RG 21.4.1969.07.31.b Mortensen (4 of
4).wav
Tue, 07/30 01:58PM
22:02
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
symphony, minneapolis, people, music, augsburg, augsburg college, concert, year, choir,
isaac stern, students, band, directed, tickets, sang, girls, choral, play, talk, elizabeth
SPEAKERS
Gerda Morten... Show more
RG 21.4.1969.07.31.b Mortensen (4 of
4).wav
Tue, 07/30 01:58PM
22:02
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
symphony, minneapolis, people, music, augsburg, augsburg college, concert, year, choir,
isaac stern, students, band, directed, tickets, sang, girls, choral, play, talk, elizabeth
SPEAKERS
Gerda Mortensen
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:01
On this Choral Club tour up to Central Minnesota, which I went with people carrying my
luggage because I was recovering from surgery.
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:13
I played the components for the choir often then play the components for Miss Gerda's
fall when she sang solos and for Mr. Mr Opseth when he did the other cello playing. And
then we did a tour were taken by car from congregation to congregation. And on our final
ride home on the train from up near Brener downtown Minneapolis. I had instructed the
girls to be very quiet and dignified, then lady Lake on the train, not too upset. I said, you
know, your responsibility for the reputation of Augsburg. It just simply is up to you people.
And after we had been on the train for a half an hour, so a woman came up to me
interested I Mrs. Clarence Francis. And I just, I recognize, you know, I saw this gang of girls
coming on the train. And I thought, we're really going to have a nice ride into Minneapolis
at this point. But she said, I want to compliment you on the very fine sort of manner in
which your girls appear. Well, we came back to Minneapolis and the young men all met
the girls and they had dates at night, I suppose, and so on, and everybody talked about
this. But the grand payoff was the fact that we had a $500 balance from our first choral
club tour. And they meant Glee Club hadn't indebtedness and the grand piano in the
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chapel $500.
G
Gerda Mortensen 01:40
So the girls help the men pay for the balance of that first grand piano. Well, that was the
way the choral club started. They kept up having a choral club and a choir until around
1933-34. When they merged into a cchoir their there's a great deal of feeling about that
we should still keep separate organizations. But Mr. Sateren who had succeeded Mr.
Opseth, was much interested in having a choir. So we had a choir, composed of the
women of the choral and the Men's Glee Club. And then Mr. I think Donald Merrick was
director of that when Leland Sateren came back to service after the war. And he picked
up the second choir, which was then called the Crocker, but that was also a mixed choir.
So they started out with mixed choir music at this point. And we've had these groups
going and much music going since. But one of the very wonderful things about music at
Augsburg College is that we've been in this Metropolitan Community where the arts have
been coming from the beginning of the Minneapolis Symphony under the leadership of
emo Oberhof are playing the old Lyceum downtown Minneapolis and 11th Street. As an
undergraduate student at University Minnesota, I remember very well the first concert I
went to, to hear over half or play direct. And I had heard symphonies and this but I had
not heard tone poems. And every time subsequent years when I go to hear the
Minneapolis Symphony, they play the pines of Rome or the fountains of Rome. My mind
goes back to that concert, and there was a Debussy number, and I'd never heard Debussy
before. I think they played the sea, America.
G
Gerda Mortensen 03:35
And it simply, I was speechles with the beauty of the music and the loveliness of this and
other Oh, this is what I want to be doing want to go here. Well, I had taken piano lessons
from Sverdrup The very delightful treasure of Augsburg College, who's a sister George
Sverdrup. She had graduated from the Minneapolis school music was a very able musician
herself, had given some piano lessons, but because of problems with the curvature of the
spine, she had found it very difficult to sit and play piano. So she had accepted this
position the treasure box pretty quick. She did with utmost beauty and dignity, and she
added something that was just very fine. But she had also taught piano to tennis girls fold
who was teaching voicera dogs forget the time that I came, and her sister sacred, who was
dietitian at deaconess, and who was organist at Trinity Lutheran Church for a period of 35
or 40 years was a four of us decided that we would buy season tickets for the Minneapolis
Symphony concerts. So for years, we went downtown to the old Lyceum, we bought the
cheapest tickets. We oftentimes walked is running there was a good worker. And then we
would talk over the music. So I learned music by listening to music. I didn't know I had
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never formally studied music. But the thing just simply grew and grew, then over half or
left, and what was the name for Bruggen came. And we certainly get sort of tired, different
broken and Jenny, that piano violin is that he had, and then all at once, one day, it was
announced that we were going to have Eugene Armand DS director. He played directed
our Friday evening concert, and I was so excited. There's going to be an all Tchaikovsky
program and Sunday, I immediately went to the box office and bought tickets for my
whole family for the Sunday afternoon concert, and took everybody over there, including
Elizabeth, who's just a little little girl, but we sat and listened to the magnificent music that
he was able to bring out of that artist. He wasn't there many years and then he was
succeeded, but Dimitri metropolis, and we thought that we'd had the pinnacle with our
Monday.
G
Gerda Mortensen 06:01
But when this tall Athenian strode to the podium and directed this Symphony, it was
though it were all electrified over again. And I remember that opening concert, he did a
piano concerto with an orchestra and directed with his head and sat and played and
directed and oh, we just thought now. So we kept going year in and year out. This was a
Friday evening routine, listening to all this grand music. And then about in 1900 and 54.
We were approached by a subcommittee of the Minneapolis Symphony, in their interest to
try to bring the college's to, and more young people 10 the symphony orchestra concert,
they were starting something that they called Symphony forums, and they wanted to do a
pilot study with Augsburg College. Claire's German, I think, was in the Director of Public
Relations at that time, and he referred Stanley Hawks. And one Mr. London one, Mr. Zoe,
to me. So we sat down to talk about what we might do. It happened that my niece
Elizabeth Martin son, who was a major in music was chairman of music that year. So I
called her in And together, we sat down to talk about what we could do about selling
tickets, at a reduced rate to Augsburg College students and to Augsburg faculty. And then
three or two or three times a year, we would have the artists from the university come
over to meet with us. This just challenged everybody's interest. And that first year, two
thirds of our faculty and students, but this series of tickets, and this was an amazing sort of
thing. And in the program notes of that opening concert it talks about was with Martin's
and his Chairman, this committee, and that they had now established Symphony forums
at Augsburg College.
G
Gerda Mortensen 08:31
We arranged a dinner for all these people, faculty and students and anyone else who
would like to come and we were around 200 people in the old dining room. And on top of
the rat, he came over to talk to the group. And he talked about what constitutes listen to
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music. How do you listen to music? And how does the symphony operate and how does
the symphony work? At the end of the evening, we felt as if we had been at some renewed
spirit heights. Anybody who had a deep interest in religion and spirituality felt that they
had been tremendously and noble by this experience. We have some pictures in the family
and in the archives of durante being there and I know Elizabeth has one that she
cherishes, highly taken with diversity because she had done this. We also had the privilege
of having Isaac Stern come over to Augsburg one evening to talk to the symphony, we
decided that it was better to have a symphony forum the evening before the concert so
that people could come and meet this person and then talk with him. Isaac Stern is
always very willing to do this kind of thing and was quite articulate. He brought his very
charming wife with him. We were all ready for this down in the Student Lounge of science
Hall. When r1 to electric stern came on and the lights went out well Garrett a new her
some candles were in the home maintenance department and some candlesticks. So she's
grounded around and found all kinds of candles and candlesticks. And that little old that
little not old but that that student lounge was just so delightful. Set somebody at the door
to meet the people with the candle and to light the past down. It just set such a sort of a
romantic kind of setting. And
G
Gerda Mortensen 10:34
Mr.--oh, the business manager of the Minneapolis Symphony--Oh well, I think it was
named a little later. But he escorted Mr. Mrs. Isaac Stern, and they came on down I don't
remember now whether I wonder if there was a mystery land in this mystery Ellie and I
think that they were there with us. at the dinner wonder about he was there. Donald
Dayton was present because he was on this board to try to interest young people in a
concert. But of course the fact that we had done set to superb job of selling to such a
large number of people was a tremendous incentive to these people. And subsequently,
they extended this service to our colleges. And busloads used to come from Carleton and
St. Olaf Angus Davis. Adolphus and from St. Catherine's now, but they always said you
people disappear beginning and and then the next year. Durante came back again. And
he talked about his own bringing up in Hungary and about listening to music. And he and
he talked about Bartok because he would Bella Bartok was one of his favorites. And he
talked about how as you grew up in in hungry, you just grew up with music as though
you're eating the soil and the spirit in the soul of a country. Well as students who were
there and listen to these just never forgot these things.
G
Gerda Mortensen 12:08
And other years, we followed up and tried to get some people to come over. But then
there gets be competition to go to the Masterpiece Series. And some other kinds of things
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in the Minneapolis Symphony is changed to that they offer now to smaller series and
within these, and students still may buy tickets at discount. And we did in those early days
also have quite a few students who actually did the symphony. They had actually
downtown and they ushered over the Minneapolis Symphony, but then the music students
at the University of Minnesota got first chance and so they're less of them, but if they
really wanted to and didn't have money to buy tickets, then they could also you know,
make an effort and several of them did to get there. And now we have scrubber CHATZKY
and desert upcoming sim is in centennial year. We are speaking for the 19th of October to
have the Minneapolis Symphony play a Centennial concert. The original premiere of that
workflow Norway's work for orgs, written for Augsburg college choir, with the music
provided by the Minneapolis Symphony. The symphony will also want to play something
else they will play something Mozart, which relates to Mozart, whose home was in
Augsburg, Germany paying tribute to that connection. And also, they will play something
that they are already acquainted with. And so we're going to ask Mr. James Johnson
music department at Augsburg who has done the Greek concerto with a Minneapolis
Symphony and a concert at our place to do this at the university. Those were somehow
the beginnings of some of all of this.
G
Gerda Mortensen 13:50
Now talking about the University of Minnesota, we were just across the river, anybody
could walk over all the content, all the programs, all the lectures, all the workshops, all the
drama, they were open to us and faculty people at Augsburg, were always interested in
buying tickets, getting tickets, encouraging students to go. And so we have some of all of
this. We tried to think too, that there were some needs in our communities, we wanted to
reach out into the community to do something. And so one year, a number of us thought it
would be a very wonderful thing. If at Christmas time each year, we could bring members
of all the different churches in Minneapolis together to the Minneapolis auditorium TO
HAVE A Christmas Carol sing. Couldn't we start a create a new tradition to do something
like this? Well, I think we did it about three years. And we had quite a large number of
people coming. But then I think that with Claire's Germans coming to be in the Public
Relations Office, he didn't quite see the value of this. He didn't think it would be a going
thing. And so this idea was dropped only to be picked up by the Lutheran Welfare Society
using Luther College choir. At the core, our is the focal point and its director to put on
them as I every year at Advent on Advent Sunday.
G
Gerda Mortensen 15:22
This continued for many, many years. And many of the Augsburg choir people, anybody
who likes to sing could go and join the big mass choir that sang for the Messiah. I suppose
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the year that this Messiah stood out as a greatest rendition was the year that Jenny's
girdles falls saying the alto so and john to whom Mr. Sateren described as the best tenor in
the Twin Cities, saying the tenor solos, Russia Schouler from the University of Minnesota
race, and I forgot to know who your soprano was. But our we were just as proud as we
could be of Jenny scribbles fold and john to because they had done it absolutely excellent
work. acquires took tours east and west and north and south. And we had a band that
had been started in 1900 and 52, when Mayor Subodh came to Augsburg, he had directed
MacArthur's band in the South Pacific during the war period. And it came to us much
interested in doing something with the band. I was in charge of freshman week that year.
And as I met him in the hallway, I needed to go to the bank. He said, Let me take you
down to the bank. And on the way we talked about, what could we do to build up a
number of people would like to be in the band. So we decided we write to all the freshmen
everybody to take any instrument along the table fade and bring them with them and
take them up to freshmen camp.
G
Gerda Mortensen 17:04
And so this we did, and out of that group, there were some 7080 students who brought
their instruments along and made us have all had the electric car they are being able to
bring out the best in these youngsters. And they played some had so much fun rehearsing
then, and it was a nucleus of a band which grew and grew and grew from then, until now
he is a highly selective band. He is a second band. He is a repertoires, cultured class with
people just simply get acquainted with a great deal with music. The band has played for
national conventions downtown and at one of these national conventions meeting in
Minneapolis. He met some people from England and from Europe, other places who are
attending, and he invited them to come to attend. What was known for a number of years
is the spring and Tiffany at Augsburg College, which was a creative use of music, music,
art, drama, and speech.
G
Gerda Mortensen 18:07
Taking and this was always a second Sunday before Palm Sunday. Is it first or second?
Well anyway, before proceeding Palm Sunday. But we took the whole idea spring and
Tiffany is some creative way to express our own feeling about Easter about resurrection
about eternal life.
G
Gerda Mortensen 18:31
And as these people that Mayo had invited to come from that national convention
walked out of Simon LB Hall where that person Tiffany was given. I overheard somebody
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say, this is the most creative thing that I've seen in the line of music and all of us say this
reminds me of a story that Mr. Fauci, our chemistry professor told one time as he gave a
chapel talk, how are you going to learn how to appreciate the music, the mystery fast, he
was raised in the area of South Dakota, about the area where Roblox book giant in the
years had it setting. His family situation was such that he was not able to go to high
school until he was something like 15 1617 years of age. And so I think in two years, he
studied everything in high school and was ready to go on to college. In his home
community, there was a dear old country Fiddler. And he played the film. And he thought
there was just no music quite like the country Fiddler. So when he went to college, I don't
remember where this was. But anyway, he was always told that he should go and listen to
some other music and expand his interest in concert to music was, so he did go. And he
went to here concert and he went to your recitals. And he went to hear symphonies. But
all the time his thought went back to that country Fiddler. No music really came up to
what the country Fiddler was. And after he graduated, he went back to his home
community one time, and lo and behold, the country Fiddler was to play.
G
Gerda Mortensen 20:24
And lo and behold, he said, I discovered what I learned. And I had learned it by going to
listen, and listen, and listen. And imperceptibly I had grown. And I suddenly realized that
the symphony music and the beauty of all of this, this was what my soul really wanted.
And so it is also in the field of literature, you said, some people write books about flowery
frontier, it's in there so flowery, that they're just too heavy with perfume, and some
describe the backyard. So you see every pig and every bit of filth there ever is. You don't
need to see all the beauty, you don't need to see all the pills, you can find things that will
talk about things. And, and there can be something which is a happy medium between the
two. And something which is real and true and significant. And this is what's great
literature. So you can develop a capacity for great literature, and the capacity for great
music and the feeling that you have for art and for drama. by exposing yourself to these
things enough times until somehow by the process of osmosis. They've gotten into you
and they're part of your will bandwidth of your being. That was I've just never forgotten
that little talk by Mr. Fuzzy [audio cuts off]
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Show less
RG 21.4.1968.12.31 Dahlen.mp3
Fri, 08/09 10:18AM
64:49
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
augsburg, conference, committee, student, christensen, opposition, paragraph, remember, vote,
nomination, personnel, people, trustees, candidate, board, church, program, year, president,
institution
SPEAKERS
K. Ber... Show more
RG 21.4.1968.12.31 Dahlen.mp3
Fri, 08/09 10:18AM
64:49
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
augsburg, conference, committee, student, christensen, opposition, paragraph, remember, vote,
nomination, personnel, people, trustees, candidate, board, church, program, year, president,
institution
SPEAKERS
K. Berner Dahlen, Gerda Mortensen, Carl Chrislock
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:00
This is one of the tape recordings for the centennial library of tape recordings done in the
archives room on Tuesday, December 31 1900 68. The main purpose of this interview today
is to talk with Mr. K. Brunner down, especially about some of the work in connection with
the coming election of Dr. Christensen to the presidency of Oxbridge and later to talk
about the beginnings of student personnel work at Augsburg, Caracas, Mark and Mrs.
Theresa Haines and I here to Washington will be asking questions as the year progresses.
C
Carl Chrislock 00:44
And just to fill in a little of your biographical data, Berner, you graduated from Augsburg
1931. Is that right? And were out teaching in the public schools. Part Four of it for the next
10 years. Wisdom graduate work interspersed. And then you came to Augsburg in 41. Was
it in the fall of 41? Well, the first thing I think we want to talk about here is the 1938. Annual
Conference of the Lutheran Free Church. And is it correct that you were a secretary of
committee number two, the committee that wants to respond to the reports of the
educational institutions.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
01:37
The committee's of the church conference were elected or were nominated by the
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conference the year before and elected. So that actually, we were members of the
conference for a whole year beforehand. But our meeting began on Wednesday. The first
step, which was to elect officers, and Reverend Arthur Hansen was elected chairman. And
I was reelected secretary of post which I accepted with some reluctance. That's
particularly humorous, because I'm a teacher of composition. But writing and such
conditions is not the easiest thing for me to do. But from that time on, we met as a
committee whenever possible during the conference, and tried to put into a few pertinent
paragraphs the the report of the President of the Board of Trustees and other influential
members of the the Augsburg administration. Mung other topics, of course, was the one of
major importance the nominating of the new president. And this we did.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
03:05
I remember, particularly after the opening salutation, I had written a paragraph to the
effect that we mourn the untimely death of the late George job. And immediately,
Professor Andreas, Helen raised a rather stern protest with the explanation to the
congregation that in God's hands, nothing is untimely. And so of course, the congregation
voted this out of the committee's report, excuse me. Still, I've, I've since thought that this is
a theological problem, and I wouldn't be in a position to argue it one way or the other.
And, of course, it really didn't figure here, but that's the one. That's the one thing that I
remember from reading the report. There was this one protest. And the rest of the report,
it seemed to me was received by the con by the conference withnodisturbances of any
kind. I remember once that Dr. Bernard raised his eyebrows and stopped me from reading
for a moment, while he said, there is a considerable amount of noise in the in the church
auditorium. And this is a Christian conference and or something to this effect, and that
there ought not be this kind of a disturbance. And with that, of course, the disturbance
quiet down and I was permitted to continue my reading.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
04:57
Now, the reports, of course, were made, first read all the way through, and then were
followed through paragraph by paragraph. And after that initial plunge, I really have no
recollection of any other dissension, no dissension, no, no disturbance of any kind. Other
than that, for see the secretary presented the paragraph to the to the conference, and
then stepped aside and the, and the President of the conference took over. So if there was
any, any discussion? I really had no part in it. And I don't recall that there was any, except
as I mentioned, the one about the reference to the untimely death of the late George
burger.
Gerda Mortensen 05:48
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G
Gerda Mortensen 05:48
Do you remember that Dr. Bennett took the floor and made a very strong statement
about the fact that they had a good that the only candidate to be considered was Dr.
Christensen and Dr. Norbert should not come under consideration. They had information,
that would mean that this would be punter. This would be undesirable. He said it very
carefully. But he said it was a great premise.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
06:19
Yeah, so I remember that. It seemed to me that that came. I don't remember if it was
before the voting or after, before the voting, but he did make a very emotional speech, in
which he kept his voice, very low and, and very, very well controlled, but certainly
emotional field. I think he said something to this effect that we had hoped that this would
not have to come before the conference. But since there had been some pressure on the
board of trustees that he was forced to make that statement.
C
Carl Chrislock 07:05
Now, just to refresh your memory a little here, the Board of Trustees of Augsburg brought
course to the conference, the recommendation, or they rather than nomination of Bernard
Christensen as president of Augsburg, and this had been announced a little less than a
month before the conference. The actual nomination had been made in March, but it was
sat on for about two months. This was partly at least because Christensen wasn't yet
ready to accept. And after the announcement was made in the church papers, there was
some objection to the fact that the Board of Trustees had nominated only a single
candidate. There were some who expressed the view that the annual conference should
have had at two or more candidates. Now, I was wondering if within committee number
two, there was any argument in favor of two candidates modifying the Board of Trustees
report to that extent.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
08:26
The members of the committee, of course, were frequently cornered during the conference
by certain representatives of the opposition, who suggested that it's an undemocratic
process not to have two candidates. And as I told my wife this morning, I was very young
than I was only 32. So I thought to that, it would have been better if they'd had two
candidates, at least to log on, for the conference. But since that time, I have served on
many committees and I have
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K
K. Berner Dahlen
09:06
I think there are more frequently
K
K. Berner Dahlen
09:10
nominating committees who place in nomination one person rather than two. And still it
would be considered a democratic process. Now, if the conference had wanted to
introduce a second candidate. This was entirely within the power of the conference. But as
far as the committee is concerned, I remember distinctly that we had a fairly lengthy and
perhaps somewhat heated discussion on this topic. The conference committee could only
do with what they had received from the Board of Trustees, if the Board of Trustees
presented us with one nomination for the presidency. That's what we had to work with.
And the idea of putting in a sticker candidate or someone else was contrary to the rules of
work, the church, at least, this is the standard, the committee talk, and I was happy to
have that to lean back on because as you know, you do hear a few things here and there.
And we had heard that the candidate that was being proposed was not the particular
candidate that we would like to have as a longtime president of our institution. And so I
personally had some some leaning in, in the direction of the committee rather than in the
direction of the opposition.
C
Carl Chrislock 10:43
Oh, well, yeah, I can I can, I can clarify that. No, no, that that was long before the
conference, you see, the the corporation meeting, the Board of Trustees worked out sort of
a four stage procedure, they were a little bit in doubt as to how to go about electing a
president. It did almost. It had been so informal in the previous cases. And so the first
stage really was to have a preferential vote within the corporation. Now, I'm not sure that
the that preferential vote was ever made public, it's in the corporation minutes, there were
19 votes cast, Christensen got eight Brynn, burntwood four clans, Carlson four, Norberg,
two and Hendrickson one. And this then was disclosed to the Board of Trustees. This was
back on March 9, and 10th. The Board of Trustees then unanimously and nominated
Christensen and and that was the second stage. Now the third stage, of course, was to be
conference action on the board nomination. And the fourth stage would be the final stage
Board of Trustees ratification of the conference action, which was legally necessary. And
the most controversial part of the whole thing, of course, was this business of only one
candidate. And I and I guess my question, I guess you've answered my question. My
question was whether within committee number two, there was any agitation afoot to
modify the Board of Trustees recommendation to the point of having two candidates and
and you indicate that this wasn't possible under the operating rules.
