Lindsborg

One hundred Swedish immigrants arrived in Kansas in 1869 to establish the community of Lindsborg. Not satis-fied with merely eking out an existence on the prairie, they built a church before their homes were finished, and they soon had both a prestigious college and what has become North America’s longest running musical festival. Today only about a third of the 3 200 residents have Swedish roots, but that does not take away from the charm and culture of “Little Sweden, USA”.

Midsummer
One of the best places to spend a Swedish midsummer (June 17 this year) is in Lindsborg’s Riverside Park. Here in front of the Swedish Pavilion, there will be folk danc-ing, story telling, song and theatre throug-hout the day from 9.30am to 4pm. Wherever you go in town there will be brightly dressed folkdanslag including Lindsborg Swedish Folkdancers and visiting from Sweden Viking dancers, not to mention the many non-performing locals who proudly don their Swedish folk costumes on this special day. In the early morning there is a “Springa” run or walk and in the evening after you have partaken of the authentic Swedish smörgåsbord ($12.00 in the Pihl-blad Memorial on the Bethany campus) there is an evening program (at the Old Mill Museum) where everybody usually ends up in the serpentine dances, before taking a swim in the nearby public pool.
Lindsborg loves festivals. Apart from the Lucia and Midsummer celebrations the biennial Svensk Hyllningsfest (Swedish Homage Festival) held in conjunction with the Bethany College homecoming is really worth visiting. Celebrated in mid-October on odd-numbered years, Hyllningsfest has since 1941 paid tribute to the Swedish pioneers who came so far to settle this small town in the Kansas heartland.

Come prepared for three days of early pancake feasts, a great parade with the Hyllningsfest king and queen and lots of booths with all kinds of edibles and wares. Up to 40 000 people enjoy non-stop fun at outdoor stages as well as at a formal evening of entertainment in the Bethany College Presser Hall.

Josefin Ahlgren
Although Lindsborg is steeped in Swedish traditions, some of these may not be quite in step with the constantly evolving traditions in contemporary Sweden. Culinary life in Lindsborg got a fresh shot in the arm in 1996 when Josefin Ahlgren and two other chefs won the Swedish “Home Cooking Trophy” and got to re-create their dishes in Seattle, Chicago and Lindsborg.

Their session at the Swedish Crown Restaurant so inspired Josefin that she came back to work there for a period and she continues to act as a consultant when it comes to the Swedish part of the menu. Try her Chateau Roulade (rolled pork loin) and Ostkaka, cheese cake when they are on the menu. Josefin wasn’t named Sweden’s best female chef in 1998 for nothing.

It’s the young couple Mark and Lisa Speer who run the Swedish Crown and the Vasa restaurants, as well as the Courtyard Bakery and cafe next door. Swedish Crown specializes in Swedish cuisine, while chef Dennis Much at the Brunswick Hotel and Restaurant aims for more traditional fine dining. There are many other places in Lindsborg where you can get a bite to eat.

“In Sweden it is a big deal to go out to a nice restaurant and eat some good food while it has become almost routine to eat out here,” notes Josefin.

Christmas in Lindsborg
There are plenty of quaint Christmas villages waiting for collectors each holiday season, but there is only one modeled after an actual American town. “Christmas in Lindsborg” has now grown to 10 charming hand-painted porcelain replicas of buildings with lighting inside. The inaugural issue of 1200 models of Bethany Church quickly sold out. Other buildings include the Swedish Country Inn, the Brunswick Hotel, Swedish Crown restaurant and the quaint Swedish Timber Cottage. The Victorian residence of Mrs Swansson on the Bethany College campus grounds has also been reproduced. The idea came from Marjorie Schmidt who also runs the Christmas store, and eventually proceeds may go to the historic architectural preservation of Lindsborg.

L M Ericssonwas the Swedish telephone pioneer who founded what is today the country’s most important company - Ericsson. In Lindsborg Swedish genes in the form of brothers John and Charles Ericsson invented the first telephone dial in 1895. You can see the tiny workshop John and Charles’ father built for them at the Old Mill Museum. The brothers also tinkered with such inventions as a horse-less carriage and a player piano. Being just 20 years old and inexperienced, they never took out a patent for the telephone dial, but in Chicago they became partners in the Automatic Electric Co that had a pa-tent for a rather impractical dial that they could improve. The brothers eventually ended up with 145 telephone-related patents. Their most important invention was “transfer trunking” that expanded the telephone switches from the limit of 100 lines to up to 10 million phone lines. The company in which John and Charles were the only ones in the “R&D” department eventually became GTE employing thousands of technicians.

