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Lindsborg was their home and Bethany College was their life!
Lindsborg was their home and Bethany College was their life!
The Bethany Artist & the Bethany Scientist: Lydia & Emil
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 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.
Newlyweds, 1916
Wedding Photograph 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, called the Panama Pacific International Exposition, and other sights the area had to offer.
Lindsborg was their home and Bethany College was their life!
- Their 3 Homes -
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)
(photographer unknown)
Lydia's Gateway to Bethany College with the Class of 1917
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 by its founding father Swedish American Dr. Rev. Carl A. Swensson who called on him to come to Bethany in 1899 via his father Charles Deere, a close personal friend from the early Moline and Rock Island Augustana Illinois days.
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.
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 by its founding father Swedish American Dr. Rev. Carl A. Swensson who called on him to come to Bethany in 1899 via his father Charles Deere, a close personal friend from the early Moline and Rock Island Augustana Illinois days.
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.
Deere Hall
Photograph by Dale Hoag
Emil, Lydia, Nina, Lois, Frances and Melinda
- Living in Lindsborg -
- Living in Lindsborg -
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 and sister Melinda Cochran and I were destined 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 in Chicago from Sweden in 1854 and their onward sojourns in Swedish settlements found in Wisconsin and Minnesota). 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 visit Grandmother Nina and Uncle Emil frequently at the Deere home that Lydia 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.
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 and not on campus.
In the early 1960s due to a family emergency in our home-state California, my mother Lois Fry Cochran and sister Melinda Cochran and I were destined 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 in Chicago from Sweden in 1854 and their onward sojourns in Swedish settlements found in Wisconsin and Minnesota). 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 visit Grandmother Nina and Uncle Emil frequently at the Deere home that Lydia 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.
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 and not on campus.
At the Deere Home
1964
Melinda Cochran, Nina Sohlberg Fry, Lois Fry Cochran, Emil Deere, Frances Cochran with Lydia Sohlberg Deere's paintings in the background
Last-Links to Foundational History
Bethany College's Kenneth Sjogren capturing college history from Dr. Deere
Bethany College's Kenneth Sjogren capturing college history from Dr. Deere
I was in the Deere home in 1965 when Bethany College Director of Public Relations and Alumni Affairs Kenneth Sjogren, author of the 2019 book 6 Decades with Twelve Bethany College Presidents, 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-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.
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.
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.
So let us now look forward to looking back at these histories.
Uncle Emil's 1916 photograph of Aunt Lydia
"looking back"
as she walks toward Old Main with the Swedish Pavilion on her right
"looking back"
as she walks toward Old Main with the Swedish Pavilion on her right
* * *
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
* * *
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.