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K
K. Berner Dahlen
12:55
That's true. That's it. That's the attitude that the committee took. Now. As I recall it, we did
receive a substitute paragraph written by a member of this up for the opposition, that was
suggested as a substitute, which we could insert into our committee report. And this in did
include the two candidates, excuse me. But when we met in committee, we decided that
as you know, the committee's of the church were elected by or were nominated by a
committee of the year before. And in the procedure, very frequently, people got on
committees for which they had very little competence. And I don't know that any of us,
perhaps, Reverend Arthur Hansen was well qualified. I don't know who the other members
of the committee were at this moment. I have them here. And it was Johannes ring stood,
and inbound, Northam and Joe, who's flown and yourself and Arthur Hansen.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
13:59
Suppose that each of us could say that we were fond of Augsburg, and we're good
supporters of it. But as far as the inner workings of the Board of Trustees and the
administration of the school, this, this would certainly be far removed from myself. And I
think other members, the committee, so when it came to ruling on, which were really the
committee was being asked to do to rule on that the fact that the Board of Trustees had
not done adequately for the conference by presenting only one candidate, this would
really put us in a position as a committee of overruling the Board of Trustees. And as I
mentioned before, I think that the rules that work were such that we had no authority to
take anything outside of the material presented to us by the Corporation and the Board of
Trustees. And that's, that's the stand that we took and on which we operate. Across, I think
I had a little glow of satisfaction when when Dr. Brentwood made his announcement,
because we felt a little harried by the members of the opposition who had gotten to us
between committee sessions and, and tried to put some pressure on that we have to do
this. And we have to do that. In fact, on one occasion, the aisle was blocked from which
through which I wanted to go, and I was detained for all minute or two, and which I was
close enough to the people who are protesting that I felt really uncomfortable, because
I'm basically a peaceful man. And this is something quite strange and different for me.
Now, in all deference to opposition's, it seems to me that, as I mentioned informally
before, the the enthusiasm with which the younger group from the college from the
church had greeted Dr. Norberg in his appearance in Minneapolis, I think is one indication
as to why this enthusiasm tended to want to increase and retain such a man for our own
institution. So I don't I don't think that my own statements about them would be in any
sense criticism, but simply a matter of stating the position of the committee, which I was a
member.
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C
Carl Chrislock 16:34
You know, I think a few days ago in conversation, you you indicated that there were some
members of the Norberg faction. Who put pressure or you mentioned that here to that
they put pressure on members of the committee. Now, did I understand that some of them
tried to put pressure on you a secretary to to turn in a report to two nominations?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
17:07
Well, actually, the last the least, that they thought that I could do, if I had any sense of
citizenship at all was to turn in a minority report. And this, I think, in all fairness is possible.
I believe a member of the committee would have a complete authority to go against the
the motions of the committee and majority and turn into Minority Report. And it was felt,
or it was so stated by members of the opposition that this was my responsibility, moral
responsibility if, if not legal responsibility. And they would provide me with all the
paragraphs necessary for this Minority Report. But of course, I resisted that. So let's try
tenuously as I could. And I was glad afterwards that I had done it, because, among other
things, as I mentioned to you, privately, Carla, Dr. Brentford, waited for the committee.
And when I came, he said, Well, the Secretary, please report for committee number two,
and I walk all the way down in front of the church right down the middle of the aisle. And
then he raised his eyebrows and said, Who is going to read your report? Where's the
secretary of the committee? And he's, and I said, I'm the secretary of committee.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
18:34
So he stopped for a moment. Very few times that Dr. Franklin was caught without some
words to say. And I guess he didn't know what word he wanted to say at that particular
point. I think he was impressed by the gravity of the situation. And here, I was a mere
novice. My only position was out of a an alumnus who had been nominated to the
committee. And I think he was looking for some other person to present the report. We
had, of course, urged the chairman of the committee, read the report in the conference,
but he refused to do it. Since he said it was the routine for the Secretary to read the
report. Well, that was a humorous aside, I think,
C
Carl Chrislock 19:29
Did president Brentwood have any suspicion because of your youth that you were a
member of the other faction?
K. Berner Dahlen
19:40
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K
K. Berner Dahlen
19:40
I'd rather not mentioned that aspect of it. Dr. Bernard, and I had a number of interesting
conversations, one of which was done in Norwegian. And so I have an opinion as to why
he did it. But I'd rather not say
C
Carl Chrislock 20:06
Well, now, I think we've we've established some of the main facts here. The the opposition
did want to or didn't expect you to turn in a minority report, you say, and I've wondered
about that why a minority report was not turned in that, of course, would indicate the
committee number two on the whole was with the recommendation of the board.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
20:39
I think there's no question about the fact that the committee was fairly well unified on the
on the topic of having just one candidate as presented by the Board of Trustees, I think we
would have felt more comfortable if there had been another candidate presented.
However, the committee certainly was in support of the candidate that was listed by the
Board of Trustees. Now, as far as the Minority Report is concerned, perhaps that's that was
because of the fact that the committee kept pressing us with with the urgency of this, and,
and I suppose it raised some stubbornness on the part of the committee. In opposition to
being pressured, we felt that committees were supposed to be acting free from pressure,
and this was not the case. Another another thing it seemed to me was the fact that they
had the opposition said that, that the conference was, was very much more in their favor
than in the candidate presented by the board. But wherever we, wherever we talk to
people, we found that the claims of the opposition were exaggerated. And I think that this
is borne out in the actual voting that the negative vote was very slight. Yes.
C
Carl Chrislock 22:12
Unfortunately, we don't have complete minutes from the convention I've there is an
infocomm bladder to fuller account. And in the annual report, you know, the annual
report is got a daily journal. And this journal indicates that the report of committee
number two was considered on Friday afternoon. And the first paragraphs were adopted
pretty much without discussion, they were non controversial. And and then, of course,
when they got to, to the presidency, a substitute motion was introduced on the floor.
Maybe that was to substitute motion that you were asked to submit as a minority report.
Professor HN Hendricks will be retained as acting president for one year and Dr. BM
Christensen be made dean of the college department and Dr. Stretton Norberg, Dean of
the theological department now that was presented by john Kwan back. Pastor john Kwan
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back of Starbuck, according to this. And before the discussion got underway, the
Secretary read a letter from Dr. sweater Norberg in which he stated that he had decided
to refuse nomination to the office of president of Augsburg seminary 11 speakers took part
in the discussion of the substitute motion six, four and five against. And so this got to be
pretty long. The talk about it account indicates that it got to be so long that quite a few of
the delegates left. Do you remember? You remember? You remember that?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
23:55
No, I can't say I can't say that. I remember that. Subject a motion of this nature, of course,
would be handled completely by the conference, President and the Secretary would be
either standing or sitting off to one side. And as the time passed, I can well imagine that
many of the people many of the delegates did leave.
C
Carl Chrislock 24:23
Yeah, well, then to just to procedure just to refresh your memory on this. Then emotion was
made mean after that long discussion on the substitute emotion, then emotion was made.
The paragraph for which dealt with Dr. Sweat and Norberg nomination for permanent
professorship in Old Testament theology be voted on before discussion of the substitute
motion. And this motion was adopted UC, so they discussed. Norberg is a theological
professor. And the paragraph was adopted. That is he was approved by the conference as
theological professor. And just to follow that up a little bit, there were negotiations
through the summer that were directed apparently towards securing his acceptance. But
of course, he did not accept them. Emotion was then entertained to table the substitute
motion. The substitute motion, you're not Professor Hendrickson should act for one more
year. Now this was to table it. And the result of this voting was 146, four and 79. Against,
you know, 146 for would have been against the motion and the 79 against would have
been for it. So that put the original paragraph three, that is the nomination of Christmas
and before the house, five speakers discussed the paragraph for being in favor and one
against pastor handle house it move that the meeting, vote on the question whether the
election of President of Oxbridge she'll be decided this year delayed on to next year.
Professor Hendrickson was opposed to years delay enters the conference to settle the
matter. emotion to table houses motion was entertained. And this motion was adopted
with 138 votes for and 57 against. And then they sang him. And they had a season of
prayer for the guidance of God's Spirit in this and more important matter. And after that,
the meeting proceeded to vote by ballot on the original paragraph three, and the result
here, Christian since nomination was approved by 214, affirmative balance 17, negative 13
ballots Mark not voting, and three ballots marked. Dr. Norberg that's the way the that's
the way it's summarized here.
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K
K. Berner Dahlen
27:00
I can remember the fact that in the meeting, there were these large numbers. Because so
often in our Lutheran Church conferences, the balloting became rather lacks and to have
votes of over 200 were quite unusual. And, of course, as I mentioned before, Dr. banquet is
an admirable chairman of the church conference, because these interruptions for the
singing of a hymn and followed by a prayer session, were very effective in and subduing,
rather boisterous spirits, including the secretary, I presume.
C
Carl Chrislock 27:47
Yeah, well, now, I'd like to ask you another question here. Do you think that these votes,
now they're they're not all of them consistent, but you have one vote here. 146, really for
the boards position 79, against 138 457 against. And then, of course, 214, for original
paragraph 370. Against that is, you'd have to say there were 8086 against 214 to 86. If you
count, the Norberg vote, the not voting vote. And the negative vote. Do you think that
reflected the sense of the convention? Or do you think the Norbert people were were
closer to being correct in in saying that they had considerable support?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
28:51
Well, actually, I would have no way of knowing it in detail. But I would think that the vote
pretty well reflect the spirit of the meeting. I think that the leaders of the opposition were
very popular, and were very energetic, and had certainly had many buttonholing sessions
with voting delegates, so that they tried to raise their total vote to as much as they
possibly could. So I think that and of course, the opposition didn't work at all, as far as I
know. So I think that the vote then would represent about as much as the minority could
possibly have raised under any circumstances. And some of it, of course, would have been
artificially encouraged the people voting really in, in harmony with their friends, rather
than for any condition that they might have had. So I think that I think that the opposition
was really pretty much job scare head rather than an actual active opposition.
C
Carl Chrislock 30:08
And now I have one more question about the opposition. It's not entirely clear from
sources that I have here. And that is, its composition. Now, it's pretty clear that this young
group, you might call it almost a children's crusade. Well, that group of allegiance and
seminarians with Johnson, Johnston swag and having a baton in the lead, they were one
important element in it one day. And who else was was in it? Was it a coalition between
them and some other groups? Do you remember Were there any of the older people who
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were suspicious of a cooperation with the American Lutheran conference? Did they tend
to rally to, to to the Norbert candidacy, there's some indication that this might be so from
the letters coming into the blood it?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
31:09
I wouldn't have any insight on that at all, I think I was surprised to discover that Simon LV
was a member of the opposition. But, of course, he was concerned about the evangelistic
awakening, which I think he envisioned, with dynamic percentages, Norberg was, and it
seems to me that this is probably one of the things that stirred the emotions and
imaginations of the others to and the minority group. But I really couldn't say it seems to
me that it would be fair to say that it was representative cross section of, of enthusiasts,
both for the vision of building new buildings and far expanding the influence of Augsburg
throughout the Lutheran Free Church and, and simply getting a new dynamic in motion.
I'd really don't know of too terribly many persons involved other than the leaders
themselves, with whom I had some contact during the contract.
G
Gerda Mortensen 32:30
I think you're right in talking about some of these people who are a little bit afraid that
Christensen was going to lead them into merger with other groups. And so some of those
ultra conservatives voted against this, because I think they had a feeling that if Norberg
elected, he would certainly keep us just as loose and free church, and not too much the
movement with the others. But I think that I know, every annual conference, it seemed
that there was some big issue, they took a day or a day and a half. And it seemed that this
got to be a therapy for the whole group. And I had a feeling at the end of that day that
somehow there came a positive for people to do some second thinking before that final
vote was cast, and it was pretty representative.
C
Carl Chrislock 33:22
Now Berner, you mentioned Mel B I'm, what was he active in the convention? On behalf of
Norbert
K
K. Berner Dahlen
33:33
I don't think that he was active in any sense out of them that he was. He was along with
the leaders of the of the supporters of Norberg. I don't remember talking to him in person,
except that I remember when battalion talk to me then or then Mel B was right beside
him. And was second his statements. This had reference to, as I recall it, introducing a
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substitute motion or turning in at least a minority report. I don't know why the minority
report should have not appeal to them. And particularly, but it seemed it seemed to me
that that was kind of a second choice. Perhaps minority reports are not too effective in a
in a conference. There's something negative about it at the very beginning. But maybe, of
course, was a Bible teacher and he hadn't heard enough of Norberg to regard him as an
outstanding Bible teacher. So, he had a great deal of enthusiasm for him. And as I
mentioned before, the the wave of enthusiasm that came as a result of Norberg saw
dynamic leadership, in reference to raising funds for creating Memorial Hall was enough to
sell many of the young people on his fitness as a leader of the institution itself.
C
Carl Chrislock 35:16
Do you have something in the in the in the Norberg Wilco clack? Yeah. And and and who
were who were the leaders was, was the towel them and, and still swag in my writing was
john there. Johnston swag.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
35:35
I don't remember. I don't remember it particularly stands for but the person that I talked to
most of all is the TV because of course, we were college classmates and, and I think he
had that sense of control. He had always been able to dominate me during college days.
And so he assumed that same control later as well.
C
Carl Chrislock 36:02
Do you remember? Do you remember john? JOHN Kwan back here? I've asked him about
this. He doesn't remember anything about it. Now. He was the one that introduced the
substitute motion. Did he play a role here?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
36:16
I don't remember this particular conference. Jon Bon Becca, of course, came to Augsburg
seminary late in life. As I recall it, he was he was a new theological student, the year I was
a senior. And he distinguished himself by being a very aggressive basketball player
particularly, and became quite quite a leader for the younger group, because he was
aggressive, both and vocal. And of course, I'd had some more experienced and he was
more mature than most of them. I can, I can, I can say that. I, I think that he was too
energetic, both on the basketball field. And in his and his activities among the students. As
far as his aggressiveness was concerned. As the chairman of the student council for a year,
for the student society, we used to call it in those days, I had many clashes with a number
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of seminary students, including john convict. Well, yeah,
C
Carl Chrislock 37:35
I i think i think probably we've gone as far as we, you know, need go on this particular
topic. I think there was something quite different that we wanted to ask you about here to
just one more question. Now, I'm 30 years after the event, its course very easy See, to see
things that were not present them. And it occurs to me when I look at some of this that in
some sense, this contest pre staged or anticipated, the later battle over merger is would
that be correct? Do you think that you see the faint outlines of that here? I think we really
touched on that, or were these other questions, the dynamism of of Norberg and the idea
that he would get a campus built and give that kind of leadership? Was that the
predominant thing?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
38:49
I don't think I would be qualified to answer that. Because I haven't given any thoughts. It
seems to me, though, that the leaders of of the opposition and 30 years ago later became
the leaders for the merger. Well, that's true. And this would be somewhat inconsistent with
the, with the general pattern. Now, of course, that there could be this energetic group
within the church that didn't always see the the ideas of the mainstream. This is entirely
possible. But I don't personally see any, any trend there beginning at that particular time.
Yeah.
G
Gerda Mortensen 39:41
But you remember to the Johnston spoke for a long time was anti merger. And it wasn't
until we had gotten well into the discussion, whether we should hit merge or not that john
was thoroughly converted to become for the merchant, the church. Amen. Annual
Meeting. And Wilmer, I guess it was, when he finally said, well, I've changed my mind.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
40:07
Well, this, I think is true and but isolated cases, you find when you have very strong
personalities that they are, they tend to swing from one extreme to the other, seemed a
little inconsistent, that he should be the interpreter of surgery, as he did at that Willmar
conference. And then, at the same time, just lately resigned from the leader of the
opposition to the merger. So there is a little inconsistency there. But it seems to me that
there was a struggle for leadership there more so than that there was a struggle for, I
should say, person personal leadership, or an attempt to gain a position of power rather
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than having the leadership of the church as
C
Carl Chrislock 40:56
Well, I think this concludes our discussion on the 38 conference. And and now we can stop
it just a little. Bernard, during your early years, here is Dean, CU. You came in 41. You were
here. 4142. And then you returned in
K
K. Berner Dahlen
41:18
October and I returned in October and 45, October in 45. Well, I may say that as far as my
employment is concerned, there are many people who have said to me, I hope half
humorously that. Oh, I see, you are hired because you were the one that puts the
president into nomination in 1938. And I think this is not true. Because my first conference
with President Christensen, about coming to Augsburg as really as Dina men and
counselor boys, this is the this is the thing that he was most concerned about, I suppose
came in during 1940. I had a letter from him in which he asked if I would stop in some
time, on hours in the city. And we would have lunch together, which was a very
characteristic Christensen procedure. We did have lunch together and we had two or
three other sessions, in which he discussed Augsburg as an institution. He even mentioned
the fact that he had decided to discuss the possibility of having a dean of the college and
he wanted to know what my opinion was about certain people in that area. At first, I was
disturbed to think that I was being promoted for something for which I had no
qualifications. But this scar was settled very quickly when he mentioned the persons that
he had in mind. But I did come to Augsburg with a contract, which stated that I was to I
was to be in charge of the boys to serve as counselor and Dean event. And incidentally,
teach speech and freshman English. So I had from the very start to full time jobs, but let
me say that he wasn't satisfied to let things wait till he got the personnel for it, because as
I recall it, Gordon Martin's and as Dina women, and early and heard all, as, as an
interested teacher, I suppose, had begun the student personnel work at least two years
before maybe three, so that when I came, there was going concern that they had a
department of student personnel. And all I did was to fit into it. And of course, the fact that
I stayed there only one year, from the beginning, was not a very much help to anyone
except me. I learned a lot that year. The position of Dean of men was not exactly an easy
one during that year, because siloed lb was still living in his old quarters. And to all intents
and purposes, he was still, he was still the dean. And newer, younger man with no
dynamics to, to boast of, I wasn't a popular basketball coach. In fact, I don't know
anything that I had to offer, except that I did insist on getting furniture from my office,
which was in Memorial Hall. And this was finally granted, even though I bought it myself.
And incidentally, I still own I still own the desk. But those were times when Oxbridge didn't
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have as much money as it has had, both before and after.
C
Carl Chrislock 45:26
All that work that is Markinson and earning are now dead on student personnel. was that?
Was that done before? A European first stint of service here? Or was it done in the interim?
between your first stint and you're coming back?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
45:50
No, the work had been done. I don't remember when they first started attending these
North Central summer sessions. But they had attended at least one before I came. And
these, these North Central workshops, which were held either at University of Minnesota
or at the University of Illinois, were geared towards helping different institutions develop
their own personal program. And of course, the program that was prominent at Augsburg
was that of student personnel program. It envisioned Student Counseling for freshmen
assistance at registration time, vocational guidance, and I think all the general areas of
student personnel as we know it today. And while it was held in a kind of suspended state,
I suppose for three years. My question was taken over by early punk Seth, who was then a
senior in the seminary, I should say he lived in the dormitory as head resident during the
first year. And really, I'm not familiar with what happened because by that time, I had
gone overseas and I didn't know much about it until October 45.
C
Carl Chrislock 47:22
Gerda, do you have some comments?
G
Gerda Mortensen 47:27
We had started this top quite early, even before you came, as you indicated, an airline or
gal had been one of the first people to spend a summer at this workshop I had been with
Dr. Christensen the summer before when they first initiated them, had invited me to come
along in so he said, Well, now we can get some, some ideas. And so at national
conventions, I had made a study and we started the university student personnel
workshops Institute's in the fall, and the ideas from there. And then the summer of 45, I
had been the representative to the workshop. And Dr. Christensen has asked me just take
student activities. And it was when we were getting ready to plan this science building.
And when I got over there, Dr. Gilbert ran was just back from service and he had heading
up this homework was to the personnel at Minnesota and what was his name? Matt?
Dugan, Dr. Willis Dugan. The two of them are great team. And so it was when I chose as
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my leader in that particular workshop, and I told Dr. Christensen, we had to take a look at
the total student personnel program. And so the total student personnel program was one
of the things that we started to study.
G
Gerda Mortensen 48:49
And then I asked if we couldn't both Mr. Don and I be representatives at the workshop, the
following server, which we did. And after that, we both took courses from doctor when I
know we were in that administration course, when we together administrating student
personnel, so that we got a chance to work on the floor plan of the first floor of this
building, and are just trying to put our offices in such a way that we'd be adjacent to the
registrar's office and, and to some of the others so that we tried to work out even in that
capacity, some of these things. And when you came back from the service went to
appointed Dean of Students at that point with a broader point of the supervising this total
program. And together, we worked and I was made the coordinators, student activities.
And so together, we tried to work as best we could to implement. And mind you I had
followed to burn down and you know, full teaching load and fully other, and I had all the
supervision of the housing of women, and we didn't have a dormitory for them. And I had
to hunt for houses in every area, from Cedar to Riverside to the river to Franklin Avenue, in
order to house people, all these things is simply we're done, that we try to do the best we
could, and what we hit, we developed a little, many, many, many of the areas but the
beginnings were there. And we worked at trying to implement them and make them as
workable as possible.
C
Carl Chrislock 50:20
You would, you would trace the beginnings and really to the early years of Christian since
administration. They were before the war. And then then what happened after the war
was, in a sense, further development or fruition of it?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
50:39
Well, I'm quite sure that he mentioned when I was hired, on the arrangements were being
made for me to come to Augsburg. He mentioned the fact that the This work was going
on, and that there was a plan, proceeding under which students would be taken care of
through student personnel work. And their particular reason he chose me was that I'd had
five years of successful Boy Scout work. And some community dramatics in my teaching
up at Crosby aren't and I was a director of plays for the High School, which extended into
junior high school and some community activity. So that by putting those two things
together, he thought he had someone who, who might have some insight into student
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personnel, interests and activities. And so I'm quite sure that this is what he had in mind
when, when he hired me was that student personnel program was already in effect. And
then, of course, as Gerda mentioned, the the workshops that we attended the University I
attended to, I guess you probably attended, three, four. And I know that early girl had
attended at least one before I came. So the, we certainly would have to mention that the
North Central Association gave us of their best. And at these workshops, we studied ideal
programs and, and in some of our coursework, we were given assignments, I went once to
St. All of college, and investigated their student personnel program, which at that time, I
may say, was not very much of a program. And my experience has been as a member of
the American College personnel association of the national vocational guidance
association that Augsburg has been quite far in advance of most of the schools in our
area, and programs. Both in the handling of Student Affairs and, and handling of student
registration of counseling, vocational guidance, and so on. And it's sometimes amuses me
to hear students in our day, particularly those who want to test the faculty courses. And
I've even forgotten the term that I'm supposed to be doing evaluations due to student
evaluation of teachers, I even had to do one of these during one of the workshop sessions
must be about 20 years ago, when I work with one of the sisters from St. Scholastic and
Duluth, and we designed our own, which was density used throughout the United States. I
remember getting requests from both south and east from different colleges who ask
permission to use our form. But this, of course, simply indicates the the characteristic of
human beings that we're not very good historians, we have very short memory. We, we
see the thing that's current and have no, no memory for the past.