Meanwhile in Lindsborg it was not until 1951 that the manual telephone switch was replaced by an automatic one, and the town is still so small that you only use the last four digits when you give your phone number.

Butter in the Well
Linda Hubalek is a Lindsborg writer who has written semi-documentary books about Swedish settlers in Kansas. In the Butter in the Well series she follows the life of Kajsa Svensson Runeberg who, at one time, homesteaded on Linda’s family farm. In the Planting Dreams series, Samuel and Charlotta Johnson face countless challenges and heartache as they journey from Sweden to Kansas, and then homestead in the shadow of the Smoky Hills.

Interestingly there is also an eye-witness account from one of the first settlers, Anna Olsson, the daughter of Pastor Olof Olsson who founded Lindsborg. “A Child of the Prairie” (En Prärieunges Funderingar) is a kid’s musings about her new life in America and very readable with such observations as “in Värmland there are no rattlesnakes and no longhorn cows”.

The Lindsborg saga began in 1868 when a group of Swedish emigrants in Chicago formed the First Swedish Agricultural Company and purchased 13 000 acres of prairie land in Central Kansas from the Union Pacific Railroad. The settlers made dugout caves in the valley of the Smoky Hill River where they lived until they could afford to start building a house. You can still see the Hoglund Dugout twenty feet by ten feet (one mile west of Lindsborg at Hwy 4). The doorway that was covered with a buffalo hide or blanket faced east.

The small colony got a big boost when Pastor Olsson arrived with a hundred followers in 1889. He had been the Pastor in Sunnemo (near Munkfors that is Lindsborg’s Sister City today) in Värmland. Today two-thirds of the Swedish descendants in Lindsborg have roots in Värmland. Pastor Olsson and his wife had been concerned about religious issues and the threat of a famine and when their baby daughter Maria died they decided to emigrate. They left with more than two hundred followers, but had to split into two groups before crossing the Atlantic. The other group was talked into settling in Missouri by a railroad agent.

Pastor Olsson quickly organized the Bethany Church congregation, a school, a church choir and a brass band! He became a Kansas state legislator before moving to the Augustana College and Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois to become professor of theology and later its president.

Birger Sandzén
“When a native Swede comes in contact with Sandzén’s paintings, he does not believe that the colours are true. Sandzén’s fantastic bright colours are strange to Swedish eyes ... He has become the interpreter of the world he loves. Sandzén is not Paris, not even Sweden, but he is America,” wrote sculptor Carl Milles in the catalogue when his friend exhibited in Stockholm in 1937.

The Paris- and Anders Zorn-trained Birger Sandzén came to Bethany College for a two-year teaching assignment when he was 23, but he liked Lindsborg so much that he remained there until his death in 1954, at the age of eighty-three (read more about him in Swedish Press March 00). Famous art schools and universities attempted to lure Birger Sandzén away from Lindsborg and the college, but he had fallen in love with the peaceful orderliness of the small town and the beauty of the surrounding landscape.

The Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery (closed Monday and Tuesday, phone 913-227-2220) is a real gem with some of the artist’s best paintings and drawings as well as monthly exhibitions by other artists. The entrance foyer opens onto a courtyard featuring the “Little Triton” fountain by the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles. Chamber music programs and recitals offer another dimension of enjoyment to gallery visitors.

More than just an artist, Sandzén was a gifted teacher, linguist and translator, musician and very much part of the Lindsborg legend. He helped found several arts organizations and it is thanks to him and the many artists he mentored that Lindsborg became the artist colony it is today with some 60 artists settled in the valley.

There are regular Artists Open Houses or you can visit most studios by appointment. Renowned artist Lester Rayner’s Red Barn Studio at 212 South Main (phone 227-2217) is open to visitors who will be fascinated by his masks, ceramics, mosaic, carved boxes and paintings. There are also several galleries with contemporary Lindsborg favourites like painter Maleta Forsberg and Rita Sharpe as well as numerous weavers, potters, woodworkers and photographers.

LINDSBORG WISDOM
If you are dreaming of an idyllic life in a small town, you will enjoy Everyday Tales: A Small Book about living in Lindsborg, a small Kansas town (ISBN 0-9675210-0-9 for $9 in the US and $11 else-where from Lindsborg Arts Council, 100 Main Street, Lindsborg, KS 67456). Ten women banded together to write down their personal observations (and you can read one in Last Word on page 42) that boiled down to “laugh a lot, cherish family and friends, teach and learn, aspire to a simpler life, appreciate and perform art, value the community’s heritage, work hard, seek the spiritual, and remember to wave at everyone, anytime, anywhere within the city limits of Lindsborg - it’s an unwritten law.”

