The Life of a Saint: Swedish Heritage

This is an excerpt from The Life of a Saint, the sixth chapter of  the book A Farmer All His Life by Linda M. Mainquist. The book is about her father Evert Mainquist, who became a member of Zion at age eight, when his family moved from Nebraska to Minnesota.

That year, 1919, the family began attending Carlsund Lutheran Church, a country Swedish congregation about one mile from the family farm (the site of the present day Zion Lutheran Cemetery. Like other ethnic groups in America, those Swedish farmers made the church a community center. By using Swedish as both liturgical and social languages, Swedish was also preserved for a few generations.

The Carlslund services were in Swedish, typical of the Augustana Synod of the Lutheran church. According to Swedes in Minnesota by Nordstrom, even in the face of bitter criticism of foreign language usage during World War I, 85 percent of Augustana Synod churches continued to conduct their services in Swedish. Now it is used only sparingly on special occasions such as Christmas or funerals.

In the cemetery near Carlslund rested the Swedish Lutheran homesteaders—the Hoaglunds, the Illstrups, the Nelsons, the Bengtsons—who founded Carlslund Lutheran  church.

…The interior was also distinctly Swedish. Above the altar, Isaiah 55:6, “Söken  Herren medan han låter sig finnas, afalla honom medan han är  nära” was inscribed, and where the eaves began, a stenciling in a scroll pattern circled the sanctuary. With no electricity, lamps hanging from the ceiling lit the church. Behind the church a small barn stabled the minister’s horses, and nearby were two outhouses.

John Moody, a descendent of a founder of the congregation, played the pump organ, dug the graves, and taught Sunday School. Since Moody never made much money dynamiting stumps and rocks, no tombstone was erected when he died. When Dad saw the small tin marker with his name, he was angered. He told me of Moody mowing the cemetery and running to town with the lawnmower two miles and one-half on Highway 25 to get gas. Dad explained, “Moody never had any money. He never managed to keep things together, but he always worked. Later, the Wandersee brothers, Moody’s neighbors,  paid for a granite stone to grant the man earthly honor, and my father was content.