C
Carl Chrislock 54:19
I certainly agree with that. I think in many instances, I think, in other areas. Now, just
shifting a little bit, it must have been quite a challenge. And maybe both you and Miss
Markinson would want to comment on this too. It must have been quite a challenge at to
face that postwar crop when enrollment just bulged in. Well, I suppose in in 4647, there
was some Belgian in late 4546 even. You have any comments on that.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
55:04
I don't remember when our Nash was registrar was that in 4142. He was acting registrar for
one year, and during the summer we met. And he asked if the student personnel services
could help in registering students for the fall. And I think that this is the first time that we
really got our program of student orientation underway. And this experience was
invaluable when in 1945. In 46, really, we got one new class that started at the second
semester. And then we began one in the middle of the semester. So we had three classes
going. And then we started one unusual one, about the 15th of March, we had short
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session with double periods and a limited number of credits. So we really had four
separate classes going all in one, one year. And then, of course, we had the summer
session. But I may say before I turn this over to Gerda that, as far as the men were
concerned, coming back from the service, they were an ideal group of persons to deal
with, they had no clothing, their money was all provided for them through the GI Bill. So
they presented no problem of any kind. They simply got their books from the bookstores
and studied their lessons, they had a pair of trousers, civilian trousers, and a sweater or
two, and a jacket. And that provided their whole wardrobe. In contrast to now of course,
with the rainbow colors, both top and bottom, and all the other things that go with it,
stereo and hi fi, that becomes not only a problem of, of control, but logistics where you're
going to put all
G
Gerda Mortensen 57:15
I may call one meeting, I was asked to represent Oxford get a meeting of all the
Minnesota private college councils and all the people who were hit to education. And they
just announced it that meeting that we have some certain number of thousand students
that have to be taken care of this year. And our expensive portion is 200. And will you just
take them? Well, everybody said yes, we will just take them we don't know where we're
going to put them what we're going to do. But that group of post war veterans who came
that had no connection with us. They just simply came here to classes and went again,
and really didn't take didn't enter into the life of the college at all. But I remember that
day group of fellows who came back and how much fun it was in history class, because all
right, I want to write about Russian diplomatic relations, because they'd been nailed by
the Russians or I want to do something on Italy, because I was in Italy or I want it right
down the negros because I was in the south. And then that group of men who found that
their dear coach, that assignment will be it died, they dedicated the year to winning
basketball. So the cream of the crop of six different years fund the basketball team. And
then they won the state championship, which gave a kind of a forward moving and the
NA, it was a great cohesive force and a real fun type of thing.
G
Gerda Mortensen 58:44
But they also were like you said, very ready to settle down and get educated and get out
and to do some of the things glad to be back again. Nothing to that are working toward
accreditation with our central association that your Christensen very early was smart
enough to remember he said, Well, why when Why can't we just expect our teacher to be
back through history September the university does. They don't start school till the fall.
But they're expected to be in the office and said, Why don't we try some faculty
workshops. And so he was willing to do this. And I remember Dr. Lucy Eckert. Some of us
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have taken courses from at the university came over one workshop one, Paul said, when
I'm giving you my whole course in higher education, United States, and many other things,
and we had Dr. Read and we had Dr. Duke. And we had some of these people come to
help us and to orient the whole faculty toward this. And I would say to that the faculty was
very willing to accept the assignments that you made. Brenda, when you we talked about
having counselors and working at the beginning of this program. And I know I we worked
out one of these outlines, which we used for many years to get information about the
students. And Dr. revenues. That is one of the examples in his book on personnel, which he
and restraint out that you're following are being at that orientation or organization
administration of personnel work at Minnesota, but they kept up their personal interest in
us and kept telling their students over to visit us just as we had been sent out to visit other
institutions.
K
K. Berner Dahlen
60:29
Well, I just want to mention, as far as some of these programs are concerned, we of
course, didn't have the advice from the best people in the business. Dr. Ren was president
of the American College personnel Association, simultaneously with being president of the
National vocational guidance Association. So it was fortunate for him that they met in
convention at the same time, so he could be give his presidential address only once. And
the information that they gave us, of course, was enough to give us the ideas that
formulated the program, which we followed. For example, Gerda mentioned, the the
faculty being counselors now. The University of Minnesota program insisted on having
professional counselors do all the counseling. And if you had a registration advisor, this
was fine. But to try nothing else, now, in the national picture, there came a movement.
One of the directors of the, of the national, or he was a member of the Washington staff of
the National Education Association, indicated that because of the great need for
counseling, no group of professionals could possibly cover it, it was necessary, I do
introduce the idea of faculty, counselors. And so it was necessary to have in service
training. So we began in service training, and I remember our faculty very well, grumbling
somewhat, but still accepting their responsibilities and, and doing an admirable job. I
think, anytime we went to a professional conference, such as the N, Ace American college
personnel Association, or the NBA, GA at Chicago or elsewhere, we were always proud to
think that we've already been doing this program at Augsburg for a year or two or five. So
it is nothing new to us. And we can report on our success rather than look forward to
doing something in that area.
C
Carl Chrislock 62:49
Yeah, well, so very good to get this information on tape. Now. Getting back to this post
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war crop students. Do you think that over the long range that this crop did contribute to
make our student community more heterogeneous, less homogeneous than it had been
before?
K
K. Berner Dahlen
63:19
Yes, I'm sure of this that our student group became much more heterogeneous. But I would
say that I would support it 100% if there was a chance for politics to be involved in
scholarship programs. The GI bill that we had after World War Two is certainly the finest
program that could be introduced where the student was given the the tuition while the
tuition money was paid to the institution after he chose the institution. But he was given
his subsistence and he could choose any school that he wanted. And I think of a number
of teachers and Minneapolis Public Schools, for example, both elementary and high
school, who graduated from Augsburg during those years who had no connection at all
with our institution. My own children went through Bancroft school for Mr. Cabot's who
went here. He was a student of mine in the short story during the summer session, I
remember. And we he lives in South Minneapolis, we've seen him and his wife and
operation and he had absolutely no no connection with Augsburg under the faint remote
circumstances. And yet, he is one of the most eager readers of the morning paper to see
how odds are good the night before. RA looks to see what programs are coming. And I
think he's typical of the
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Show less
RG 21.4.1968.11.14 Religion.mp3
Fri, 08/09 10:15AM
79:16
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
augsburg, department, seminary, concern, fundamentalism, scripture, critical, questions, religion,
teaching, students, church, lutheran, college, method, approach, true, pastoral, fundamentalist,
influence
SPEAKER... Show more
RG 21.4.1968.11.14 Religion.mp3
Fri, 08/09 10:15AM
79:16
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
augsburg, department, seminary, concern, fundamentalism, scripture, critical, questions, religion,
teaching, students, church, lutheran, college, method, approach, true, pastoral, fundamentalist,
influence
SPEAKERS
John Stensvaag, Gerda Mortensen, Paul Sonnack, Carl Chrislock, Phil Quanbeck
C
Carl Chrislock 00:00
I'm Carl Chris lock. And the purpose of this interview is really to probe the general
direction and taken by the Augsburg religion department roughly in the period since
World War Two. Now, for the sake of the centennial history, were very interested in this
probe proceeding on the premise that there have been some vital changes at Augsburg.
And we think of the are assuming that the religion department perhaps is one of the most
sensitive seismograph of that change. And we have these three men here because we feel
that due to their long association with the religion department that they are better
qualified than anyone else to answer questions and to reflect on it.
C
Carl Chrislock 01:23
I'll direct my first question at John Svenstaag. Now, you were here, and John, and both as
a professor in the seminary, and as a key member of the college religion department.
Now, in serving in this double function, did you distinguish between your goals as seminary
teacher, and member of the college religion department?
J
John Stensvaag 01:58
Yes, I think I did. I think I conceived of my task in the college, I was teaching freshman, you
know, to be that have to be pastoral, helping these young people who are just come out of
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high school, into the college, into a knowledge of the content of the Scriptures, and with
the aim of helping them to see the the gospel and helping them to see the message of the
Scripture, hopefully, to deepen them in their faith, and to help others towards committing
to the faith in the seminary, I think I thought of my task, rather, along more academic lines,
to, to help them into an understanding of the Scriptures and historical process to which
the scriptures came in to be incorporating them the findings of a more recent studies over
the scriptures, including the critical and liberal, so called liberal approach to the
scriptures. Maybe I should say that I started teaching in the seminary or in the college in
1946. And that, as I began teaching, it wasn't a certain setting. And I think of Si Melby, who
was teaching, basic Bible, you know, up until his death, in about 44, I think, or somewhere
in there. And naturally, I influenced a good deal by his concept of the tasking, and his way
of teaching the scriptures and so on. So there was a carryover from that period, to, to
Mine and Ours. And, and the teaching of the basic Bible that we did was basically to lead
them into a knowledge of the content of the Scriptures without raising a lot of questions,
critical questions, and so on that you would raise, perhaps in the seminary.
C
Carl Chrislock 04:41
I don't know whether this is Carl speaking. I don't know whether we will be promoting a
confrontation here or not. But would feel I'd like to have you comment on what John said,
in terms of what you were trying to do is in its chairman of the mission
P
Phil Quanbeck 05:00
Ah, Phil Quanbeck I think that, that I'd like to say that the concern of the, of the
department during the time that I was here, in some sense, was, in probably in a rather
fundamental sense, was influenced again, by Johnston's fog, who'd been my teacher in
seminary. I think that the pastoral concern still obtained when I first began, and I would
like to think that it's still still obtains still exists. But I think that a pastoral concern always
manifests itself in a particular historical situation. And that, that the pastoral concern, as
it was evidenced when I was a student in the college, would really, and I never had you as,
as a as a student. But I think that that, that the sort of concern that was manifest in the
courses that I didn't have in college, would really not be available today. Because the the
sort of student that we have, the student that comes to us has, I think, and I'm, I might be
wrong, but I think has to be encountered in a different way. Today, from what from the
way in which he was encountered during my tenure in as a student in college.
06:49
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So I think that the pastoral concern, I would prefer to think is still present. The degree to
which its present, the character of its presence, I think, is is a matter of about which there
may be legitimate the discussion and debate.
P
Paul Sonnack 07:20
This is Paul Sonnack, I'd like to just pick up a comment and, and what Phil is just finished
saying, in trying to reflect my own experience, it is, you know, maybe, maybe what's
happened in the religion department is that we have tried in a responsible fashion to be
responsive to the students that we've had. I started teaching at Augsburg in 1949. And I
can't date this, you know, in any precise terms. But I think the first years that I spent here,
as a teacher made clear that then the main problem is it that I had to face as a teacher in
relation to the students was not really to commend the Christian faith to them so much. I
think I did that. But I thought my problem was rather to try to open them up to the world,
so that they could read try to relate the affirmations of the faith that allow them just took
for granted to what was going on in society, for example, I think in the most recent years
that I spent at Augsburg, the problem had really become quite reverse. I can no longer
take for granted kind of the commitment or of the students to a Christian view, but rather
really a radical questioning. They were open to the world. I don't know they've been made
that way. But they were and the questions that they were asking, really had to do with the
with the viability of Christian faith as a religious alternative in the 20th century. Now, I
think, you know, if a teacher tries to be responsive to his students, that, that those issues
somehow become quite clear. And maybe This accounts for some of the though the way
in which the religion department is trying to respond to this.
C
Carl Chrislock 09:32
Any Any further commentsalong the line that
J
John Stensvaag 09:40
I think that's, there's a lot of truth in that. And sometimes you're not conscious, necessarily
right at the moment, or what's happening, you know, but I think there is, that's true, what
Paul says it, that the students are changing as they come in, they come in with different
different presuppositions, you know, and different questions and so on, and you have to
try to be responsive to that. But I'm wondering if today, you know, we we need not kind of
to go back, not necessarily in a way we did it, but we need to go back and help them as
I'm sure you're doing, to, to see the Christian religion as an exciting thing as a, as a
challenging thing. So that they be gripped by it again, you know, because I think is right,
as Paul says, we tend to that the seminary, now they come there, and they don't want to
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study theology, they want to just study sociology. They don't want to study theology or, or
anything that goes with it. They don't want to study the Bible so much as as they just want
to know how to relate to the civil disorders, and all of that that's going on, how does it
relate to the black community and all of this. So now our battle is to help them to see
again, the relevance of the gospel and the wonder of the car, how that gospel really is
basic to, to society and to what we're trying to do for society.
J
John Stensvaag 11:10
But in the process, I think we need to get back to the Scriptures again, and and help them
into real knowledge of the Scriptures. Not necessarily in the way we did it before. Because
the situation has changed that I fail. Yes, I think that
P
Phil Quanbeck 11:34
I don't know how important this kind of it is. But I think that there is a sense in which that
Paul and I as, as your students, when you were a professor in the seminary, were really
strongly influenced by your teaching, and by the critical method that you introduced. And
I think that, that the development of the critical method in in courses in the college was
was a necessary development in any case, what have happened in any case at all. But I
think that the sort of background that I at least understand myself to have gotten
provided me with the, with the understanding, to do this really freely, you know, and
without being intimidated or, or bound in terms of the understanding of the tradition.
C
Carl Chrislock 12:38
Carl, again, john, a few moments ago, you talked about having been influenced by J.
Sigurd Melby, Si Melby in your as your predecessor. Now, perhaps this is getting off the
track that we were on? hope we can get back on it again. But I'm wondering if if you could
just make a few comments about maybe about his approach about how he taught
religion courses about how he conducted the religion department. I believe he was
chairman until 1937. I'm interested in that I've already handled him but I haven't handled
that aspect of it.
J
John Stensvaag 13:35
Well, he was primarily a Bible teacher, you know. I suppose he taught a few other courses. I
didn't have any other courses from him then in Bible courses. Hi. Wow. Yeah, that was not
in this in the religion department. He taught American history in college. Sure. But I think
his his concern was to to make the Bible alive. And I think he had a knack for teaching the
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Bible, he had a knack for making the Bible come alive, you know. And, and for us at that
time, I think this was very helpful and good. But I'm not, I don't think that his particular
method would necessarily appeal to young people today. The way he outline the
Scripture, and so on, he didn't raise any other critical questions at all. I can't remember
that in any way. He, he confronted us with these questions. You know, it was Bible content
that he was after and making the Bible alive. And he hadn't been dualistic approach to it.
Not only evangelistic, but nurture and evangelism kind of went hand in hand as he as he
did his work. And this was sort of that ethos out of which we then came and began to
teach
P
Phil Quanbeck 15:23
in this in this common doesn't have anything to do with Simon LB. But I want to make it in
the light of certain other things that we've said, I, I think that it would be true to St. JOHN,
that. And you mentioned this earlier, Paul, but the the Department of religion wanted its
courses to be academically responsible, and that whatever else they were, they weren't
intended simply to be religious experiences.They were intended to
requireacademicexcellence. They were intended to require intellectual reflection, so that it
wasn't simply, you know, kind of a non academic perspective. And I would guess that was
characteristic of the time that you began to teach in the college and I think
P
Paul Sonnack 16:26
This is Sonnack .You know, john, this is very interesting. I guess I've never heard you say
some of these things before. And as phila said, both he and I, I think I've been influenced
by you. A great deal more than you would like, perhaps to admit. But I, you know, you
mentioned that, that Simon LB was a man with that deep pastoral concern, and that he
was a Bible teacher that he made the Bible Come on live. Now, you know, when I reflect
on what happened to me in the Old Testament sequence in in the seminary, was that
really, for the first time, by the use of these critical methods? The Bible did, the Old
Testament really did come alive, like it never had before. And I think in other words, did
you were able to combine in a really remarkable fashion, and a genuine evangelical
thrust, the past pastoral concern, and yet to employ critical methods of the Bible in such a
way that in the study of the Bible, is it the way that they never really stood in the way of
this, but really were a means of communicating precisely this. And then I think, Carl, that
it's obvious here that there are some real a continuity in the in the department of religion,
from the time was 10, flags to Quebec, that I really like to argue, I think that the pastoral
concern has been a very, very powerful motive in, in the work of the department, and all
the methods employed, may have changed, you know, the adoption of, frankly, a critical
approach to the scripture now being suggested to college students, that those changes
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have come about, not at the price of a past or concern, I think I'd be willing to argue that,
at one point, we felt that it was absolutely necessary for the sake of manifesting pastor
concern that these methods be adapted. I don't know what you want to make out of that.
But I think, you know, there's there's continuity, and there is change. But I think both are
terribly important here.
C
Carl Chrislock 19:16
I think I want to direct this is john, this is right along the same lines. And do you think when
you and I were students here together, that there was among the students are in the
religion department? Any great fear of approaching these critical concerns are
approaching these these problems, you see, biblical research? And you know that, I don't
know if I'm getting across the point of the question.
J
John Stensvaag 19:50
Well, Stensvaag again, I don't know if there was any, any real fair, but it just, it just was one
of the pressing questions at the time. When you and I first came here, it wasn't actually till
I had gone away to graduate school, that all this came home to me, because the way it
was taught both in the college and the seminary here, started was a very great teacher,
but he was very cautious. When it came to the employment of the modern, critical
methods, this historical approach to the Scripture, that was almost non existent, really,
here in the seminary at the time, was only after going away, that this whole new world
opened up for me, I was very thankful for the teaching I had from start up, that's a very
great teacher. And I know now and I think back that he was aware of these issues, but he
has, as I said, was very cautious and didn't, didn't really enter in on this. So whether this,
that we were that there was any problem or that we were fearful of anything, I don't think
this was so it's only that we hadn't become a live to it, we hadn't really become alert to
this whole world. I think. So that that did come later it for me anyway. And I as I look back
now, I think that I wasn't responsive enough for a period of time to what was happening in
the college community. This is my feeling as I look back now that I stayed at two too long
at a certain level and didn't really respond to what was going on sufficiently. I didn't have
those fears in the seminary. But I think I had some fears in the College of disturbing the
faith and so on. And I think, as I look back on today that this was not the wisest approach.
Now, there are ways and ways of doing it. I think that with a pastoral concern, you want to
do it in such a way that you just don't leave them up in the air, you know, and just shoot
their faith to pieces and leave it there. I think you have to do it in such a way that, that
you are helping them into a new understanding, not without not in the process, destroying
the foundations of their faith.
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J
John Stensvaag 22:35
And I'm not saying that's being done, but that's the tension you're in and trying to keep
the one and yet introduce each other. So as what Phil says, I think it's true that there is a
kind of nudity or pastoral concern, but in a new day, you have to express it in a new in a
new way. That's true. Yes,
P
Phil Quanbeck 23:02
I think that it might be true to say that the circumstance in which the Augsburg religion
department, or the Augsburg community in the 30s found itself was really of one sort with
other Lutheran colleges. I think that it was that the sort of religious instruction that one
done, and I speak, I think, from a great deal of ignorance here, but I have my impression is
that the sort of religious instruction that went on at St. Olaf was was not unlike that which
went on. It will be interesting to know if the cocoon you know if the movement didn't
happen as as soon at Augsburg as at some other places.
J
John Stensvaag 24:01
earlier [indecipherable]
C
Carl Chrislock 24:07
All right. You both said you're both agree that it happened earlier are required it
happened earlier. And Oxburgh any of you kind of tackle that? Is it the influence of the
tradition? Or was it the influence of
P
Paul Sonnack 24:22
I remember, I did pass on like I remember when I was when I first started teaching here at
Augsburg that Oh, Martin Hagglund and Theodore Hogan, Vic and those boys were still
teaching on itself. They were the big guns, and they were publishing books. You know, and
I read their stuff. And I thought it is for the birds, you know, good enough for saying, oh,
but not for deer logs. But I you know, I think there was a kind of a structure structured
thing, that these men were really concerned to lay on the student. Now, I don't I never felt
that that was really the case here at Augsburg. JOHN, what do you think about that?
J
John Stensvaag 25:14
I hope that I hope that's true that that we were in a way they have on guard here. Because
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I know what you mean, I remember Phil WX books, you know, on on the Old Testament, he
had a series of books on the Old Testament how I reacted negatively against this kind of
fossilized approach, complete unawareness of the critical method. And all of these, you
know, insisting on the mosaic authorship of all of the pen, a token all of that which we had
long since you might say abandoned. So I I hope it is true that we were not just in step, but
that we were a bit ahead. And I think that's it knew was true in the seminary, and therefore
it would spill over into the college too.
J
John Stensvaag 26:11
Yes, I think the climate was for your I definitely think so that there was a permissiveness
here that allowed this development sooner than happen in some of the other places
sooner than happen at Luther, for example. And Warren clambake who studied both
places, kind of a contemporary a man, you know, he found a much more openness here,
which was partly Dr. Swear to contribution, even though swelled up, as I said, didn't get in
on this. He he kind of opened the door by his way of teaching. Yes, he didn't. Yeah, Gerda
raised the question about Dr. Christensen's influence, and I didn't have him for a religion
teacher in college. So I couldn't say much about that in a seminary. We had him for a
short time before he became president. But he was a kind of a liberated spirit. It's true.
Although he he didn't, as far as I can tell, enter very much into this. This aspect, the more
historical and critical approach to Scripture. For him to the the thrust was nurture and
evangelism. As far as I remember.
G
Gerda Mortensen 27:47
This is Gerda Mortensen. Now I had many students come in to talk to me. During many of
these years, we had just gone through a war period regrowing after a war period. We were
in a metropolitan city. We had the leadership and the students came in said, I get the help
from Dr. Johnson spoke. Another one says, I get the help from Paul Sonic. I go, and here I
am a senior now. And I've gone through all this area of knowledge. And I get into that
class with Paul sack. And somehow he helps me think through all the issues in relationship
to life. And I just feel that now I I'm sort of orient the living again. And so I think that these
were some of the great things which happened. And both john and Paul were
tremendously influential in this because each student was an individual. And they would
go to one or the other of those that really wanted to help them. And and they found help.