SWEDISH PAVILION
What does the old main Post Office in Stockholm have in common with Prince Eugene’s Waldemarsudde? Or the NK department store with the Church of the Divine Revelation in Saltsjöbaden? What can possibly Rosenbad, the Swedish equivalent to Capitol Hill, have in common with the Swedish Pavillion in Lindsborg? - All of these buildings were designed by Ferdinand Boberg, one of Sweden’s foremost architects at the turn of the century.

The Swedish Pavilion is a mansion with a rich and unique history. Preparations are now intensifying on all levels to restore the building for its centennial anniversary. Around the turn of the century international exhibitions with a variety of names were popular. A world exhibition was arranged in Stockholm in 1897, and similar expositions took place in other cities of the world. In 1904 there was a World’s Fair in St. Louis.

The Swedish King Oscar II, was initially not very enthusiastic about Swedish partici-pation in St. Louis. He thought Americans had already “taken” too many young, productive Swedes. The Swedish Parliament, however, decided that Sweden would participate. At that point the King expressed a desire for the Swedish exhibition at the World’s Fair to be a “source of homesickness” for the young emigrants. It was to be a place where visitors could learn more about Sweden and their Swedish roots. This was to be a place where they could sit down and write letters to their relatives in Sweden.

Ferdinand Boberg was contacted to design the exhibition hall and he presented the idea of a Swedish mansion. Boberg created not only the building, but, together with his wife Anna, he also designed the furniture and interior for the Swedish Pavilion.

Ferdinand Boberg was happy and proud of the attention given to the Swedish Pavilion in St. Louis. Most other buildings were grand “castles of plaster”, and in the midst of them, the Swedish yellow wood mansion with red tile roof, white edging, green shutters and a garden, surrounded by a green wooden fence, received a lot of attention from the visitors. The Swedish Pavilion became a popular meeting place for Swedes and Swedish-Americans, a fact verified by the guest books. There was no extensive exhibition of art or other objects in the pavilion.

Ferdinand Boberg had created the Pavilion as a temporary exhibition hall to last for six months, while the World’s Fair was open. When the fair was over, the pavilion was purchased by W.W. Thomas, the U.S. Minister to Sweden and Norway. It was then presented to Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, where it arrived in 1905.

At Bethany College the pavilion served as a classroom for domestic sciences, a library, a museum and eventually as a home to the art department for more than sixty years under the Swedish-born artist Birger Sandzén.

The former director of the Sandzén Gallery, Carl Peterson remembers the students’ art carnivals in the pavilion, the art exhibitions, the birthday parties, and the rich art environment surrounding Dr. Sandzén. In the main building there were usually painting classes, with or without models. In the left wing they worked on drawing and design, and in the right wing weaving and jewelry-making.

After more than sixty years at Bethany College the Swedish Pavilion had seen its best days. The “temporary exhibition hall” was moved, thanks to volunteers from the Smoky Valley Historical Association, to the Old Mill Museum in Lindsborg. Once there it was partially restored, but due to lack of funds a complete restoration was impossible. In 1976 King Carl XIV Gustaf rededicated the building to all Swedes and Swedish-Americans.

The mansion is the only one of Ferdinand Boberg’s fifteen national exposition build-ings in existence today. Both the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation in Swe-den and the Kansas Heritage Trust Fund have helped to start off the full restoration of the Swedish Pavilion. The goal is to have the complete restoration finished for the building’s centennial in 2004. There is still a huge need for funds to reach the goal.

Wood Carvings
When the Swedish immigrants settled in the Great Plains of Kansas this was a nearly tree-less area. Perhaps that is the reason why they love wood carving and wood working so much. In the Old Mill Museum there are even great “carvings” in concrete.
The best known Lindsborg carver, Anton Pearson started off with limestone that was easier to acquire than good carving wood. Later he used wood from torn-down water towers, redwood he brought back from California and pieces brought to him by friends. You can see many of his pieces in his Lindsborg studio that today is the workshop of his son-in-law artist Norman Malm. Other famous local wood carvers were John Altenborg Sr and Grandma Larkin who mostly did animals. Lindsborg carvings are “light-hearted” in contrast to the serious works of Sweden’s most famous carver, Axel “Döder-hultarn” Petersson. You can see a few of his priceless groups like The Wedding (where the bride hides her pregnancy with a bouquet of flowers) at Bethany College - in surprisingly unprotected glass cabinets.

