Home
And, then, I must say that there was nothing like waking up to a Lindsborg snow which covered their home beautifully!
Their 1940 Deere Home to 1943
~ 344 North First [College] Street ~ With new occupants after Lydia
~ 344 North First [College] Street ~ With new occupants after Lydia
Designed lovingly by Lydia Sohlberg Deere, the Deere home was her last and most significant expression of art. It was finished in 1940. Previously, she had lived with Emil for twenty (20) years in two Old Main apartments, and before that as newlyweds for 3 years at Sohlberg House.
Now she finally had a real home, the home of her dreams. For three short years she enjoyed it immensely, dying of complications with shingles in 1943. Appropriately, her funeral was held in the Deere home with the Bethany Lutheran Church clergy officiating. Emil regretted greatly that they had not built the house sooner.
"Deere House" as it was later named by new owners and former students of Emil's, Rev. Perry Carlson and his wife Alice, was truly embellished with love and life from Lydia and Emil. The interior design of it by Lydia was modern in every detail for their day. The landscaping around the home was their joint venture producing an eventual forest of a variety of trees in the years to come accompanied with ornamental shrubs and flowers hugging the house that three succeeding generations would enjoy.
Their daffodils and tulips blooming through the snows in January and February still occurred for my first winter in Lindsborg in 1963 as did the blooming of their pink peonies every year in time for the Lindsborg Memorial Weekend of decorating family graves and honoring our local American veterans. And, like most other homes in Lindsborg, the Deere home was blessed with rich soil producing bountiful summer vegetable gardens with the best tomatoes!
After Lydia's death, my grandmother, Nina Sohlberg Fry, their niece who Lydia used as a child model in a majority of her photographs, returned from Santa Monica, California with her mother, Selma Sohlberg, to care for Emil and the home. Selma died within a year and Nina carried on until her death in 1974 leaving Deere House to my mother, Lois Fry Cochran, who had been living in Sohlberg House at the time. Like Emil and Lydia, Selma and Nina were Augustana Lutheran Christians.
Within 10 years of Nina's death, both houses were sold and my mother returned to California after her 23 year sojourn in Lindsborg. And, with her came the rest of the Sohlberg Deere Swedish American estate to San Francisco apartment living.
Now she finally had a real home, the home of her dreams. For three short years she enjoyed it immensely, dying of complications with shingles in 1943. Appropriately, her funeral was held in the Deere home with the Bethany Lutheran Church clergy officiating. Emil regretted greatly that they had not built the house sooner.
"Deere House" as it was later named by new owners and former students of Emil's, Rev. Perry Carlson and his wife Alice, was truly embellished with love and life from Lydia and Emil. The interior design of it by Lydia was modern in every detail for their day. The landscaping around the home was their joint venture producing an eventual forest of a variety of trees in the years to come accompanied with ornamental shrubs and flowers hugging the house that three succeeding generations would enjoy.
Their daffodils and tulips blooming through the snows in January and February still occurred for my first winter in Lindsborg in 1963 as did the blooming of their pink peonies every year in time for the Lindsborg Memorial Weekend of decorating family graves and honoring our local American veterans. And, like most other homes in Lindsborg, the Deere home was blessed with rich soil producing bountiful summer vegetable gardens with the best tomatoes!
After Lydia's death, my grandmother, Nina Sohlberg Fry, their niece who Lydia used as a child model in a majority of her photographs, returned from Santa Monica, California with her mother, Selma Sohlberg, to care for Emil and the home. Selma died within a year and Nina carried on until her death in 1974 leaving Deere House to my mother, Lois Fry Cochran, who had been living in Sohlberg House at the time. Like Emil and Lydia, Selma and Nina were Augustana Lutheran Christians.
Within 10 years of Nina's death, both houses were sold and my mother returned to California after her 23 year sojourn in Lindsborg. And, with her came the rest of the Sohlberg Deere Swedish American estate to San Francisco apartment living.
- At Deere House, Emil O. Deere and Nina Sohlberg Fry -
- Their 1961 Thunderbird in the driveway of Deere House -
Both my sister and I would learn to drive from this car while in high school.
Both my sister and I would learn to drive from this car while in high school.
- Sohlberg House porch view of Emil and Nina dropping off my sister, Melinda Cochran -
- The Deere, Sohlberg, Fry, and Cochran Families -
- Lois Fry Cochran -
Lydia's presence was always with us through her art on the walls at Deere House
1982
- Deere House -
May 1996
- "Deere House" inscribed on the Swedish Dala Horse by former owners, Rev. Perry and Alice Carlsons -
* * *
"Let Us Celebrate 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.
"Let Us Celebrate 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.