And there was students who came and said, Ted, and the pastoral care idea. Today, I
found Christ in parks on its place, or today, I found Christ in Johnson.
P
Phil Quanbeck 29:17
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JOHN, you mentioned George Sverdup and the openness, the non explicit reference to the
critical methods. Now, I never had you as a teacher in college, and then the college lives
and of course, at least that I remember.
P
Phil Quanbeck 29:46
But I think that it would be true to say that even though you're interested in, in getting
across the content of the Bible, and in the not interested in talking about the, the the
critical methods, there are is your suggested a couple of ways of doing that. And one of
the ways is to do it with a with a background which presupposes, you know, the mosaic
authorship of the pinner to a certain understanding of the Bible. And there's another way
that simply presupposes an openness. And I think that that's what was going on in in that
decade. I don't know, because, but I have a suspicion that that was the case. And then
when I became a teacher here in 57, Bernard Christensen wasn't teaching in the
department or anything, he was engaged in administration, that was his job. But I think
that it's true to say that, neither you, nor he directed the way that I should teach. And I'm
sure that you enjoyed all sorts of criticism. And that you probably both you and he got
letters during that time, but did not really impose the burden of those letters on the
members of the department. And I think that that's the kind of openness that was going
on.
C
Carl Chrislock 31:18
Speaking, we've had many other testimonials to that openness, Mrs. Lindemann in
particular, valued a great deal. It was something that she didn't expect when she first
came here. And she she stayed, of course, much more than the three months, some of our
friends predicted that you would. Yeah.
J
John Stensvaag 31:41
All right.
C
Carl Chrislock 31:45
These things here, speak up. I was, I was interested in your comments, john, about Bernard
Christensen. Now, I never had his courses in philosophy that I think it's a matter of regret.
But I I recall his handling of that one quarter of freshman orientation. And that opened up
a great many things for me, and I think, was a very liberating experience. You remember,
he took up the evolution issue in science, and I was really surprised at the time that that
we could get that much liberation here. I hadn't expected that, because the, the, the views
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some on evolution that I had heard and my own church and or led me to believe that this
was something you should really stay away from. And I'm, I'm wondering if on the basis of
some correspondence that I've seen, too, if more than he ever vowed if Brennan
Christmas and didn't feel like one of his functions here was to liberate people from some
of these hang ups. I mean, when he came here as a teacher in in 1930, you know, to make
them confront the, the world and its issues not to, of course, throw away the Christian
faith, but to do it within the context of the Christian faith. Do you do you have any any
any comments on that? Any further comments on that?
J
John Stensvaag 33:40
Stensvaag again. I don't really, it certainly is true, what you say about the orientation
course, where he talked about science and all of this, that this was the textbook itself, I
think was quite a contribution using that kind of a textbook. I'm only saying that in the
courses that I'm aware of. When it came to Scripture, he did not raise these critical
questions that we are raising. But then I think we ought to say to that some of the
questions that are being raised now we're not even in view at the time. Read Alex Jones,
kiss Schecter, you know, and form gearshift, and, and all of this, this hadn't even been
raised, or you couldn't expect, you know, that this should be be there at the time. And I
would say As for myself, I regret very much that I had such a poor background and New
Testament studies.
J
John Stensvaag 34:47
Because here at the seminary, it, it was just pitiful, really. And when I went away to to
graduate work, I did an Old Testament and New Testament was pretty much neglected, I
ordered some courses. So I'm but I said, look back now I feel that I would have been a
much better teacher in the college if I had had a better orientation and New Testament
studies. Because when I, when I taught the Old Testament in religion classes, then I did
introduce these critical things, the source theories JENP, and so on, I started talking about
that from the very beginning, when it came to the Old Testament, and the fact that some
of the material was perhaps secondary, and how we must understand Genesis one, not in
a literalist way and all that. But when it came to the New Testament, I was not really
aware enough of what was going on at the time to do the kind of work with the New
Testament material that I feel now that I ought to have done.
P
Paul Sonnack 35:55
Okay, this is an academic a comment, really trying be responsive to the question that
Terry raised a while back. She was wondering, you know, what was there about the
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situation here that allowed this, this sort of freedom to handle the materials came out?
When I'm probably just putting in a pitch, but I wonder if it can't, if it can't be said that,
that the artist tradition in which Augsburg stood really made possible, that sort of
freedom to approach this even the study of the Scriptures if from a critical standpoint?
Yeah, I'd be very interested to hear what what john has to say about that. I don't know
whether that's an accurate analysis or not. But it seems to me that, that, that pirate his
movement did not insist upon adherence to explicit propositions or affirmations. But it
insisted upon the life of faith itself, which can be expressed in all different kinds of way in a
kind of freedom about doing that, john, if you got any comments on it?
J
John Stensvaag 37:25
Well, that may be true, Paul, as your story and and you, you can see this more clearly than
I can. But I have to confess that I came out of a very fundamentalist kind of patriotism,
which I think was true of many of our churches, at the time I came out of a scene was
constant out of the church there. And my background, was pretty much fundamentalist
thinking of the Scripture as literally inspired and to be literally understood, and so on. And
it, I think, that characterized many of our churches. But at the same time, it certainly is
true. And here, Dr. Christensen made a fine contribution that stayed away from this, at
least here at the seminary and in a college stayed away from this fundamentalist stick
approach from the very beginning. This is where I was helped a great deal in my college
year, got away from that, and, and from this attempt on the part of men to to say just how
the scripture were inspired just how inspiration must be understood, and Dr. Christensen
helped a great deal on that, that we don't want to get so hung up in the method of
inspiration and all of that, that we that we lose the sword of the Spirit, as he put it that
that that the word no longer is allowed to speak for itself. And I should say that Dr.
Norberg helped a great deal here. He was here for a short time, but he came. And now as I
think back upon it, he for me was sort of the beginning of opening up the door, because he
taught Genesis here one year after sort of was, was passed away, and coming out of
Norway, and so on, which was safe, you know, conservative, still, he was able to approach
this in a very different way. And which helped a great deal. And he also talked to a good
deal of abandoned and freedom. And I remember one of the lectures he gave, and that's
a long time ago now. But he kept emphasizing that for us, as Angelica goes, the right
approach was to listen to Scripture, what the scripture said, what was in the Scripture, and
not come with a pre formed notion of what the scripture was, and what the scripture said,
you know, so that there was an openness to Scripture. And I think this helped a great deal.
For me, and I'm sure it helped for a lot of other people. This partly accounts for this.
P
Paul Sonnack 40:02
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I think, Carl, that that makes my point really quite clear. And that is that john Augsburg
somehow was different from Racine. See, what you found here was not a spirit of
fundamentalism. But there was a warm spirit of pirate ism, in which you and others like
you had the liberty to, to let the Scriptures speak for themselves and the internet
necessitated the employment of historical literary methods, critical methods of studying
the Bible, that was something that was permissible.
P
Phil Quanbeck 40:45
This is another comment along this film, one MC, that this is another common along the
same line. I think that if, you know in my encounter with a critical method in Johnston
songs Old Testament course in the penta to the historical books, if that wasn't radically
upsetting part of it part of that. The explanation that lies in the fact that I don't recall, for
example, in my home, ever might ever being told that Moses wrote, or ever being afflicted
with a discourse on inspiration. I think that that was I'm sure there were fundamental
mystic direct characteristics that were present. But I think that that's an aspect that the
problem is was quite important in in my own life.
C
Carl Chrislock 41:49
When you're talking about this, sometime when you men over in the archives, I'll have to
dig up some of the correspondence between father and son. Yeah. There's the most
interesting exchange between George SkyDrive. He invariably wrote to his father in
English, that's interesting. His father wrote back in Norwegian, when he first enrolled at
Yale. Now at DAO, he had a rather very a gated program, of course, this and one of the
courses that he had gotten into frighten him a little bit involved the critical method, I think
it was Old Testament, I don't know anything about the AIDS orientation in 19. Two, and I
don't really understand the issues involved here. But at any rate, he wrote home, and was
concerned, he was cautious about it. And it was very interesting, the comment that his
father wrote back, I think I'm representing it correctly here, he said that, that this whole
question of inspiration is a very difficult one, it advanced, small, he didn't want to take any
particular view, he wanted to remain open on it. And then at the same time, he added to
kind of a caveat that you could just, you know, a critically analyze the scriptures to death,
you would lose their their, they would lose their meaning if if if the only thing you did to
them was to subject them to a critical anatomy, even though critical scholarship had its
place. I think this essentially is what he said. Now, that brings up another question here to
you were talking about this, when you were saying that these were some of these
questions, you know, with respect to the Scriptures, were not pressing questions. You
mean, in the Oxford community? They certainly had been pressing questions in the
American church community, generally, for much longer than that hadn't they?
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J
John Stensvaag 44:03
Stensvaag the Lutherans. So we're slow, I think to get involved in this. They were Johnny
come lately. So when it came to this, and therefore I think, in our setting in our community,
these questions had not yet become vital, you know, pressing.
P
Phil Quanbeck 44:28
Again, I feel Quanbeck, again, speaking from modest amount of ignorance, I think that
might be asserted that, that these problems really didn't emerge in Lutheranism until the
decade of the 50s.
P
Paul Sonnack 44:46
I remember that. I don't know where this fits cow. But I think he does some wrong, I
remember when I was pulled out of a parish in northern Minnesota and sent down to that
God, this joint call the University of Chicago, you know, and I was exposed there to all this.
This critical method. You know, I think the only place where I had any comfort, any kind of
security was in Old Testament studies. Nowhere else and I think that what that experience
really meant for me, me, it's it really saved my life. At that moment, it really did. And I
think that what that experience meant for me was simply that, that if a person is going to
be a responsible teacher here in the 20th century, you must never hide that kind of stuff.
Because it's, it's it's going to appear sooner or later. So that I think I came to the
conviction that if I were to manifest any kind of religious concerns for my students, I
wouldn't Yes, I would precisely have to adopt critical methods just for that reason. I don't
know where that fits, but it I think it does.
C
Carl Chrislock 46:09
Well, it certainly does. Now, I'd like to go back a little here to unless there's somebody who
has any comments on this. I'm wondering if any of you gentlemen, in your experience, in
your experience within the religion department ever encountered, you know, any difficulty
or any? Well, let me back up just a little bit and say a while ago, it was postulated that
there was kind of a difference between the fundamentalism of Racine or the
fundamentalism one Domingo, for that matter, and the openness that you had here. Now
did, did that difference ever come to open confrontation? create any
P
Phil Quanbeck 47:00
Quanbeck: That's a surprise is...never. [laughing] It did happen, Carl, but in the year of our
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Lord 1960, was it that some of the things that the Department of religion had been doing,
and I think some of the things that it really had been doing for quite a while, came to
some visibility. I think some negative visibility, particularly through the creative work of
one of the members of the Luther and free church. And yes, that's right. That's right. I think
the No, I think that that's true, though, that the man who raised the question was, is, is a
man who whose roots didn't that didn't go back isn't to say that there weren't people like
him in the open Free Church, but at least in this particular instance. And we had a
discussion I think in, in Oak Grove Lutheran Church, I don't remember the exact date. But
certain criticisms of the department had been written down and the level that the
department and a number of people in the department then went to Oprah, one
afternoon, Oak Grove Lutheran Church, and we talked about some of the issues, we
thought we talked about some of the issues involved. I think that the, the issues between
the people who were raised them and the department were not solved. But I think that
there was a sense in which the visibility, the openness, which that confrontation brought
about was basically a good thing for the department. And I would, this is just kind of
guessing. But I would guess that it was good for not only for the Augsburg department of
religion, but for departments of religion at other Lutheran colleges as well. But that's only I
guess, there's nothing substantive to back that up.
C
Carl Chrislock 49:53
Chrislock speaking, I think we have a full transcript of that meeting down in the archives.
And I was wondering if you had any evidence of being good? Or having the having had
the benefits and effect on other religion departments? Did you get any any reactions from
any members of other religion departments on this? Do either of the rest of you want to
comment on on this general question? You know, it has seemed to me or did seem to me
that. I wondered, sometimes. I think I wondered about this a little when I was a student.
And I want and I've certainly wondered, since if, if we've always been courageous enough
in, in, in presenting our openness. You know, there seems to me there's such a lag between
there has been such a lag between college and congregation here in this regard. I don't
know if, if this makes sense or not, you know, on some of these issues.
J
John Stensvaag 51:16
Let me just say one thing. This is a something that has been told me again and again, that
our pastors after the merger with the American Lutheran Church in 1963, got involved in
some of the discussions about the Word of God, here and there. And they were surprised.
These men have told me that number of pastors, they were surprised at the kind of
fundamentalism that they encountered in some of the pastors of the same vintage, you
know, who had come from other seminaries like capital and Luther, who we're still
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troubled by some of the questions, which to our pastors, we're not problems and we're not
troublesome. So that the Lutherans alert and that group, you know, these real Am I say,
fundamentalists in approach to Scripture, anyway, they did not represent the men came
coming out of Augsburg and Augsburg seminary. Our men had really encountered this
and come to terms with it. And we're not troubled by questions which are very disturbing
to some of the other pastors of the same age.
P
Phil Quanbeck 52:49
Phil, would it be true to say, Jen, that that also, with regard to the association, that though
the larger number of pastors in the group in these Association, we're we're not to pastors
who would come out, let's say from 45. And then, would you?
J
John Stensvaag 53:16
Yes, I think that's absolutely true. You look at the at the man. Now, there are a few
younger man, like snips, dude, but he is a graduate of Saskatoon seminary, and not a
graduate of our expert seminary. And apart from that, john strand, graduated from the
seminary. I think the first year I was back here teaching. Right your ground? Yeah. And now
he started with an exception. He sort of an exception, I think
P
Paul Sonnack 53:58
you're racing currently pause how you're raising house question. Again. I've kind of been
mulling this over my mind. I don't really know how to answer it tomorrow. But I think
there's something to what you are suggesting. Namely, this that here at Augsburg, both in
college and seminary there was sort of freedom in relation to critical questions. But that
some of the congregation's in the Lutheran Free Church really didn't manifest that same
sort of spirit. Is that the kind of thing you're after? Now, I'm not really sure that I that I
know the answer to that. But I suspect that a great many of the other congregations in
the Free Church had felt the influence of the whole fundamentalist movement in
American Protestantism. And I think some of the difficulty with our friend out at Oak
Grove was the fact that in his theological poverty, he tended to identify a fundamentalist
position with Lutheran orthodoxy. And he thought, therefore, that, that he was being able
to impugn what the department was doing from the point of view of Lucien orthodoxy.
And that's the that's the irony of the situation. I I interpreted, the department is really
manifesting here in this way, a Lutheran concern for the gospel, then we had a
fundamentalist, you know, impugning us for being heretics, when almost really precisely
the opposite was, was the case. Now, you know, I'm just guessing here, I don't I don't really
know, I think that there was some distance and not in every case. Now Phil has eluded due
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to the fact that it was not the case in his home, I can testify to the fact that it was never
the case in my home, that that attention was called to certain prohibitions in thought and
so on. But But I think that fundamentalism did have something to say about the attitude
of a great many people in Lutheran congregations, you know, think of the great influence,
for example, the Moody Bible Institute and and parishes here in the in the Lutheran Free
Church Midwest. Well, does that. Does that move in the direction? Yeah.
J
John Stensvaag 56:42
Quality when you say Lutheran orthodoxy, you're a historian, but I think Lutheran
orthodoxy tended to move in the direction of fundamentalism. Luther, himself was an
open spirit, you know, but I think after him, there came kind of a rigid, rigid kind of
approach to Scripture, which go out found a real response in fundamentalism, there came
to be a closeness between this kind of rigid orthodoxy that develop in the period after
Luther. But Luther himself obviously, would be a kindred spirit to this approach that we're
talking about.
P
Paul Sonnack 57:36
Well, let's listen. Let's be careful about those euro Puritans, you know, I don't want to
nitpick here. And I'm maybe the use of the word Orthodoxy is not important, though I
myself think that there's a vast difference between even 17th century Lutheran orthodoxy
and fundamentalism, really. But would you in general, would you agree with the point to
where the where the abstract that that fundamentalism did make its inroads and new
features congregations?
P
Phil Quanbeck 58:09
I think that the influence was, was felt, feel Coinbase the influence was felt via VA Moody
Bible Institute and via fundamentalist stick radio preachers, because that's the easiest
way to proclaim, and I think that is and radio and they would it be right to say the easiest
way to get monetary response from your listeners?
P
Paul Sonnack 58:54
You know, to make a theological point, I think that basic difference is that, that
Lutheranism has always recognized the priority of the gospel. And I think that
fundamentalism really has tried to approach an understanding of Christian religion,
really, in terms of law. That is to say, Christianity must be understood in terms of some
fundamental propositions which are unalienable and which have to be accepted. And
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that's got the force of law, not the force that gospel behind it. That's why I think there's a
difference between Lutheranism and fundamentalism. Even listen orthodoxy on
orthodoxy. God bless.
C
Carl Chrislock 60:00
You know, I've been Chris, like speaking, I've been very, and this is, I guess, aside from
anything that will concern within the history that is directly but I think somebody else with,
you know, with good theological grounding, would find the study of past persons
editorials and talk about it through the 20s pretty rewarding, because I think that talk
about it in the 20s, reflects the fact that fundamentalism was having an impact in certain
areas of the Lutheran Free Church. I think he was aware of this. And I think in certain
respects, he was trying to counter it. He had some very interesting editorials there he, he
had one editorial, for example, on modernism, he was wanting his reader that is readers
that this term was being thrown around entirely too, too easily, because he, he talked
about that there were some religious understandings that were had a liberal mutability
about them, you see, and cited some examples. Inside of the case of poverty, this was
much less inevitable today than it had been regarded before. And that, generally is
century before theologians had defended slavery. And on the evolution question, he, of
course, was during the scopes trial, he was very sympathetic to Brian, it has to be said, but
every time he mentioned, Brian, he would add the caveat that he thought he was crazy on
his notion of inspiration,
J
John Stensvaag 61:36
you know, [tape breaks in recording]
P
Paul Sonnack 61:47
testing One, two, testing 123,
J
John Stensvaag 61:56
Free Church didn't grow their couple of pastors and right. Wow, there was a resolution.
C
Carl Chrislock 62:22
Well, where do we go from here?
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P
Paul Sonnack 62:26
You know, there's another about both continuity and change in the department of religion
in terms of the adoption of critical method of studying the scriptures and so on. Would
there be any sense in exploring that theme of continuity and, and change with respect to
a view of the church's involvement in, in society?
C
Carl Chrislock 62:56
Yes, go ahead.
J
John Stensvaag 62:59
What do you mean, go ahead, explore?Well, I'd like to hear john SJ something about this. I
know Carla GU developed some views about, about the concerns of sweat dripping off
the dial in this regard. And I think that there has been a kind of a continuity of emphasis
here all the way through. I know when I when I came to Australia as a student in 1938, one
of the first guys I ran up against was that Joel Carstensen, who was teaching here at this
time, and he began right then and there to open up for me and brand new world entirely.
I'm not sure, however, that that concern was, at that time reflected in the religion
department. JOHN, what do you think?
J
John Stensvaag 63:55
I think that's probably right. And I was trying to think of the course that you taught when
you first started, it was something about Christianity and the world or I don't remember
exactly. But I think Christian faith in the modern world well, but that was the kind of a
beginning of breaking into this. So that I think, Paul, in many ways, translated part of this
heritage into a concern expressed in the religion department, which I think until that time
had been muted, if not absent, which we can see from looking, I think, at the offerings in
the religion department. The first year, we had basic Bible, the second year, second
quarter, it was church history. And I don't remember comparative religion. missionary
enterprise, but but the mission, our enterprise was foreign mission enterprise. And and I
don't think there was anything there explicitly, at least, which related the Christian gospel
to the world today, which Paul, I think began to do.
C
Carl Chrislock 65:20
Well, this is a very interesting theme to Chris, like speaking, to explore, you know, through
the whole history of the college is something that I'm, I'm very interested in, you find that
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one strategy when after I first came here, they certainly gave the impression of wanting to
be involved in wanting to take responsibility in the broadest way. I don't have any other
quotes here. But I think one thing that could be cited is the early history of focus on it. And
that was first public in 1877, as a means of helping the great fund drive of that year. And I
think it was discovered that after Don had such a flair for being a journalist, that it was
taken up again, and he took it up with swagger. And I've been through the files of folks,
when they were joined editors, from about 1779 to 1883. And I was really astonished at the
breadth of concern that they had. And they the paper dealt with virtually everything that
was of significance Astro Hungarian, German Russian relations, internal politics in Norway,
internal politics in France, anti semitism in Germany, the registers in southern politics. And
I, I wasn't aware of a terribly conscious effort, you know, to apply theological position in
evaluating all of these things, but at least this was a a concern of this. Now, it's also
interesting that they came under a great deal of fire, a great deal of criticism for being
involved in this, what was calling Redis, like a blog, a secular paper.
C
Carl Chrislock 67:27
And I don't know how much you, you gentlemen have read about the controversy in 1883,
when spend rude gunners left, but one of the big issues in that controversy got to be the
propriety of theological professors being involved with the secular paper. And, and, yeah,
very lately, it was very left to center by the by the standards of the time it reflected the
views of the vents through in Norway, you see. Now, later on, I don't know why, why this
happened. But later on. It seemed it and this was true after down to that they're
concerned on social issues, narrowed down very largely to the prohibition question. You
know, this became after dad was a member of the prohibition party, a very active
member, and there got to be sort of a one issue. deal here. It was just as if maybe. So, it
kind of like that. Now, I think here to you know, that, that there's some interesting things
about our experts environment, and the supporting churches environment with the, with
the prohibition movement. It was a little bit invited, it was a little bit ambivalent here. On
the one hand, there was this thing that I've talked about this narrowing of concern almost
entirely to that one issue. But then, on the other hand, you know, the, the prohibition
movement did involve association with some of the Reformed Church groups. And it
seems to me that the Friends of Augsburg in the early 90s and Gluten Free Church
afterwards was possibly a little more open to those associations on behalf of prohibition,
then, say the Norwegian Synod was a Norwegian sin, it actually took a position rather
hostile to belonged to temperance societies. This was being yoked with unbelievers, the
church, they said, was the true temperance society. You see, so it sort of worked both
ways. But I do feel like maybe this is a reflection of a beef that I had, when I was young, I
thought that there got to be, you know, this, this complete concern with this one issue to
the exclusion of other issues. So I in a way, this this broad and social concerned, I mean, to
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jump into hitch up with what you said, when you talk about Parsons, and so on. I think that
in one sense, this was a recovery of, of a value that we had had earlier and through
combination of circumstances had had been obscured a little bit.
