she had photographed as a child with her friends in Lindsborg, at Bethany College and at Coronado Heights, lived in the Deere home on College and Olsson Streets (today 344 North First Street) at the south entrance to Bethany College, "The Gateway," of which Lydia had played a major role in its 1917 construction.

In the early 1960s due to a family emergency in our home-state California, my mother Lois Fry Cochran who was a polio invalid confined to a wheelchair and my sister Melinda Cochran and I were to move to Lindsborg, Kansas, where we were to eventually live at Sohlberg House.  In 1904, this house had been the retirement home of my great great Swedish grandparents, pioneers Anders and Ingrid Sohlberg, who arrived in McPherson, Kansas, in 1880 to live and work there (after sojourning first from their Sweden's journey in 1854 in the Swedish area of Chicago which led to onward sojourns in Swedish settlements found in Wisconsin and Minnesota).  From Anders and Ingrid came four generations and of those fourteen (14) family members graduated from Bethany College -- the first, George Sohlberg, in May 1884 when Bethany was an Academy and I was the last in May of 1968, the day after of which Old Main was razed.

​At the Deere home
​1964
Picture
Melinda Cochran, Nina Sohlberg Fry, Lois Fry Cochran, Emil Deere, Frances Cochran with Lydia Sohlberg Deere's paintings in the background

Sohlberg House was three houses south of the Deere home at 322 North First Street.  In 1916 Sohlberg House was the first home that Emil and Lydia lived in as newlyweds for three years or so.  When our family lived there, we visited Grandmother Nina and Uncle Emil frequently at the Deere home that Lydia lovingly designed and was built for her and Emil in 1940.  When my uncle Emil died in January of 1966, my grandmother did not want to be alone, so I moved from Sohlberg House to the Deere home, and my Uncle Emil's bedroom became mine.  For more on the Deere home, go Here to Deere House.

Last-Living-Links to Bethany College's Foundational History
Bethany College's Kenneth Sjogren capturing college history from Dr. Deere

In my freshman and sophomore years (1964-1966) at Bethany, my Uncle Emil, although retired from his official college duties several years before, still continued his work as the curator for the Bethany College Museum-- a position he held for 58 years.  Many times I would visit him in the museum and later join him at the Pihlblad Memorial Union's cafeteria for supper which was always a treat for me, as I was living at home in Sohlberg House, and not on campus.

​I was visiting my uncle and grandmother in the Deere home in 1965, when 
Bethany College Director of Public Relations and Alumni Affairs Kenneth Sjogren, with a tape recorder in hand, came to interview my uncle Emil about the history of the College.  I remember that day clearly, yet not at all understanding Emil's significance to the College then.  At 89 years of age, he was the College's "last-living-link" to the founder of Bethany College and its earliest history, so it was important to grasp onto any additional information from him before it was too late.  (It should be noted that Mr. Sjogren authored the 2019 6 Decades with Twelve Bethany College Presidents.)

I was a teenager living in my own world.  Like most teenagers, then and now, I was not at all interested in capturing any history!  I had no understanding of why this was so important.
With a lifetime of living, working and traveling the world behind me now, I can finally say that "I understand;" and I can certainly see myself as a "last-living-link" to all of that early college history through my Uncle Emil.  Not only am I a last-living-link to this history, so are my contemporaries, the descendants of those friends and contemporaries of Emil and Lydia. 

So let us now look forward to looking back at these histories. 

For some direction in how to do this, first go HERE to Traveling through Swedes & Closing Remarks.
  
​  Uncle Emil's 1916 photograph of Aunt Lydia
"looking back"
as she walks toward Old Main with the Swedish Pavilion on her right
Picture

​*   *   *
 L A S T -- L I V I N G  --  L I N K

- My last-living-link to foundational Bethany College history -
With my Uncle Emil, looking at my dad, Gene Cochran, Yosemite, 1950 
Picture
*     *     * 
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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