The most typical souvenir from Lindsborg is a personalized Swedish horse from Hemslöjd to hang on your porch. Many Lindsborg homes have one outside their houses attesting to the town’s “Swedishness”, more than anything else.

Bethany College
The American-born but Swedish-speaking Rev. Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson succeeded Pastor Olof Olsson at the Bethany Church that he had founded. In 1881 Swensson started Bethany College with ten students studying in the church sacristy. First known as an academy, it became a college in 1886. Swensson also founded the Bethany College Oratorio Society, and encouraged Swedish artists and musicians to join the small college facility. This was how Birger Sandzén ended up at Bethany and built up the art faculty.

Today Bethany College strives to remain true to its rich heritage and traditions with its four-year liberal arts programs. It offers its 700 students 15 major fields of study as well as 13 teaching majors and 11 minors. A low 13:1 faculty/student ratio ensures individual attention. Over 90 percent of Bethany’s graduates seeking to enter professional schools are admitted. Twenty percent of Bethany’s graduates enter graduate and professional schools. The college is renowned for the quality of its education, music, arts, business, preprofessional and pre-engineering programs and as one of the few places in the Plains region that offers Swedish. Another advantage is the setting as described by a communications major: “If I go for the all-night study room and it’s 1.30 in the morning, I don’t feel like I have to call someone and say ‘I’m on my way home’”.

The Messiah Festival
“That chorus is worth driving 500 miles to hear ... I could not believe the sound. It is rich as cream, clear as a mountain lake, stronger than mother love, flexible as nylon, strong as steel” wrote a Wichita critic. Many people come from even further away for the annual Messiah Festival during Easter week that you have to get tickets for almost a year ahead (phone 785-227-3380). It was Carl Aaron Swensson and his wife Alma, who was a music teacher, who founded the Oratorio Society in 1886. The Society has presented Handel’s Messiah for 114 years.

The first performance took place in the Bethany Church, then it was moved to the round Ling Auditorium and now the large Presser Hall that is purpose-built for the 300-voice chorus and the 50-member orchestra.

In the beginning the musical establishment did not think anything would come out of the little prairie town’s musical aspirations, but soon artists Jussi Björling, cellist Pablo Casals and violinist Isaac Steern performed there.

Lindsborg has been dubbed the “Bayreuth of America” and the “Oberammergau of the Plains”. Eventually Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion was added to the program of what is today North America’s longest running festival.

This year the church opera Saint Erik’s Crown about Sweden’s patron saint was per-formed, as composer Eskil Hemberg is the current Pearson Distinguished Professor of Swedish Studies at Bethany College. Other music by the former artistic director of the Royal Stockholm Opera that has been performed is Six Emigrant Ballads, Mass of Peace for a New Millennium and Signposts, based on texts by the late Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld.

A Bridge over Time
“Move over Rudolph” wrote the Wall Street Journal when Lindsborg made the world’s tallest (42 feet) Christmas goat. One of the people involved was Charlotte Jalkeus Anderson from Stockholm. She studied music at Bethany College when she was 19 and eventually married Dean of the Anderson Butik. The couple and their children are really an illustration of the community’s last Hyllingsfest theme “A Bridge Over Time”. Charlotte helps keep Lindsborg in touch with modern Sweden and she also conducts Anderson Tours there. Her husband imports a lot of Swedish necessities through his store and mail order business - including a real Swedish pine log timber cottage that has become a local tourist attraction.to Lindsborg and this is where (on 125 North Second) Anderson Butik is located. The pine log house was built in Dalarna, and shipped to Kansas where it was reconstructed from the elements that had been carefully dismantled and numbered.

The yule time billy-goat is a typical Swedish Christmas decoration, usually made of straw. It is the oldest Christmas symbol that Swedes have, probably descending from the god Thor’s goat, or from the figure of the devil which was included in the St. Nicholas revel put on by schools in the Middle ages. Later the “julbock” became the leading character in an odd little Christmas play which young people performed as they did the rounds of homesteads, collecting food and drink for their dancing and festivities at Christmas time. Someone would dress up as a goat and participate in the villagers’ larks and pranks. If the generosity of the donors was not satisfactory the goat was used to scare up children and create a little excitement.