P
Paul Sonnack 70:38
Yes. That was Paul Sonnack. Now, you know, apparently, I can't pick up the story here. I
don't know what happened in between, in between the time that the 18th amendment was
added to the Constitution, and what the Augsburg creeper was in there, you know, as a
kind of a parents medical remark. I think the whole prohibition movement is kind of a, an
interesting movement itself, at least in this sense, that the movement began, really as a as
an attempt on the part of the reformers to persuade people to stop drinking, or to quit
making this stuff. And it ended up really by enacting legislation, so that they put that
whole business over over the whole country. In other words, there's a shift here and tactic
from persuasion to legislative coercion. I don't I don't really know what that means. yet.
But I think that's a kind of a significant shift. But now, you know, let that go. I think. And I
learned this from Joe Torre since and but I think I really learned from Bernard Christensen
to, I learned a lot of things from Bernard Christensen. I think that what I what I learned in
the question of the relation of church to society, from from men like this, was that in the
expression of, of Christian love for the neighbor, one can proceed in different ways.
P
Paul Sonnack 72:22
One can seek for example, to, to ameliorate distress, you know, in obedience to the
biblical injunction to care for the widow and the orphan. And so and so, you can do this,
then by developing works of charity, great philanthropic enterprises. And I think that there
was no attempt on the part of these men to debunk that enterprise. But I think beyond
that, what they taught me is that, that if a Christian man is to live in love's for the
neighbor, he must also manifest some concern for the issues of justice in society. And I
think I learned from them, that the Christian therefore must understand something about
the structures of society and what they can do to an individual. And one has to add some
concern for the dynamics of social change. And all this kind of thing. I don't think that the
free church itself ever put that into effect. But I think that kind of a lesson was around here
at Augsburg way back then. And you know, as I see it, now, it's in the American Lutheran
Church, we're just really beginning to understand the significance of that rather crucial
distinction, I think. Now, I don't know what again, what to make out of all this. I'm just
testifying to the fact that this was well,
C
Carl Chrislock 74:10
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Are there any further comments? No, it is five o'clock and working days. The working day
is about past. You all have families to come home to any parting shots here?
P
Phil Quanbeck 74:27
I hesitate to put such a film one day Pardon me. I hesitate to put such a flippant comment
at the end. I I do had Joel Torstensen as a teacher. And one I think of the influential
teachers as I remember him in my life, so influential that when I graduated from college,
I'm sure you don't remember this, john. But when I graduated from seminary, rather, I was
debating whether or not I should pursue graduate course in sociology, and I remember
talking to you about this at one point. But but the column that I want to make is that more
radical than the critical method in my life was the discovery the Johnston's what was the
Democrats.
C
Carl Chrislock 75:27
Any other comments? I can add here, of course, that the Augsburg and the free churches
and the NEA reckoning one of the conferences, identification with with republicanism has
been much magnified by legend. Folk blot it, in effect was supporting William Jennings
Bryan in 1896, I think after dark had control of the editorial policy, then they spoke very
kindly of him, of course, when the prohibitionist candidate came to town, he was the one
that had the real answer, but they were sympathetic to Brian and to free silver, they were
oriented towards the populists. Earlier, UC. And I know that Peter Blegen told me that too,
that his father had been,
P
Phil Quanbeck 76:17
you know, a great admirer of
C
Carl Chrislock 76:19
Brian. And there's another thing that's kind of fascinating here over the years, I don't know
if you know, Charlie Stang along or have heard of him, if I told you about him. He was a
classmate of George SkyDrive class of 98. He went down to Colombia, took his PhD in
political science, he served in the diplomatic service for a while. And then he became a
professor of political institutions in Germany. Now he was, he was, you know, by the
standards of his time very far left. He was a supporter of Debs in 19, eight, for example,
and he, there's a whole final correspondence from him to George, unfortunately, George's
responses on there,
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J
John Stensvaag 77:02
you know,
C
Carl Chrislock 77:03
and he had the highest regard, Charles Stangl and did for for George's father,
77:09
he felt that he'd been one of the most important
C
Carl Chrislock 77:12
influences in his life and staying around was anything but evangelical, you know,
77:18
in.
C
Carl Chrislock 77:21
I think he probably I better not say, because
J
John Stensvaag 77:38
religion department and I am certainly appreciative of the need for change and the way
in which it's moved. But I am concerned that we don't lose sight of the nurture Hello.
There. So I don't know what's happening. But I but in this day and age as and every age, I
think we have to have concern for these people as individuals, and try to teach in such a
way that that we attract them to the Christian faith, and make exciting for them the
Christian faith. It isn't enough to be scholarly, I think this is important. And as Phil pointed
out, I don't think that ever was absent from the concern of the department. And now the
scholarly concerned finds other expressions as is necessary in our day but but just so we
don't get so wrapped up in the mechanics of the process, we cite the first person to to get
a raise of the greatness of the gospel and the greatness of the Christian now, enterprise.
This would be my concern, as it would be of any pastor. And I'm sure it's a concern of fail
as head of department that that with the other way don't lose this concern.
RG 21.4.1968.11.14 Religion.mp3
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Show less
RG 21.4.1969.07.29 Mortensen 1 of 4.wav
Thu, 04/11 06:45AM
45:06
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
augsburg, people, father, mother, home, years, congregation, lived, mankato, called, church,
moved, teacher, pastor, augsburg college, children, grandfather, man, felt, married
SPEAKERS
Gerda Mortensen, M... Show more
RG 21.4.1969.07.29 Mortensen 1 of 4.wav
Thu, 04/11 06:45AM
45:06
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
augsburg, people, father, mother, home, years, congregation, lived, mankato, called, church,
moved, teacher, pastor, augsburg college, children, grandfather, man, felt, married
SPEAKERS
Gerda Mortensen, Marian Lindeman
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:27
Let me see if this is all right now.
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:35
This evening July 29 1969,
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:36
Marion Wilson Lindemann and I, Gerda Martinson, sitting on their delightful porch at
Parkers Lake, are going to start talking about my background and my experience over
many years as we worked together at Augsburg College.
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:36
I came there is a Dean of Women in 1923, and Marian came as a teacher--French and
other subjects--in 1926. That started the long lifetime friendship which has kept on
growing more meaningful over all the years. Now I'm going to start letting her ask me a
couple of questions.
M
Marian Lindeman
00:57
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I know what an important place Augsburg is always held in your life and still does. And I
wondered when did you first hear about Augsburg? When did you first become important
to you?
G
Gerda Mortensen 01:36
Augsburg was something which I always knew about I I don't know when I learned how to
read. I don't know. When I first heard about Augsburg, it was just something that was a
part of us. It was more than a school. It was more than a place. It was an institution. It was
a feeling; it was a conviction.
G
Gerda Mortensen 02:03
What kind of a home did I come from? Well, my father was a pastor. And as an immigrant
from Norway, he came to Augsburg in January 1885.
G
Gerda Mortensen 02:14
How did he know about Augsburg? Well, his uncle, Jacob Nygaard had come to window to
settle. And the young Jacob caught the " Amerika-feber" that characterized that island.
Hundred and 80 people a year moved off from that island until there were several
thousand that have come to this country. So uncle Jacob Nygaard had invited my father
to come to this part of the country.
G
Gerda Mortensen 02:46
He came in the fall of 1883. And during that winter, uncle, great uncle Jacob Nygaard took
father along to a meeting of the church group in camp release congregation, which was
outside of Montevideo, served by the then pastor Nielsen Baird, the father of Dr. Luthard
Burke and Miss Engelberg.
G
Gerda Mortensen 03:14
And during this time, my father said, I feel that I should go into the ministry. I would like to
go to school in America. So Pastor Nielsenberg said right to Dr., Professor George Georg
Sverdrup in Minneapolis, Augsburg College, Augsburg Seminar is it was called then. So my
father wrote, and he had a letter back from Sverdrup saying, "it is a good thing if you
could learn a little English before you come." So my father, a grown man of 23 years of
age, sat in the little country schoolhouse and learned how to spell and read simple simple
English.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 03:55
By Christmastime he felt that he had enough background to start at Augsburg.
G
Gerda Mortensen 04:00
And so in January 1885, he came on the Milwaukee train from way down to Minneapolis.
And he asked the station master, "can you direct me to Augsburg Seminar?" And the
station manager walked out on the sidewalk outside the Milwaukee Depot and he pointed
to- "do you see that building on the hill way out there outside of town? To the east of us?"
"Yes." "Well, that is Augsburg." So my father, suitcase in hand, walked up those little streets
up across the Cedar Avenue, which then was a creek and up the hillside up to Augsburg.
G
Gerda Mortensen 04:30
My brother Harold, speaking about father, said he "attended" Augsburg. No, he joined
[said with emphasis] Augsburg. And I think that he, together with many of the immigrants,
who were students at Augsburg felt that Augsburg was their home. Over the years I could
always hear him speak about going home to Augsburg. Those men didn't have what they
call a fraternity, as we know fraternities today, but there was a fraternity among them.
That was a very rich and deep and meaningful experience, which was it--something that
we cherished over all the years of our lives.
G
Gerda Mortensen 05:27
I can remember taking revenue Johan Knutsen past my father's room at the Ebenezer
home when father was very poorly and very ill and the two men shook hands heartedly
and looked at each other with love. And said nary a word.
G
Gerda Mortensen 05:48
Just [speaking in Norwegian] " Vi møtes igjen over" [translating in English] "We'll meet
again, above." They said goodbye; it was the last time the two men saw each other. But
words weren't necessary. They had lived through experiences together, which bound them
together into a fellowship, a brotherhood that was very, very deeply meaningful.
G
Gerda Mortensen 06:12
Now how did they might have to get to know my mother? That also is a beautiful little
story.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 06:19
My mother's people came from voters Norway. In 1884, a man with his family of sons and
daughters emigrated from Norway took 13 weeks on a little trip to New York. Went by
steamer up to Albany by that funny little wooden train across to Buffalo, on down to
Chicago, and then on over to La Crosse, Wisconsin, settling being the second settlers in
Boston Valley.
G
Gerda Mortensen 06:55
Grandfather took land in the hilly country there and later when I visited dollars, I could
understand why they wanted to settle among the hills, because it made them think of
their beautiful valley in Norway up and fathers high heels, trees, Brooks, and running water
and full of fish in the streams.
G
Gerda Mortensen 07:21
Grandfather married at the age of 19. A woman who'd also come from the from dollars,
she was seven years old years and he to this marriage were born eight or nine children.
And my mother who was one of these people who in her early life had the rare experience
of going to country school with a college trained teacher from Vermont. Her name was
Miss Moran, Miss Moran merengue.
G
Gerda Mortensen 07:56
Miss Marvin was one of those people who somehow just captured my mother's interest.
She wanted to excel she wanted to read this well she did she wanted to speak as well as
she did. She wanted to be able to do the things that an educated person can do. Miss
Moran was also very fond of my mother and I think found an apt pupil there. Probably it
was through her in bones.
G
Gerda Mortensen 08:23
But anyway, my grandfather, way back in the 1860s and 70s subscribed to The New York
Times. And the New York Times came regularly to their home I suppose it was a weekly at
that time. I don't know. But my father came is a teacher Vacation Bible School teacher
with column now to the congregation and North across the pasture then was EP horrible
the father of life and of and George Carbo and Mrs. Designer Andreessen Matilda, and he
took father along out to this country Parish, and they stayed overnight in this home.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 09:11
And my father promptly fell in love with this beautiful woman who was my mother. And
three years later, they were married.
G
Gerda Mortensen 09:22
Father love to talk Norwegian. Norwegian was a language that we used at home.But we
also used English. And we learned mother corrected or English and father corrected or
Norwegian. And we talked to father and Norwegian, we talked the mother in English. It
was not hard to teach us how to read Norwegian. I can remember learning the alphabet
and Norwegian when the Folkebladet newspaper came, our church paper. It was a big
one at that time.
G
Gerda Mortensen 09:53
And we would open it and this I can remember from the time we lived in Mankato, and I
was three years and nine months old when we moved away from Mankato. But if there
was a letter we didn't know, we would just turn to mother and take what is that?.
G
Gerda Mortensen 10:08
Until we learned our alphabet. And we learned how to read Norwegian and our textbook
was a Folkebladet. And if Ralph Lauren did, he was not quite two years older than I than I
wanted to learn it too. So I think we've always known how to read. And we always knew
how to read Norwegian as well as English, I think to their books of stories, and there were
books of the folklore and the even to the Fairyland Miss Susie and all those stories from
Norway that came into our home that we could enjoy.
G
Gerda Mortensen 10:43
There were songs of the North. And there was the experience of the wonderful men's Glee
Club and lacrosse and all kinds of people that income, because La Crosse got to be a
crossroads of the all the immigrants from the west that came from Chicago was to look
cross, many of them stopped. And then they spread out fan like overall this whole great
big Northwest.
G
Gerda Mortensen 11:06
And so here's there were many delightful and wonderful people. And it was a great, great
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Norwegian community until around the turn of the century. And then they sold out the
Germans that came and just huge areas of this valley were taken, the departments were
so determined and they came in.
G
Gerda Mortensen 11:29
But let me go back to a couple other remembrances from my mother's home. She was
born in 1859 and details about the Civil War period, there were three girls first v And
getting them was unheard of and Calico sold for 90 to $1 a yard. And so grandmother
took the Muslim curtains from the windows in the house, made the necessary garments for
these little girls.
G
Gerda Mortensen 12:05
At that time to I men could hire somebody to go in his place in the service. And my
grandfather having a family of five children and aged parents to look after some other
relatives felt that he ought to do this. So he hired a man to go in his place into the service.
G
Gerda Mortensen 12:27
Mother talking about it when said I saw my father cry twice. Once he came into the house,
and he said "Ingeborg, Abraham Lincoln has been shot." And grandmother and my
grandfather sat down and cried. And my mother in her little child mind wondered, "What
strange I haven't heard about this relatives, it means so much to the folks. How Haven't I
heard about Abraham Lincoln." And it wasn't until later that she was told that it was the
President did it states. But he meant that much to them, that they just wept bitter tears
because of this.
G
Gerda Mortensen 13:07
And the other time she saw my father, her father weep was when the man that my
grandfather had hired to take his place in the war, came home completely unscathed, and
in full health, in full health. And then there was a cry of joy, which was heightened. When
he told him that the last battle they were in one of the other sharpshooters and he this
other man said, Let's change places. They change places and that other sharpshooter was
killed. And so he had escaped miraculously to do this. We were brought up singing lots of
the old Civil War songs tending on the camp ground.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 14:02
There had been a Sunday school by one of the men in this valley, who had gathered many
people together because it was a beginning of a Sunday school movement. This hadn't
come to the Lutheran Church as such. But there was a Sunday school in this valley. And a
Mr. Dudley brown all young people together, and they had a Sunday school for younger
children and older children. There was no organ in the church. And my grandmother and
grandfather somehow had a little Oregon. And they would meet at our home and they
would practice the gospel songs, as well as a chorus for the Lutheran Church in four parts
so that they could sing in harmony when they were in church.
G
Gerda Mortensen 14:50
For many years later, in 1934, 35, while I was teaching in Hancock, China, the man who was
in the consulate there had a little daughter going design top private school. And she loved
to stop by and have the embassy car pick me up. And we would drive to school together
in the mornings. And her mother It was very much interested in came to visit us when
Saturday morning. And my sister in law as to where they hit. She had grown up and she
said Oh, it's a little town. I'm sure you never heard of it. It's in Wisconsin was she said my
husband service church in Wisconsin. The name of the town is West Salem. Oh, Patrick
said we had to drive through West Salem to go out to build schools to one of our
congregations. And I asked her what was your maiden name? She said deadly. And I
asked her and she was so surprised at the question. "Did your grandfather have a Sunday
school there for the people in the valley?" "Yes." When lo and behold, paths cross again.
And this was the granddaughter of that old man who had been my mother's Sunday
school teacher.
G
Gerda Mortensen 16:00
But this was an interesting blend of American language and the Norwegian language of
the American culture and the Scandinavian culture. And I think that my mother imbibed
quite a good deal of this as she grew up, because she didn't want to be just one thing. She
was always very proud of being an American. And born in America. We children used to
child every once in a while when father would say home in Norway and she said you
shouldn't say home in Norway because your home is here. And then we said But Mother
You say home in Wisconsin back in the cross. But that was different because that in this in
this country.
G
Gerda Mortensen 16:46
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My father was ordained and went out to his his first pastorage at Aberdeen Washington.
One little daughter was born to this marriage by the name of Agnes and 15th of July 1892,
just a year after they're married. And then my mother wasn't very well. The boom of
people moving out, was crushed by the Panic of 1893 and all the lumber industry, in
Aberdeen, hokey and Washington where my father was a pastor came to a standstill, and
they decided that they would have to give this up because the congregation could no
longer support them and come back to this part of the country. So naturally, they went
back to La Crosse and stayed there a while. Then my father was called Mankato,
Minnesota be pastor. And the second year little Agnes died of what would be called the
spinal meningitis I think today and the following year my brother Ralph was born.
G
Gerda Mortensen 17:57
I was born November 17, 1895 in Mankato. The particular spot on which the House did then
is now a school ground, I suppose symbolic of the fact that I was going to be a lifelong
school teacher who knows. Subsequently, my brother Harold was born some three and a
half years later, and when he was six weeks old in the fall of 1899, my father moved with
our family to Lumberton Minnesota. During those years in La Crosse, or in Mankato, my
father had been interested in following the Pioneer settlers that came up some Minnesota
Valley to man Kato and from there they branch north and northwest.
G
Gerda Mortensen 18:50
So he had found enough people in settlement around Lumberton around Milroy and the
mountain Lucan, Minnesota and those three communities father organized congregations
and they felt he wanted to follow and be with the pioneer. Mother was much more
interested in living in a city but she said "after all, you are the pastor, you do this work, and
I--where your work calls you and where you feel called to go there I will go too."
G
Gerda Mortensen 19:22
In Mankato there was a widow with three children the name of crouch and these children
needed help. Somebody gathered money to help them and one pastor there wasn't very
careful about the handling or husbanding these funds. So the upshot of the matter was
that they brought the three children to my father and said, Please do something about
these children. And my father and mother talk this over, had the children in their home.
And then father thought this would be a good project produced three new congregation
to lead organize it Lambert in mail Ryan looking to support a home for children.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 20:10
Subsequently they built home at Lumberton. And in this home, they got to be some 15-20
children. Among the people who came to take care of these children were to deaconess is
from the deaconess hospital and mother house in Minneapolis.
G
Gerda Mortensen 20:34
During the years that my father had been a student at Augsburg College and in the
seminary, he had, among other things, taught a Bible class to the weaknesses once a
week at the deaconess home and his acquaintance with these people. Let him to get in
contact with them and ask them to provide some sisters to look after this home for the
children.
G
Gerda Mortensen 21:03
So there was a sister Antoinette who came and, a sister Matilda, and the sister Carrie.
Sister Antoinette resigned A few years later to marry a Mr. Battalion, a widower with adult
children. And she lived on a farm home for many, many years. She's the mother of our
Abner photographer, who at present time is in Saigon, and who has been a very active
person in our church and then our college. Sister Matilda, later married Reverend Gilson of
our church. And our faculty at Augsburg is Dr. Crowd because like whose wife is Baba
Gilson, his sister married a brother, Bob Burg. Another sister nurses training died the later
and Carrie married to Mr. Nygaard and we've had some of their children at Augsburg over
the years.
G
Gerda Mortensen 22:13
This children's home the test two homes, as it was called the children's home at
Lamberton moved subsequently to near Wilmer, when the children in the home became of
age when they should be able to do some work. They thought that it would living on a
farm with cows and with animals and was firework would be a very good thing. And so
but testa Holmes was moved to a farm about five six miles outside of Willmar, Minnesota
on Eagle Lake. Father after having been a pastor at Lamberton for six years, was invited
to come as a financial secretary for Augsburg.
G
Gerda Mortensen 23:03
And in 1905, we moved to Minneapolis and lived there until the spring of 1908, during
which time, he of course, traveled in all of the loose and free church congregations went
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from home to home and talk to cause of the church related college and seminary and the
importance of sending the young people there. The young men I should say because
Augsburg was a men's school until it became co-educational in 1922.
G
Gerda Mortensen 23:35
My childhood memories go back to the days at Mankato and I can remember but frankly
one h in Hendrickson who came to teach vacation Bible school when I was a little girl, and
when I came to Augsburg is a member of the faculty. He was the registrar and he was on
our faculty. And we were great friends. Although he was a man who is a young seminary
graduate Rock me to sleep by singing me beautiful tenor solos.
G
Gerda Mortensen 24:13
The friendship from his family and my father's family David way back to number 10 day
and to Montevideo days, when my father had first come from Norway. There was a Pastor
Erickson, who was a pastor in that congregation who had been one of the first three
graduates of Augsburg Seminary in Marshall, Wisconsin, the very first year that they
started 1869. And he was one of, was it the three or five graduates in June of 1970
[correcting herself]--1870. Did I say 1869? And 1870.
G
Gerda Mortensen 25:02
He was called to this parish with no salary, but a place to work and an assurance from the
people that he would never starve. These were pioneers living inside what's in those days.
And everybody would try to raise some cattle, some sheep, some pigs, some chickens,
some grain, and out of whatever they had, they would bring to the parsonage some of
these things.
G
Gerda Mortensen 25:38
Now it happened that they had three sons and two daughters. I think they were five
children. It's time of this story. But one of my relatives, one of the fathers people. One day,
Mrs. Blix was going to bake bread and she thought I think I should make a double bed to
bed today. Because maybe they need bread in the person. And she gathered together
some vegetables and things and thought I'm going to send this over. And then Mr. Blix
came in. And he said, You know, I think maybe I should bring some vegetables and
butchered some, I think I should bring some of this meat over to the parsonage.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 26:24
So they loaded up the wagon was bred with vegetables with meet with food. At the
parsonage the evening before the children had gone to bed hungry. And the parents said
to the children, and one of these sons of this past year was a pastor had related this
incident to my brother, Harold, that we went to bed. And we were all told we should pray
to God that we had no food, just pray to God that He will send us food. So the next
morning, when these little children woke up, they were hungry. And they went downstairs
and there was nothing in the kitchen. And they went to their parents bedroom. And they
saw that the door was open. And their father and mother on their knees praying to God
for food.
G
Gerda Mortensen 27:22
And just then there was a rapid the kitchen door. And they went to the kitchen door and
there was these relatives of mine bringing food. God put it in their minds, you might need
some food today. And so this man I pastor himself in in these late years said, You have no
idea how to strengthen our faith in what pyramid.
G
Gerda Mortensen 27:50
Now these are some of the characteristics sort of ideas, faith and simplicity and so on that
people had a call from God to go out to be messengers of love to the people who come
here from their homeland. And it was in this atmosphere that my father found himself at
home and found himself in full sympathy with. And so it is no wonder that in his old age,
they won't last congregation he's here to the pastor asked me Do you know what they call
your father up here? And I said, No, the apostle of love. To which my brother Ralph said,
when I was going to go Wait, school father took me aside and asked me some things and
talked with me. And then he said, you know what I think about when I wake up in the
morning.
G
Gerda Mortensen 28:48
Well, we have said, so I just don't. But every morning when I wake I think of Who can I
make happy today. And we all said there by NGS a whole philosophy be of life. And so I
know that my father's great idea was to bring happiness and joy to others. And then he
was also the kind of person who could give it by like Mary Lou once said--this neice of
mine--Grandpa could accept a dozen eggs from a little lady, to make her feel as though
she were the Queen of Sheba.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 29:22
And this a habit of being able to accept gifts, with graciousness. And with us. It's a
something that you you live from the heart, it isn't anything that is put on, it's just simply in
with their well into this home of ours came these men and their wives, who had been a
part of our student body. And I can remember that as a child, how surreal we were that we
knew no region, because we could sit and listen to these delightful conversations. There
were no telephones, there were no radios, there were very few newspapers. There were
very few people that came.
G
Gerda Mortensen 30:06
And my mother is sometimes being burdened with the cares of the household and are not
feeling too well. I would say, oh, Jacob, why can't you have them stay someplace else? But
oh, no, they had to be there. And the conversations went on far into the night, not about
things, not about people, but about ideas and about the work of the kingdom of God, and
what they could do. Because their whole life was somehow dedicated to the idea of
serving this school. The so that, in turn could serve the people. I know that when I was
invited to come to expect to be a teacher, I felt that part of my responsibility was to help
confront every girl there with a personal commitment of life, to the Christian way of life,
which meant is surrender to Jesus Christ.
G
Gerda Mortensen 31:09
And I tried over the years, in many different kinds of ways to make this a reality. And there
was some very rich and meaningful experiences. Oh, I know, when I came, I thought how
in the world am I going to do this? And I read my Bible at night and I wondered, how am I
going to be able to so live so talk so work, that they can see that this is something that's
mine and want it
G
Gerda Mortensen 31:43
Oh, I thought too when I came to Augsburg as a graduate from the University of
Minnesota at the age of 26. "If I were only older, if I only had gray hair, if I only had been
married, so the girls would think 'well, if I do what she says well, then I too will probably be
married someday.'" What time took care,of the gray hair and the getting older and the
matter of being married or not. That somehow had gone by the way because like
Gertrude Hilleboe at St. Olaf and I and many others in our generation never dreamed that
we could be Deans of Women and be married at the same time. It was sort of a call to a
commitment of life to that kind of service.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 32:24
I think I should pause for a bit.
G
Gerda Mortensen 32:26
[There is a long break in the recording]
G
Gerda Mortensen 33:18
I started my educational career when I was seven years old by going to school at Lambert
in Minnesota.
G
Gerda Mortensen 33:25
We lived on a farm home about two miles from town. My brother Ralph had gone with his
body. My mother's younger sister and her husband, Mr. Weimer, who was a teacher at or
town College in Watertown, Wisconsin. And so took his first two years, the first year that
he lived with him. He came back a master of English and big vocabulary gear to just tag
along with him all around, and listen to everything and wanted to do this know this as
much as he did. So in September that year, we carried her little lunch pills with us. In
Waldorf two miles to town. There was a shortcut we could take, which was a mile. But
oftentimes the water was too high in the creek, or the snow to deepen the road to we'd
walk around. So here it was first grade. I can remember one thing about that teacher.
G
Gerda Mortensen 34:22
The thunderstorm came up and I was a little frightened. She came in sat down the seat
was made for arm around me, and comforted me and somehow made me Laverne. She
was married that following summer, and then the fall when school started. my pal of those
years surveyed, later told me that let's go down and see Mrs. Gabbert I said, and if she
could only have a baby, where we could go with the baby. We didn't know too much
about biology in those days. But my first year, went on rather uneventful me, but I learned
something in the second year. At last fall, I was down in spoke or last spring, spoken
language. And I told the people in the congregation that I had learned two things there.
G
Gerda Mortensen 35:14
And the one lesson I learned when I was in second grade. I came we had the carried our
lunch pills. I don't think any teachers used to stay during the noon hour. But I think that we
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had been some kind of goings on at the school during the noon hour window teachers
were there. And when I came back to when the teacher came back in the afternoon,
teacher, my class, she said, Now Gary, tell me what you did that was wrong.
G
Gerda Mortensen 35:47
You know, it was wrong. And I said, Well, what did I do? She shut me up completely. And
she said, You stand in the corner there until you can tell me what you did. It was wrong.
And I started to ask What did I do? And I said I don't just wouldn't listen to me. I don't
know. I stood in my little blue sailor suit dress all afternoon school started at one it wasn't
over was until four o'clock. And the children looked at me standing there all afternoon, the
sympathy was with me. And the teacher didn't do any explaining. So what I had done that
was wrong to this day, I don't know, I may well done something wrong. But I asked her
what it was.
G
Gerda Mortensen 36:27
But this taught me in all the years of my life, I wanted to give anybody a chance to say
anything they wanted to say about what they hit Done. And I carry judgments in, in this,
you know, didn't fail to pass judgment until I had felt that I had heard all sides of a story.
This was probably a pretty valuable lesson to learn that early in life.
G
Gerda Mortensen 36:52
But I have often wondered what it was that that teacher accused me of and wouldn't tell
me what it was so that I could get it rectified. That's, in one way a very horrible kind of
memory. But I can still feel the warmth and the affection of the children in the room. The
teachers on I was stubborn mule. I guess maybe I was stubborn in something, but I had
nothing to confess. So that was it.
G
Gerda Mortensen 37:19
And then the third grade one of my classmates fainted and I thought when I wouldn't it be
fun to be able to faint because she got a lot of attention. I didn't. Then we've had a
summer My mother was winter My mother was very ill had to go to lacrosse for surgery.
And I went along and lived in the hospital part of the time was there and stayed with a
cousin. That following summer we went out to Tacoma Washington where she had three
sisters, one each to take care of the two or three children. And my grandmother was still
living so mother stayed there. But we had a great summer picnic baskets out to point
divine spark practically every day, living by the seashore, just having a wonderful,
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wonderful summer. It started the whole series in my life of vacations in Washington, which
we're always connected with mountains was the ocean endless fun.
G
Gerda Mortensen 38:14
We moved to Lamberton and my father from Lamberton, we moved to Minneapolis. My
father had been invited by Augsburg College to be what was called the traveling financial
secretary. Father was a great person, for personal contacts with people he liked people.
He liked, talk with people, he liked to talk the cause of Christian higher education with
people. And he started a systematic covering of all the congregation's of the loose and
free church. He visited in every home. And for years afterwards, he could come to annual
conferences, and they say Oh, Hello, Mr. So and so. And he turned it back and said they
live tomorrow Norris and one mile east from a certain church.
G
Gerda Mortensen 39:03
But in those early days to gifts to the college were small sums and larger sums, mostly
small sums. But the list of the people who had given money were given in the folk about it
in a list of gifts to the school. And lo and behold, didn't my father reads those avidly. And
of course you refresh his memory about the people. But those that he can interested, he
was always concerned about seeing how they were following up with these gifts.
G
Gerda Mortensen 39:34
So this went on for three years. Meanwhile, we joined Trinity Lutheran Church, which was a
college church. And when all the students went to worship, there was a Sunday school,
there were the young people. There was a Norwegian young people's group and an
English young people's group. And here we're this word oops, and the after dolls and the
plugins and the heroines and the horrible, and all these wonderful people to be friends
with. They had a custom to have open house and their birthdays.
G
Gerda Mortensen 40:08
And the first time your birthday came around. And if you are new in the city, then you
invited. So mother and father were duly invited to the party parties, disparate groups. And
they have two dogs, both professors fair enough detail. And revenue goes above the door,
to the Patterson's to the night owls to the Holland, and in turn head open house
themselves. Both their birthdays were 10 days apart in in January. But on the 19th they
had open house for father and all these people came. And then 29th mother.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 40:45
These were wonderful days, because the people at Trinity Church had what they call
venomous friendship evenings, fellowship evenings, they get together just to listen to a
program good music, here's somebody talk, and then sit around and visit with each other.
And oftentimes, the far was taken by one or the other of these leading thinkers from
college and seminary. And so when could listen to the intelligent conversation that we're
professor, your expert group, or have professor or span of the Dow tell about life in Greece
because he'd gone to study there. And they came back and I can still remember, one of
the first set of slides that I had ever seen pictured in the church was a lecture on Greece
given by professors when after, when I was nine years old.
G
Gerda Mortensen 41:44
And thinking my this man must be remarkable. Who can speak a language that is
different dissolve this. Well, I went to school at school and skipped a half a grade. And
then we moved a little closer to August, Bergen, I went to middle school.
G
Gerda Mortensen 42:01
And Melvin Helland and I were in sixth grade and we were given the choice of who after
the first 15 minutes of mental arithmetic every out of 100 then we could go around and
collect the absence slips from all the boxes in the school. So we vied with each other and
both of us getting hundred every day, we had a chance to alternate. But this is where all
the children of the professors went to school because they lived in houses on the block at
that time, as we called it. There were the Patterson children and the Niedahl children, and
the Harbo children later in the [undefined] children, all these people going to this little
school was a great deal of fun. And then we had a wonderful Sunday school Professor
Niedahl alternated with him Mr. Rasmussen, this Sunday school teacher. And needless to
say, our Sunday school was all in Norwegian. And we sounds sang songs of a book called
Songbogen, which had been put together by one of the former teachers of our expert, but
the name of a mustard and the then pasture at Trinity Church.
G
Gerda Mortensen 42:02
And those are the songs that we knew and loved and sang, but in these schools, I can
remember in sixth grade at Monroe, we should have some home economics. And so we
had four lessons before we moved away in March. The first lesson was how to sweep and
desta house a second lesson was how to lay a fire the stove and the third was something
about utensils and weights and measurements. And then we moved away and the next
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recipe should be on how to make cream puffs and angel food cake and I got one of the
children to get me a copy and send them but we went moved to the country parsonage
were subsequently had chickens and I made more angel food cake cream puffs. The next
five six years I've ever made dollars to my life falling those recipes.
G
Gerda Mortensen 44:06
From Minneapolis, my father had a strange experience of during these years of losing
Professor Georg Sverdrup as President of Augsburg, who succeeded by his colleague Sven
Oftedal. The depression years of 1907 with it small panic came after that Oftedal was like
a man without a tie because he and Sverdrup had been such intimate friends, but he was
completely lost without him.
G
Gerda Mortensen 44:49
And with the financial situation being tight and difficult. And father's plan of long range
solicitation of friends and building up friendships. Oftedal, he could do better I guess
himself going at [the recording cuts off]
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Show less
RG 21.4.1969.07.30 Mortensen (2 of 4).wav
Tue, 07/30 02:07PM
64:13
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
student, people, augsburg, augsburg college, women, college, years, pastors, personnel, felt,
minnesota, christensen, dean, taught, lived, church, asked, group, ideas, met
SPEAKERS
Gerda Mortensen
G
G... Show more
RG 21.4.1969.07.30 Mortensen (2 of 4).wav
Tue, 07/30 02:07PM
64:13
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
student, people, augsburg, augsburg college, women, college, years, pastors, personnel, felt,
minnesota, christensen, dean, taught, lived, church, asked, group, ideas, met
SPEAKERS
Gerda Mortensen
G
Gerda Mortensen 01:24
Today we have something that we call student personnel services in the colleges and in
many other areas of business to your personnel departments. But the ordinary idea of
student personnel deals with everything from recruitment students to admissions to
registration to curriculum construction to orientation, health services faculty cancer
student counselors, housing, food service, Student Government, student activities, religious
life, vocational counseling, curriculum development, follow up alumni alumni records,
recommendations, discipline, and a few other areas. Whenever I first get to become
acquainted with some of all this as I said, I tended to Columbia University in the summer
session and 1924 after I had been Dina women for one year dogs and Miss hirable it St.
Olaf had recommended that I go she had had some wonderful work with one Romy at
Stevens who had started this work around 1910 1214 when she had been there for a
master's degree work. When I came this work was headed up by Dr. Sarah Stewart, whom I
became very fond of, and who helped me a great deal and that summer, she had a
beginning course the advanced course for people who were advisors to women and girls,
both college university and high school people. I told you my predicament I needed to
learn as much as I could in a shorter time as possible. could I possibly take the two
courses concurrently. Then I also wanted to take a course and institutional management
which would be something about how to take care of dormitories how to build them,
because one of the things that he said to me, wherever you go, be sure that you watch for
all the dormitory someday you will have a chance to plan something for Augsburg, so
keep notes in your mind and go take a look at dormitories wherever you can.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 03:39
That course was taught by Minnesota's Dean of Women, Dudley Blitz, whom I
subsequently get to know very well as she was a leader of our Minnesota Deans of
Women's Association for many many years. I also wanted to course in one other
thing...what was ithis? Vocational guidance. I think it was an education that women I was
also required to take a course in history. So here I started out in the beginning with all of
these different ideas. At Columbia University, I first came in contact with many people of
other races and other nationalities and other backgrounds. I had come out of a very close
circuited Lutheran Midwest group, although I had been in Mankato State, is it's called now
for two years met a number of people who are non-Lutheran, certainly at the University of
Minnesota when I finished my two years of undergraduate work. I had many friends from
many different kinds of circles. And still I was very limited in my outlook. I had a brother
who'd gone to China as a missionary and I had a great deal of interest in the people from
among whom he was working. among people that I met at Columbia that summer. Were
Mr. Mrs. Kohlberg, who had had one term is missionaries in China. They introduced me to
the so called indemnity students. It took me along to some of the meetings of the Chinese
as they were trying to understand the things they could do something so that they could, I
could understand a little bit more some of the problems that they'd had. And we're
having, and but it introduced me to a group of people among whom I could find some
friends and get away from some of the strangeness, that lack of contact with the
nationality group would mean. Among the women, the in studying that summer, we're
also two very lovely Negro women from Washington DC. One was the Dean of women at
Howard University, the other Edina women from one to the high schools. And these two
women were very fine people, they were always little reticent in class, they always waited
until the white people instead they had to go into a classroom and whatnot. But we tried
to treat them just as equals and as friends.
G
Gerda Mortensen 06:23
The year after I had been finished at Columbia University in 1929, we had a national
convention in Cleveland. I was asked by Anna Rose Hawks, who was at a rose at that time
from Washington University, who later married Dean Hawks from Columbia and recently,
but Anna Rose asked if I'd be willing to be one of the people who'd be hostess to this
Negro women. And we sat on a table just below the stage at the head table, because they
said we want to show all the things that we have a great deal of feeling of respect for and
want to recognize them fully as individuals. And so it was my happy privilege of being one
of 20 people sitting at that table between two Negro women. One of the sad comments
on these two Negro beautiful Negro Deans was they were injured some years later in a
car accident in Kentucky or wherever it was. And they were taken to a hospital. They
refused to admit them because they were negros. And both of them died before they got
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to a hospital was willing to take them. This kind of prejudice, this kind of discrimination is
something that is simply bring very deeply in hurt a great deal. I was asked a year later to
sit with Margaret Doty from Macalester in Atlantic City. And we brought some Negro
women and among them was a very charming, beautiful young Negro woman who had a
deep rose pink dress on formal and wore a beautiful pink rose to match in her hair. And to
just the chairman and Dean. The last year that I was dean of women before my retirement
in '64, I was hosted at a table in Portland, Oregon. And I asked the people at my table
would you like me God and bring a couple Negro deans and to sit with us? They said yes,
please do. And I saw these two, one taller one, one in one shorter went out in the hallway,
invited them a new place to sit? No, we haven't. I said want to please come and be guests
at our table. And they sat down and the shorter one sat next to me and I looked at her.
And across the years all at one Division I said were you at Atlantic City? And did you wear
a beautiful pink satin dress formal and wear rose in your hair? "Yes!" she said "I did!" "Well, I
sat at that table with you and met you then." So here we were, conversing over a lifetime
of experiences, from 1929 to 1964. Both of us having grown rich in experience over all
those years naturally.
G
Gerda Mortensen 09:01
But it was these opportunities to meet people and to be with others. It was also my first
contact with Puerto Rican people. I took a class in the philosophy of education from
William Hurt Kilpatrick, who was, to my thinking, the strongest and most wonderful
teacher at Columbia University was in philosophy, education. He had worked out of
workbook. We were something like 200 people in the class, and how can you have
personalized instruction with 200 people? But Dr. William Howard Kirkpatrick had worked
out a workbook on topics with questions. And we were divided into groups of 10 each, we
should meet, do our own reading, meet and discuss all these things and come with a
chairman from our group to report to the committee's or what we had found out. And so
William heard Kilpatrick always the Blackboard, back of a minute piece of chalk in his
hand, stood there tall, lean caches like figure and with sparkling eyes and would ask
questions here and there. And each group then reported, this took about 30 minutes of
the period. And then he would allow questions from one section to another. And
oftentimes there were questions. And I remember some of the most searching questions
were made by Puerto Ricans who were studying at Columbia. But he was very kind and
gentle with everyone and let them ask their questions. And then after about 10 minutes of
that, he would say, turn to the blackboard and draw a line from one point to another. And
he said, Now, this is what seems to me that you have said so far. And he would summarize
what the class had reported. And then notebooks all got out, and pencils got busy,
because he said, Now this is what it seems to me. And in about eight minutes of summary,
he pointed out upon the things that he felt were most significant in that lesson. And then
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we went on to the next session. But this was a whole term of this kind of studying and
teaching. I subsequently use that in the adaptation when I taught marriage and family
relationships. I had 60 students living sitting down at that one arm economics room, and I
put them at a router table. And here we had eight tables, and everyone could do their
discussing. So we had some of the same kind of thing. But this was a very exciting thing. A
wonderful teacher. And other people at Columbia that time that were much talkback was
Sunday, was William Bagley was Thomas Dewey was.
G
Gerda Mortensen 11:57
But some of the students get so excited about these. And one of the women who was
teaching in the elementary school for graduate students center children, said, Come to
the window and listen. And so we went to the window and listened. And here's the
children are crawling out on the on the playground. And they said turn back, you can't do
that to me or kill Patrick, come here, I'll punch you in the notes that were your bag. Now as
far apart as it could be, would be Thomas Dewey, and, and William Bagley and Kilpatrick.
But they oftentimes said, we had a wonderful day together. We discussed all day, we
didn't agree on a single thing, but we had a wonderful time together. It was a period of
very great enrichment. And Nicholas Murray Butler's president of Columbia at that time,
also did a good deal of talking whereas students had a chance to meet him. So these
were some of the kind of delightful things. The courses that I took in guidance and
personnel required us to do a lot of fieldwork and go visit all kinds of institutions and visit
colleges and universities in dormitories and slum areas and in churches and social work
centers and all this kind of thing. And in addition, I just, you know, hated to have any day
go by without some extra things. So I was always going to concerts or lectures, or listen to
different preachers. One Sunday go to St. John's a divine right near the edge of the
campus to hear some world famous pastor or I'd go down here Hugh black and the Fifth
Avenue Presbyterian Church. All right, go to that majestic Cathedral St. Patrick's never
having attended a Catholic service before I went to mass. And then I would go over once
a month or once in six weeks over to Brooklyn to my friends after dolls and pastor
segment at this Trinity Church in Brooklyn. But I always felt this is my opportunity to sort
of stretch my wings and get something else overpaid, fabulous, some for some Grand
Opera ticket to the Chris Olson, who was student pastor and I could go to hear Carmen
was Kirsten flagstick singing the role of Carmen. She was kind of a big Carmen, but over
the singing was just superlative.
G
Gerda Mortensen 14:22
The second time I went to Columbia in Jan February to 1928. I asked to live in Johnson
Hall. Eliza Reese Butler's sister, Nicholas Murray was the head and Margaret doty from
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McAllister college had had a year sabbatical the year before and had lived there. And she
said, Eliza, resist a everybody called her allies to resist very flattered if demons or women
want to come and live in her hall to see how it operated and run. So I came and filled in
the blank of the interests and whatnot. And the very next day here was a little note from
her inviting me to be her guests at dinner and afterwards at the opera, know at Carnegie
Hall. Somebody she explained a dinner that evening. And she had selected eight different
people to be her guests and go with us that somebody had died and her season tickets
for Connect Carnegie Hall had been given to the president and he sent them over to her
and said you could make use of them take somebody and treat them to these concerts.
So here we sat in this box. I didn't think I had a coat smart enough to go to Grand Opera
in and furthermore, I was anticipating buying out of season coat at one of the New York
stores so I got down to one and maker's Wade found a beautiful gray soft gray with a
gray squirrel trim line in grey squirrel. It had been $150 code and I got for $50 and I wore
that over little eating dress that I had made for myself. And I just sort of felt the elegance
and effort situation. And we sat in the box and several people came in bout wave to
advisories Butler and she had these men come in there you know dress uniform dress, and
came over to be presented. Two weeks later, I wanted to hear a wonderful concert and I
didn't have the money to buy a good ticket. So I bought standing room only and stood
through a coveted subsequently during the year I heard some very excellent, wonderful
music there is passionate music according to St. Matthew, At Easter time, I heard several
other concerts during the year but always tried to buy tickets far enough in advance to be
able to do things without costing too much.
G
Gerda Mortensen 16:54
But here was the richness of the New York Philharmonic playing off at the loose on
stadium. You could buy tickets and evening for 25 cents just sat way on the edges. So
during a hot hot summer, we would get on a sightseeing bus, Fifth Avenue bus no go down
Fifth Avenue back again out to the loose on stadium. Listen to concert two hours come
home at 1030. And then study until 3456 in the morning, this was all right. One was young
and on could do all of those things. And but these are some of the things that I hope gave
me a little bit of a scope and a little bit of a point of view as to some of the kinds of things
that one man, one man thought in terms of culture, and what one did to give to a group of
students again, I went to the art galleries, I went to some of the drama. I remember going
to hear Eva seeing Eva galleon play in her Repertory Theater where she wanted to have
good theater brought to the poor people. I saw Walter Hamptons in playing the man with
a big nose, Sudan Oh, yes. And play also that was a Persian, Tilden. It looked like pictures
on the prison picture. And they were in uniform and dressed like that. But all these things
just added a great deal of enrichment to my life. Read this very group and Martha Blegen
came through on their way to Europe. And I thought it's the end of the session when I had
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been there for six months. I think that I had spent more than they had spent going to
Europe, but I had also getting some of the things that I needed very desperately for my
own profession. One of the things that I was asked to do is summary term paper in my
course was to list a 10 or 15 or 20 year program for my institution as to what I was able to
think that we should be able to accomplish.
G
Gerda Mortensen 18:59
For instance, in the field of health, what could we do, we could work toward we had a low
infirmary and Mrs. Mrs. Jested, a retired, widowed missionaries wife, with four children was
living in a house and the campus was a Kosovo upstairs. And if any of the boys got sick,
She'd better make a bowl of soup and take over to them. Anybody got a girl, she'd have
to wait until she built a fire in this coal stove and they got to be warm enough in order to
move the people over there. This is all we had a line of health service. We had a couple
doctors who were friends box bridge doctor I received and Dr. CM on and if any expert
people became a all the they went to one or the other those and they charged them, I
think just the nominal fee. I know that that Dr receive it and did surgery for my brother
Ralph. And I think at that time, the old Medical Society still was an operation. And Ralph
was allowed some 15 $20 or something for this, how they managed to get through and do
some of these things, I don't know. But I had to talk with my teacher and counselor and
explained how we had a deaconess hospital it was affiliated with our same church group.
And so we worked out I worked out a kind of a program where we could start in by trying
to get a student who is a graduate nurse who wanted to study at the college to do
something about a volunteer business of helping take care of the sick. And when Mrs.
turbid came to be how smother and one of the dormitories, we were able to persuade the
authorities to move the health service over into main, which had steam heat that time.
Incidentally, steam heat came to the buildings at Augsburg during the time that my
brother Ralph was a student there. And he and other students went out that summer to
gather money in the congregation for Vermont opera out to heating pad for Augsburg
College.
G
Gerda Mortensen 21:15
And so it was in prior This was around 1914-15. I think that they installed heating plant up
to that time they had had wooden--still be airtight stoves. And so the boarding club fee
included dollar and a quarter or a year or something for cordwood to all the men had to
go on chop their own would carry pump their own water from the Wellness Center and
take up to their rooms. And there was of course a great lack of skill as far as household
housekeeping was concerned among the students. Well to change some of this and then
ultimately to have some kind of an affiliation with a with a doctor who would dispense
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certain number of hours on the campus, until finally we could set up a little health office
on the campus. Until finally we could have a whole health department in a hospital as we
do at Fairview hospital now. But when I moved from my old office in Martin Hall over to
the office in science Hall when that was built, I found that that copy of that paper, I didn't
have sense enough to save it. But I read through it. And I saw the steps that had been
taken and had been accomplished in all of those major areas that I thought were needed.
The least the slowest, was a matter of housing for women. But for the things which could
be done. Many of these things had been done that I had taught through these areas as
part of my study that particular time at Columbia.
G
Gerda Mortensen 23:07
Besides attending Columbia University, we're getting these ideas and trying to put those
into practice in our work at Augsburg came after a while to discuss with the president
then Dr. Christensen the idea of setting up something cogs to the personnel services at
Augsburg. So we set up a committee was Adolph of Paulson and Erling Urdahl. And I think,
man in education, I wonder if that was when Mr. Hansen was there, and myself. And we
should devolve some kind of a plan and a program for this to present to the faculty. And
as a result of our studying and talking together, we recommended fully that we should
adopt a student personnel program and set up our college on this kind of a basis. The next
day, it was presented to the faculty and it was passed. And later on that day, I met Dr.
Christensen. And he said, I hear you voted yourself out of a job yesterday. I said I did. Yes.
He said you decided to have student personnel work at Augsburg now. Was don't you
intend to have women's students at Oxbridge anymore? Will Yes, but if you have student
personnel program, then you have a man that the head of this and then you won't need
any one else. Well, this showed how terrible little understanding it was of all the things
that are involved in the student personnel program.
G
Gerda Mortensen 24:54
And later when they had built Gerda Mortensen and Hall and added this to the Sivertson
the then data Christensen one miracle and be the head residence here, I said, "Is this is
what you want me to be?" The 'Head REsident,' You don't want to be a Dean of Women
anymore?" "Well, you can be both." "No," I said. "I can't be both. Because they're just too
many things to do. And if the preference is mine, I will say the Den of Women." And then
we can have this others some auxiliary. Well. So it was always a matter of trying to, to
teach without too much success. Just what was involved because when I give all ones
time, 24 hours a day, I had lived in the Morton hall for 16 years. So I lived and worked with
those people. And my parents retired and I had to move down to Minneapolis, and I
needed to live with them and help take care of them. And of course, this started 19 years
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from then, with the loss of my parents and my two sister in law, and six children to look
after. And do some advising for my brother's children who went back to China and my
other brother, who never remarried and whom I helped Harold whom I helped was
bringing up his family and taken care of. But these were days that were that were full of
work. And full gross, because we were going as an institution, we were going as far as
numbers were concerned. And again, and again, I felt the great great need to entrust
much more of the local leadership to the students, and in student government and student
activities. And with all of these things, I gave him as much responsibility to students as
they will do much privileges they will be willing to assume responsibility for. I remember
when they started the National Student Association, Vernon 10th. And it was done by
President that they met to organize it were in Madison, Wisconsin, they showed me this
note that he got an inviting somebody to come to this meeting. So by all means just go go
and be a part of it. And bring back all the kinds of questions and all the kind of problems
that students see around. After a while it had little pink tinge. But they get rid of some of
the pink tinge in the National Association. But the students were always championing for
student responsibility, student privilege, student participation, and to the extent to which
we were able to give this and students who are elected Student Government subsequent
years always said when they came back from the National Student Association, we
discovered that the students at Augsburg have far more opportunity to participate in
everything, decision planning and all this sort of thing that any of the other institutions, I
can remember when they said they came back and they college St. Thomas students, all
they could do is plan dances Saturday nights, this was all they could do.
G
Gerda Mortensen 28:11
Well, they just felt that there were much more and I think this was one of the reasons
probably that students had his happier time taking care of their own affairs as they did in
the years when we had very little money to do things with in when they were rather
unsophisticated group of students. But at the same time, they had a very happy, rich time
doing it. I also went to national conventions I started in by going to our national women
Dean's and concerts convention in Boston, the year that I was at Columbia University in
February 1928. Among the people that I had met in the fall of that year at Minnesota
Education Association meeting was a sister Anthony man, who is president of the New St.
College of St. Catherine. And then lo and behold, I met her at this national convention,
and Didn't she say, Hello, Gary Martin's now are you. And I almost fell over because I
thought here, this woman knows who I am and speaks my name. And I thought that
please me. And I decided I was going to try to always do that as far as possible. If it gave
me some pleasure, could also do that for others. In Boston, I walked around and saw the
place where history had been made. But going out to Wellesley College, I sat with a very
charming woman who was a dean at one of the well established Eastern colleges. Her
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name was Agnes something that I can't remember the last name now, but she just talked
to me, because I was just a child among deans and those days, I was considered a rarity,
because nobody, but nobody could possibly start being Indian women until they were at
least 35 years of age, most of the women were in their 50s and 60s. And so I was just in
their child. But she talked to me about problems about some of the things. And again, she
said, the great thing, I think, is it, you are going to make this students feel that you have a
real genuine and a warm concern for you, I can still see us riding out in the bus together, I
had that grace coat with this girl craving, and a beautiful, pale blue hat that I bought for
spring in going out there and then at Wellesley in that chapel, and I had read the life of
Alice Freeman Palmer, written by her husband, who had been president there. And this
had also been an inspiration to me, as to how I should do and work with students. And at
this chapel, there is a beautiful statue by a woman dressed in Grecian robes, and a young
girl who stands holding the lab of knowledge. And the older woman puts her hand on the
shoulder of the one, and with the other hand, points the way. And she said, This is what a
teacher and a student is, I just walked away a little further than you but together, we are
still searching for truth. And I have just loved that idea. So this is another one of the ideas
that I kept, I had just lived a little longer than some of my students. When I first came, I
hadn't lived as long as some of them had. But after a while that changed to. So going to
national conventions, always trying to find out what the new ideas were trying to adapt
them and coming back with any new ideas that I could go into state meetings in
Minnesota as part of the student personnel services and served in various capacities and
creating chair one year of that, and for our state deans of women, I did everything from
being historian to Secretary to Vice President to President. And when I retired in 1964, the
state convention was dedicated to a program honoring me and this was tape recorded.
And we had many people who were there. And Dr. Taylor Haganah, University of
Minnesota, head of the counseling Bureau and Dr. Marcia Edwards. And Dr. Male, Mabel
McCullough, who's now assistant dean of students, they had worked out a program. And
Sarah hag, and I had worked out a new testing scale, to test the effectiveness of a Dena
women based on my life and work and activity dogs.
G
Gerda Mortensen 33:00
And I have a transcription of this that I will put into the folder so that this is there. But it
moved me very, very deeply. And just think that these people who were such highly
professional people would have that kind of a feeling about the life and work of what we
had done. But they always had the respect for Augsburg College from some of us who had
been over there and felt we were searching for the right way to do things and then willing
to experiment and always sending somebody over to get new ideas. What else did I do?
Later, we established the American student personnel Association, a PGA and several of
these conventions, I went to both of those, again, to garner ideas, this was lots of research.
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And I wasn't really able to do research. But other people research I could make use of as
far as taking some ideas. I suppose one of the greatest things that we tried to do is to try
to orient college students to come college. Now in the summer 1968, we've had a course
called transition to college, which is really the whole old idea of trying to train students to
be ready to do college work. It wasn't an intellectual orientation that to Christensen, it
taught that orientation to the world and knowledge in Marion Lindemann had also taught
that course. And I think you're taught that course, when you're doing to me. He taught the
science and you talked to where literature, bird's eye view of literature, and of and
astrophysics, and this whole field of science. And then when I was asked to do this, it was
to take this practical thing is to teach people how to use their time and study habits and
how to read and how to take notes and how to budget their time and how to plan to get
their work done, and how to take time for being employed, and still be able to get on
things in the need to do otherwise. I think this is about enough on this particular subject to
this point. I'm going to come back to this a little bit later, in some of the steps of life, which
we took as far as developing the idea of discipline, education that women the change of
records and all that sort of thing. In the summer of 1946, I went to attend the workshop in
higher education to University Minnesota, asked by the faculty to study the whole field of
student personnel services.
G
Gerda Mortensen 35:40
At this workshop, I became acquainted with Dr. Gilbert Rin, of the University of Minnesota
and Dr. Dugan, both of whom were very, very influential in the system, me and the general
thinking of the development of student personnel, and what kind of groundwork there
should be done. In order to build this better at Oxbridge. We had already participated in a
statewide testing program under the direction of Dr. Ralph birdie, who still is at the
University of Minnesota continuing his work. Subsequently, I learned to know Dr. seta
hagner and Dr. Marcia Edwards, Dr. Mabel McCulloch. Dr. May will powers a number of
others in this field. But out of this one summer session 1946 and again in 1947, we evolved
the general pattern for a program for student personnel work at Augsburg College. We
were being studied for accreditation within our central Association, and we needed to
have a good organization. Yeah, I also went in 1947 and suggested to Dr. Christensen that
Mr. Dolan, who was then had been made the dean of students to set up a good, tentative
program to follow for student personal well at work at Augsburg College. In the summers
of 52 and 53, I was a part of a workshop in family life education under the leadership of Dr.
Reuben Hill. I also took a seminar course, when it came to Minnesota, dealing with the
teaching of the subject of marriage and family relationships, which I had been asked to do
at Augsburg many years before and which I did for something like 30 years.
Gerda Mortensen 37:38
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G
Gerda Mortensen 37:38
As a result of this workshop and student personnel, I also took courses at the University of
Minnesota in the fall and spring of 46 and 47. And 4748. great deal of this work with Dr.
Gilbert when, in 1964 National APG convention, Dr. Ran was given one of the great awards
for Distinguished Service in the field is to the personnel. I congratulated him and he in turn
turned around to congratulate me and he said, Gerda we really laid the foundation you
would Augsburg and I at the University of Minnesota for some very effective student
personnel work. I've always cherished the memory of that. Dr. Christensen went to Europe
in the spring of which year was this? And at that time, Mr. Martin Coinbase, Dean of the
College was asked to take on the work of Venus students. And Mr. K. Brunner down who
had been this Dean of Students for a number of years, just returned to the English
department as a full time English teacher. During that time, it was very imperative that we
find somebody who could hit up student personnel. I asked a number of people for
suggestions. And one day Dr. Quanbeck called me and said, I think that I had just the right
man that we should have for student personnel work at Augsburg College. He's a very
young man, but he comes very highly, highly recommended a Doctor Willis Dugan at the
University of Minnesota said there is just no better candidate. I had asked Dr. Dugan also
as I had met him in Philadelphia at convention, whom he would like to recommend to us.
And he again had mentioned Mr. Peter HR cost. Peter arm cost at this time was 23 years
of age, graduated Denison University. And in graduate school in the field of psychology,
university, Minnesota, he came over to talk with us he was young, it is true. And I thought
to myself, Oh, Martin Quanbeck, you can't do this to me, asking me to take a man 23-24
years of age, to be the Dean of Students. I look forward someday to having as a dean of
students, somebody whom I could really trust somebody who could take the lead. And I
had to be very, very sure that this was the right man. So we did some talking that one day,
and I told that to Cristen--, Dr. Quantic, that I just felt very, very greatly that I wanted to
go over and have a talk with Dr. Ren, about this young man. So I made the appointment
went over to talk with him.
G
Gerda Mortensen 40:23
And he told me to that he is the kind of person that can go ahead and do the kinds of
things that need doing it on spring, you've laid the foundation, many of our students in
graduate school have been over to talk with you about the kind of work that you've been
doing, the kinds of ideas that you have. And now I think for your running mate, if you could
do something like this, and accept this young man as this, let him take the lead. And then
he turned to me said if you take him, how are you going to treat him? I said, Well, I've
looked for somebody to actually take the lead, who's to whom I could share wisdom or
insight that I've gained over the years. Well, they said you take him if you don't, I will. And
I knew that that you ran always selected the outstanding student to be his student
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assistant. So I felt All right. Let's take Peter, I'm a cost. I went back to Dean Quanbeck and
said, I agreed that we should offer this to Peter armor cost. The next day on the way over
to a state convention over at Bethel College in St. Paul. I stopped over in Dinkytown and
had to pick up some materials at the prions bookstore, and who should come walk over
the bridge But Peter arm cast and looked up and said hello. Hello. Have you had a word
from Dr. Quanbeck? He said yes, I just had the letter. So I said, Well, welcome colleague,
Welcome to Augsburg College, and he took my hand and shook it. Subsequently, he wrote
me a little letter and said yesterday when I met you, you called me colleague, I appreciate
that. You with your wisdom and experience and I was my creativity and vigor should make
a great team. Because what is the university is quite head has said, but the combined
wisdom of the experienced in the enthusiastic work of the young person. So Peter, I'm a
cos came to Augsburg in that fall, and we had a great great time together, took an
analyzed every phase and every aspect gives to the personnel work from A to Z. We
talked over.
G
Gerda Mortensen 42:37
Why did I think it's I thought why did I had I arrived at this particular point of view, why
this why that. And in the files of student personnel office, there will be a record of his study
after we had all done all the discussing an issue then he would take the books, and he
would formulate these are the statements that we want to live by the as the guidelines
that will want to establish, and then we would take them to student Personnel Committee
and discuss them pro and con in that committee. And then they arrive at a program of
activity which we should follow. This we did with every aspect of student personnel work
admissions, registration, orientation, health service, faculty, Counselor, student counselors,
housing, food service, Student Government, student activities, religious life, vocational
counseling, curriculum development, records, the idea of discipline, the idea of education
for special services, all these things we took under consideration and set up in the course
of two years, a program involving many of these things. This is the beginning of student
personnel at Augsburg College. Peter, I'm a cost left Augsburg to go to Washington DC
with the American College Association. Two years ago, three years ago, he summarized
the work which he had done in student personnel at Augsburg College, and a copy of this
report is on file with these papers.
G
Gerda Mortensen 44:29
Where did the students come from? In those first years at Augsburg, I suppose nearly all of
them were those who preach church, congregation members coming from small towns
and from rural communities. There were a few women and there were a few men. In the
Academy, we still had many men who were over age, who had lived in rural communities
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and who's it education had been delayed. The only people in the academy who lived in
the city were generally the children of the professors at Augsburg and one or two others
that that came in. But by and large, that Academy was made up of that strange cross
section of older men, some immigrants, and over age people, and then the regular run of
the college people. We also at that time had a shortage of pastors. And the standards of
seminary were not as high. And many men came and they became the confessing
personal Christian, they thought they should go into the ministry. And many of the well
meaning pastors out in the community, they said, Oh, he's such a fine person should go to
school, and they should enter the ministry. So many of them couldn't finish college. But
they were accepted the seminary. And this was one of the very great difficulties is for is
building up a better seminary and accredited seminary concerned. This together was a
coming of the education and more women students led to a development over the years,
whereby you're trying to seek a better standard of college education. That is very deep
started this. It was carried on Bernard Christensen. And after that, we moved into the
present day era, and that we would come to a little bit later. And thinking about the
people that came one of the things that Dr. squared up asked me to do was to be social
hostess for the college. And as I'm remembering now, the faculty wives of that group of
people who were there when I came to speak, there was Mrs. George Virgil had been a
teacher. And she had felt that she had the whole social responsibility of the college.
G
Gerda Mortensen 46:59
Mrs. Andreas Helen, the third was a sweet dear little lady who took care of her family.
There was Mrs. Large Lola who had not been well, there is Mrs. EP Harpo who was worn
out after having your raise that rear big family and who was in very poor health. Mrs.
Busby a never did see. Mrs. Hendrickson is a chronic invalid. Mrs. Fagan was an artist to
the temperamental temperament of an artist Mrs. RB nail I don't know what that I ever
really met her. We did have a few women at Augsburg who had been asked to come in to
teach when I came. So there was an artist out teaching mathematics. Her brother Mars
had taught the year before and was there for one or two years only before she married
Henry Munger. There was a bell me who's who'd come to teach panel, who was a very
ambitious person socially, professionally, and had a great deal of influence on what Mrs.
George Virginia thought, anyway. And then there was Jenny's girls for who was there
warmth and friendliness. And her teaching voice had been on the faculty for years. So
there was an Emma quarter who taught violin, there had been a sort of a smattering of a
an orchestra earlier. Directed by that to Pietri. a dentist, son of the pastor who had been
on the Pioneer pastors of August and others in church, there was Harry Anderson
teaching, directing the band and the choir the Glee Club. And upon his death within Mr.
upsets came. Yes, it was banned. In 1922, there was banned in the head, the uniforms,
there had been a little Joseph traveled around, that my father always had any Augsburg
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group come to these congregations. And when we were out near Montevideo, there was
an artist to that traveled around. This was about when Ralph played a trumpet in the
orchestra.
G
Gerda Mortensen 49:18
There was six tickets at traveled around the record hits. And then there was a Glee Club.
So there are always people out on tours, Professor Hendrickson reading, directing some of
the clubs, and later Harry Anderson coming on to do this. But then came Mr. upset the
beginning of the start of a really music department at Augsburg College. But when I take
a look in my mind, and think about this group of women, there was Mrs. nightgown couple
of other women who were able to help. But at that time, the customer had developed over
the years that the faculty wives gave a dinner went to Europe, the students at Augsburg,
and the students responded by having a dinner party once a year for the family. That was
the extent of the social activity. When Bell Mae was arrived. The year before I came to
orgs brick as a teacher, I was a student at the University and I was invited as a member of
Trinity Lutheran Church to come to this open house, which nobody ever heard about it
before. But what is now Old Main and the second floor had a big wide hallway. And there
were three rooms inside off from this. In each one of those, it was a tea table appointed
and everybody had borrowed some server service and some dishes from someplace. So
you had these beautiful places set up. And they are may whose was supervising make
you're making a paper 10 sandwiches when the girl said, I've never know my life, better
the bread before I sliced it up from the loaf. But this is one of the things that we did. And
so you had the beginning of something like this, whether social hostess at the college
really acted a little bit like a public relations person. Anybody who came to the campus to
be a guest, one of the things I had to do is to present at the dining hall, seven o'clock for
breakfast, 12 or 1215 for lunch, and six o'clock for dinner. The doors locked five minutes
after the bell was wrong. There was no electric bill, one of the theologians trusted
theologian, had the privilege of walking up see flights of stairs and ringing that bill, waking
people up at 630 in the morning and ringing 10 minutes of seven, and again at seven, and
then ring it for class for chapel for the meals. I don't know where they rang at 1030 at
night to put to bed or not, but like to supposed to be out at 1030. Two people came to the
campus. And among regular things that occurred at that time, there was always a pastor
summer school the last week in August. My father had been in charge of arrangements for
that when I was a little girl and we lived in Minneapolis and he knew something about it.
And when I came to Augsburg This was one of the ways in which doctor sort of asked me
to be sort of hostess of the college. And look after the welfare of all these pastors that
came presided the dining room and see to that things were done. The way the president
of the church at that time wanted them dead. And when that burnt it was president
church. He wanted this to be a very happy and formal kind of hour, or sometimes some
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serious discussion, but really an opportunity for the pastors themselves to sort of relieve
themselves of some of the tensions and have a good and pleasant time together. While in
the lectures that were given, they were really given some real instructions as to how to
study and how to make creative use of their years work in the ministry.
G
Gerda Mortensen 53:04
A second thing that I had to do at this time practically every other year, the annual
meeting of the Lutheran Free Church occurred in Minneapolis. And then they were housed
at Augsburg and I needed to I was always appointed to committee to arrange for food
service to arrange for meeting places to arrange for Hospitality for guests and all of this.
Incidentally, at the pastor Summer Institute, where many guests Pete people came into
the state at Morton Hall because that is where I lived. And that was the best of the kind of
housing that we had for students. And I can remember one time that Dr. Mrs. bergendorff
he was n president at August and I came and we had a very wonderful time my father and
mother were there with me and Berkman Chris Olson. and passionate Miss Dr. Mrs.
bergendorff. We all those were sort of family affairs almost. Then the pastor's of the some
key church met once a month. So the first time that I personally I was at school, that rich
writer said we're going to meet at this I want to take you long. Whenever we go to these
pastors meetings, I want you to go along and once a year, I want you to entertain the
pastors it so the pastors and their wives King.
G
Gerda Mortensen 54:19
In those days, there were 40-50 people and I'd have to provide about two quarts cream
for the coffee. Before I was to serve as hostess for these half a pint of cream is sufficient
because the old generation dropped off. And they didn't need that much cream. They had
learned to they had learned to they had learned to drink black coffee. But then there were
the occasion. The first year I was atAugsburg. I went to MBA and Dr. Theodore Blegen and
at that time was president of the Alumni Association. And he had arranged for a
gathering of the various teachers who are graduates of Augsburg to have a luncheon
together at the Curtis Hotel. And they were there that day, some 20-30 of them. Then they
said, Well, why can't we have this meeting at Augsburg College when it come next year?
And so the year after that, well, this is the way homecoming get started at Augsburg. Then
I wanted to talk a little bit about the kind of ways in which we try to reach out into the
community. There were nurses that came to attend deaconess hospital School of Nursing,
Swedish and Fairview that came from some of our own Lutheran pre church
congregations. And they were all young men that were at Augsburg. And so for many
years, Trinity Church had a reception every fall, and which they invited Trinity and people
were hosts, to these young people who would come and this way we started felt they
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could get acquainted with our church. And they could participate in either Sunday school
teachers are singing in the choir. And we had a very alive, young people's meeting at five
o'clock every Sunday afternoon. And at this time, they we had I had been elected
President of this young people society. And it was somehow the basis of say, Tell me said
Dr. Swear to that you have a good way with young people, and you can get them to do
things. And that church used to be packed Sunday evenings, but we had programs of one
kind another and I remember young man who was living it tonight, our home who played
violin beautiful, he later became a member of the Minneapolis Symphony. And I had him
play a group of Mozart music, violin numbers. And one of the oldest church fathers came
over to me afterwards, he said, wasn't that rather lively music to help the church.
G
Gerda Mortensen 56:48
But anyway, the students had lots of fun being signed to committees, to prepare the
luncheon and to serve it into worship the dishes afterwards. And then they went
downtown to some other church. And after a while, I discovered that there was one
church downtown that showed movies Sunday night, and this is where I went. I wasn't too
sure that that was a proper thing to do. Because there were those who felt that the movies
really were very ungodly. And they came from that awful place in California. And so
should we allow people to go to these or should we not? I remember one girl coming in
confessing the achievement there was a young man, and she wasn't at all sure that was
right. I said, Let your conscience be your guide. Well, there is some other people that
wanted to venture for us to that reminds me a one time a group came and said, we would
like to go to the Getty. We would like to not pay you go. But we would ask Clara Alex and
who was an older person who was completing a college degree work and teaching
commercial subject will ask Claire to go with us. And I had told the girls you can go and
anywhere you want to do anything you want to just tell me where you want to go. So that
I will always be able to say to people, they they told me they were going and I know where
they are. And I thought to myself, Oh, I don't want you girls to go there. But I thought you
get you have to find that out by yourself. So I said yes, you may go. So these people went
down and they walked into the gateway theater. They said they're less than five minutes.
And they felt so uncomfortable at the glances cast at them by the men that were in there,
that they just learned their lesson with great rapidity. And they gave riding home and they
told me all about it. No, no. It was this atmosphere that they sent out right away. Oh, I
know that there were students who wanted to go around and see everything. And this is
right. This is a time of life when you can certainly take a look around and see. But I was
always glad that I had sense enough to let them go and find this out for themselves. But I
wanted to come on to talk about some of the expanding horizons that the team to me we
were able to bring to this campus.
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G
Gerda Mortensen 59:21
Many of them had never been on a train until they came on train to come to Minneapolis.
This was before automobile for very common. So they came on a train and they wrote
letters and tried to describe themselves and Selma story and wrote to either Peterson who
was to be her big sister and said I will arrive wearing a black coat in my head. And I
thought oh here is a very, very sophisticated looking woman that she went down the
station to meet Stewart and there Salma was absolutely a jewel in their in their rep and as
far as pastured carriage and many things. They didn't correspond with a sparkler the spirit
of that well, but they still don't To this day, but she is really a Jew of a person.
G
Gerda Mortensen 60:27
Where was I just expanding horizons? Yes. Well, I've been a dog sprig from 1923 summer
24. I went to Columbia, and the second semester 28. In the summer, I was at Columbia
again. And then in 1932, a friend of mine held again I would lie had a 10 weeks trip to
Europe. In the midst of the depression. She was going to go to earn degrees, some credits
for her degree at Morehead State. And she was my sister in law sister so we went out and
had the benefit of the year rival rates, cut rates for the Eucharist Congress was going to be
held in Dublin that year. So our round trip ticket for 10 weeks in Europe was trained fair
and with hotel accommodations with breakfast so loud, except for two weeks time when
we were visiting relatives in Norway came to something between six and $700 round trip
to New York. We saw Paris Fashion in Paris. But we bought some things in little shops in
Brooklyn that looked like the things that we had seen. So we came home wearing red
velvet team dresses and carrying little bags, and little velvet hats. But it gave us a bird's
eye view. And it gave me a bird's eye view of something of a cultures of the historic
background. I was a teacher of history. I saw his GS it had grown. I saw the castles and the
hills and the little villages that grew up around them. Lots of things that I had read about
and taught now I saw in Norway, I felt as if I had walked into my own historic past and
understood myself and my father and understood my college better. Because I had been
there in the land from which our forefathers, the kinds of things that they had built. I got to
see art galleries, I got to see music outlet to meet people in various kinds of new, firsthand
meeting of people. We were frightened when we picked up the newspaper in Stockholm
and saw that the first elections had been going on in Berlin, and a rising young Hitler had
gotten himself nominated for something in that health bra house in Munich. And we were
just frightened and asked, Is it safe to go to Germany and this kind of a situation at which
we will share the assets very safe to go. Somehow we were calmed a little bit when Dr.
Charlie Stangl on medicine station in Berlin. And we went to the hotel, and he assured us
it was perfectly safe to be there and travel. But historically, looking back, I just realized it
wasn't so safe. But all of these things were part of sort of expanding my horizon anyway.
And I came back with a desire to help our students expand their horizons more. Little bit. I
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dream that two years later, I was going to have a chance to go out to teach in China, and
go to see the Far East. I had a brother Ralph, who had been a missionary since 1918. And
he had gone out again in 1900 2013. And wrote and applied for a school for me, and told
me that I had been elected that this place and would I please come and Dr. sweater said,
Oh, no, we can't let you go. But he sat there thinking thought about his own experience
eight years that he was teaching at American University in Beirut, Lebanon, and his work
in the Middle East. And he thought Oh, no, is it all subsequent reading? [the recording cuts
off]
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Show less
RG 21.4.1969.07.31.a Mortensen (3 of
4).wav
Tue, 07/30 02:02PM
64:39
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, augsburg, people, minnesota, college, day, field, department, christensen, year,
accreditation, faculty, university, education, girls, lutheran, home, dean, moved, colleges
SPEAKERS
Gerda Mo... Show more
RG 21.4.1969.07.31.a Mortensen (3 of
4).wav
Tue, 07/30 02:02PM
64:39
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, augsburg, people, minnesota, college, day, field, department, christensen, year,
accreditation, faculty, university, education, girls, lutheran, home, dean, moved, colleges
SPEAKERS
Gerda Mortensen
G
Gerda Mortensen 00:10
This is July 31, Marion Lindemann and I are still reminiscing, today we want to talk about
some of the things which we saw happening at Augsburg, which we think helped build the
present day liberal arts college, from developing liberal arts concept up through the years.
G
Gerda Mortensen 01:01
Dr. Russell Cooper came to the University of Minnesota and as a representative with the
North Central Association, organize some meetings of the Minnesota private colleges.
G
Gerda Mortensen 01:15
Dr. Sverdrup invited Professor Hendricks and then me to go with him to attend the first
such one, at the College of St. Catherine's, at least this I think, is the first one. Besides
being served a most delicious dinner in five, six courses are the most delicious food and
the most beautiful dishes that I'd ever eaten of them. We had an amazing sort of meeting.
Sister Antonine was president college, St. Catherine's Anna, and very brilliant and able
woman, Dean Pike from the University of Minnesota had been on the staff of the Board of
Regents are the advisors and creating and building up the College of St. Catherine's. I'm
not sure whether he still was living at that time and was there. But anyway, this was the
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beginning of a series of meetings with the North Central Association, talking about
college teaching, and how to teach better and how to reach people, testing programs.
And all this and out of this school, the cooperative effort of all the colleges in the state of
Minnesota, to have a joint testing program, and to develop a form of application to
colleges, which are the college's used Augsburg College being a and they offer but was
always at the top of the list. But I know that we grew a great deal by the experience of
joining with these other people. During the days of pushing for some accreditation, we
had a number of students who wanted to go on to graduate school, the University of
Minnesota after I came to Augsburg, and I know that we were seeking various kinds of
creditor nation with the State Department in Minnesota.
G
Gerda Mortensen 03:01
And they said if you can be accredited by your different departments at the University of
Minnesota, then I think this was a step in the direction of accreditation. And I recall very
vividly the one day I came down from chaplain here to Dr. Craig from the history
department universe, Minnesota. And one other man who was starting to do some
examination of different departments. Dr. Craig has been my advisor when I did my
undergraduate work in history, and he said, Are you teaching history year? And I said yes.
And Professor Hendrix and well, if you and Hendrix and they're teaching history here, I
know the history department is ok. So we were accredited by the history department.
Marion Lindemann tells me that some man from the French department came over to see
her. And I know that number of the different departments. So department by department,
we were accredited by the University of Minnesota. This led to a kind of a State
Department accreditation. And I recall to that the graduate school, I think, under Dean
Ford made a survey of the kind of work that Augsbug College graduates had been doing
at the University of Minnesota and found a very credible record. And so our students
graduates were allowed to enter graduate school with in regular process after that. But I
recall that when some of the years students graduated and wanted to teach in states
other than Minnesota, that is very deep, oftentimes took the train to the State
Department in these different states, and talk to them and really sold them on the idea
and explain to them that a graduate of Augsburg College was really glad to to have an
educated institution that was accredited with the University of Minnesota and with the
Minnesota Department of Education. I know he made one such trip to Montana, he made
one such trip to Oregon went to trip the state of Washington, these were really costly, and
we're very difficult.
G
Gerda Mortensen 05:02
But he did them in order to help the students. So I think that out of an experience, which
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grew out of the church together with our growing relationship with the University of
Minnesota, in this accreditation, was a workshop that the North Central, no, not the North
Central the American Lutheran Church made. There was an American Lutheran
conference formed by several of the church body bought joining together the then he sees
the AOC, the August tennis ended, and several others, they set up several commissions.
And among the Commission's that were established was one called the commission and
higher education. The executive secretary of that department was Dr. JCK. price was still
living, retired from his work for some some years ago. He was an April scholar and an
April, administrator. Among the people on his commission, I know Dr. George served at
one time whether Dr. Bernard Christensen was concurrent with that or not, I don't know.
But in the fall of 1935, Dr. Price had sent and this commission had sent invitations to all the
Lutheran colleges in the United States to meet at St. Olaf College. The first weekend in
October. Some four or 500 people came to that conference. Of course, there were several
hundred faculty people at St. Olaf, but there were representatives from Pacific Lutheran
University and the West Coast. Oops, our college and Wagner in the East Coast. And
happily, Dr. Craftsman from Valparaiso, the Missouri Synod was there. And he was an
ardent follower of this group all those particular years. And many all the colleges of this
Midwest area from the Appalachians to the Rockies.
G
Gerda Mortensen 07:22
They talked a great deal about the philosophy of Christian higher education. And I think
maybe they call Lutheran higher education. But like, in America, he said, why should say
always Lutheran because some of these places aren't just Lutheran isn't a Christian rather
than just Lutheran. This was one of the distinctions that we need to take a look at and
know. Now, just prior to this, Arthur Nash, at Augsburg headed a years sabbatical in order
to travel to New Zealand and Australia, and a workshop with a woman from the
university, so who is heading up this research, and I had had is a years leave of absence
flew out and teach in China during these times and these experiences where we visited
other countries and visited other colleges and universities. Again, I think the tool has got a
great deal outlook, something which we needed so early, to sort of bolster up the idea of
what kind of beds we should have in some of our educational programming. Shortly after
this, that to spread died, and entrepreneurs Christians, Christensen succeeded as
president Professor HN. Hendrickson served as acting president the year between one of
the things that Hendrickson asked me to do for him that year, said so many people are
wanting to go into social work and social work is upcoming field. So he asked me if I
would make a study and bring a report to him requirements in the curriculum for courses,
which would be necessary to lead up to the graduate school and social work at the
University of Minnesota. This I did other things I found there should be a survey course, the
introduction to home economics. Subsequently, we hired Mrs. Springer, to be our dietitian,
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and she taught two classes of introduction to home economics, his general education in
what had been the old laundry rooms at Morton Hall. But we will have another recording
session and bring all these people together, who worked with the Home Economics at
Augsburg. This is just to note that it is coming. But we also found that it would be very
important then, in this discussion with Dr. Christensen and Dr. Martin clambake, who had
been brought to Augsburg in the fall of 1930.
G
Gerda Mortensen 10:01
1938 38, I suppose was in the fall of 38. That we would need to make a preliminary survey
of what it would require to become a member of the North Central Association. We
learned that Dr. Neil NEA le at the University of Minnesota Professor of Public school
administration was on an examine committees in our central Association. And he also
made a practice of doing a private survey of colleges following the pattern so that we
engage to the services of Dr. Neil to make therapy. This was at a time when they were
discussing the pros and cons of whether to move out to Augsburg Park, or to stay on the
particular campus where we were just completed the in 1938 39 was a stretch above the
down Memorial Hall, which is very stupid day, given his last measure of physical strength
for and with this one new building located there. It seemed hard to think in terms of
moving out to dog park. Dr. Neil interviewed many people pro and con about accepting
that invitation to go out to Augsburg Park and build there. But his strong recommendation
at the end of these studies was that we stay and become a Metropolitan College. There
are many suburban colleges, but there are very few and there is no Lutheran Metropolitan
College. He spoke very enthusiastically about mandolin College in Chicago, adjacent to
Loyola University, which mandolin is a college for women. You know at that time, he spoke
about that as a beginning one who was that was doing a very excellent kind of thing.
G
Gerda Mortensen 12:10
Well, no Capital University is located in Columbus, Ohio, that's losing his former ALC. But
most of the colleges are located in rural towns or out of the country. Since then, of course,
Carthage College has moved from a rural community and Illinois to to the shores of Lake
Michigan, north of Chicago, and one of those separate towns. So it really is in the city. And
of course, I think the Missouri Synod have number of schools that are in cities. But at least
at this time, we made this recommendation was very strong, to stay where we were in to
plan to build and to develop our college there. So following this report, this study made by
him, which indicated a number of our great weak spots, especially in our business affairs
and our business arrangements. Then we moved on to develop for as a faculty, a five year
program, this we should do each year for five years. And having completed that five year
period, then we had corrected some of these glaring mistakes. At least we thought we
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were current, and made application to nurse central Association for accreditation. This
meant a year long study and reports and blanks. Now these copies of these are on file, I'm
sure in the dean's office or in the DNS records. And I remember very vividly that they came
to examine us one day I'd been having about was a flu. And I'm pretty day probably was
walking around with a walking pneumonia anyway, I went over to the Memorial Hall
dining room to meet these people. And we were going to talk and I became violently ill
and it'd be taken home and and i think it sort of threw the monkey wrench into the whole
business of what we're trying to do. At least they recommended that we wait a few years.
Before we Well, let's see the application went in. And at that time, we didn't have a library,
except the old library, which had been expanded the ground floor of what is now called
Old Main.
G
Gerda Mortensen 14:47
And we were turned down and accreditation. They said really you have enough going for
you so that we could give you accreditation, accepted if we give you a education now you
will delay getting your library. And we just feel that a new library is an exceedingly
essential part of this. Some of this you will find I'm sure in the references in the
correspondence that regard to that that's on file. So the question was, what are we going
to do? How are we going to get the money, our church body had decided that we would
have to have $100,000 pledged before the annual meeting in order to be able to raise the
money? Well, this was around 1900 5152. And in the spring of the year of 1900 52. One of
the senior boys had been in service Russell Berg and his fiancee, Esther Larson, who was
just finishing herself or here said to me the truth conference is going to be in Seattle this
summer. Why don't you come and go out west with us right out with us. Russell had
bought a car. dad and my sister and her family are coming for the meeting, mother's
staying home getting ready for the conference. Why don't you ride out with us and one of
the other boys is going to ride out to so before in our car and dad and my sister has been
two little boys and the other car. And I said oh, wouldn't that be fun and just walked away
thinking that no students are going to ask the Dena women to ride out west with him. In
the afternoon those two young people came into my office and they're Russell said I'm
dead serious misfortunes. And we'd like to have you ride out with us. Mother can't come in
as his mother can't go out. And we two boys don't want to ride along just with Esther, we
really love to have you come. So the upshot of the matter was, I did go and you don't drive
2000 miles was following the young people who accepted you as an equal.
G
Gerda Mortensen 16:51
And I discovered again, the tremendous insight that they had into the running of the
college, and the deep concern and the deep interest. And I talked about many things. And
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of course, they want to know just why didn't we get accreditation with our central? Why
were we turned down. And then Russell said, you know, we should tell dad some of these
things. But he got off to Seattle, Nothing doing. He wanted me to have his room at his
home. So he and his boyfriend took some bunks down in the basement and I was extra
guests in the home. I went to visit some of my relatives for a week after the annual
conference was over. And then was coming back on the train. And we were having a
picnic down on the beach. And Russell said come on now level with that level with that. So
I started to tell some of the inside problems that we had at the institution. And the
tremendous need that there was for this library for the accreditation. And when I get
through talking about all these things, Mr. Berg said, I'd like had a chance to raise
$100,000 for you. I said, may I tell my president this when I come home? Yes, he said
anyway. So I went immediately to the president's office. And the letter was dispatched
that very day to him, inviting him to come and to do this. But he and Mrs. bird came in the
fall. And they were my houseguests for about two months. And Gilberg traveled much of
the time. And he got sick world Yama to come with him. And they traveled up into North
Dakota, all around to the sea and to do different things, meet different people. And on his
own at his own expense, giving all this time just travel. He came to the annual conference
set following June with $100,000 pledged. And so great way with clear to go ahead and
to build this library providing we could get the accreditation that this introduced him to
Augsburg and he would always come for homecomings. And I remember one year he said
I owe my interest in Augsburg to go to Martin's and the visit that she made to our home
and the sharing of the needs of this institution with us. He was subsequently elected to the
Board of Regents and served for 10 years. During that time, he really started to have our
colleagues administration put on a really better business basis. He was a businessman
from Seattle, he knew business.
G
Gerda Mortensen 19:45
He went down to visit Valparaiso University studied the way in which they promoted
things. And we had the advice of a finance advisor for a number of years after that. But
this was an incentive to get the money. And having gathered the money, we built the
building. And then we wrote, again to make an application for accreditation with our
central. And this time, we had to have a year long study. So it would take us a whole year.
And at the end of the year. Again, the examiners were to spend a day with us. And at nine
o'clock in the morning, I was to be together with the other administrative people in the
President's conference room meeting with these people. 10 minutes of nine that morning,
a student from Martin Hall came crashing into my room and she said, we found someone
to up in the attic, with sheets ready to commit suicide? What should we do? Well, I dashed
over to the room and immediately called her college physician, who in turn call
psychiatrists. And he said keep an eye on that girl all day. I said I will have to have
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parental permission to ask wiser. And they live in the country. So I got these two girls,
roommates of this girl to not go to classes, but keep watching her all morning. The college
doctor was coming on campus, and the psychiatrist was alerted. So I came 15 minutes late
to that meeting. And then I needed to put on the longest after the hour was over. I said I
was an index. And it simply had to be excused because it's an emergency it isn't. But they
accepted this. And then when the man was in having a conference with me about my
work, I had put in a long distance call to the Father.
G
Gerda Mortensen 21:55
But they lived in a rural telephone line. And I said some emergencies happen Would you
please get to a private phone and call me back. And I couldn't understand why a whole
hour went by before he called back. He called back to say there has been such a
snowstorm out here. I had to wait until the worst of the snowstorm was over so that I could
get to town to telephone. When I explained the situation he gave me permission to then
then this meant this when I when this I said this tell for this emergency calls come you're
welcome to sit here and listen to the conversation or to step out whichever you wish, what
he decided to step out. But I arranged then and then telephone immediately to the doctor
and all and said that I personally would bring her out to Glenwood hills at five o'clock
when I will be through with some of these meetings. But that day which was so crucial for
us here I was faced with these most awful situation and then all went to girl said she
slipped out of her hand somewhere we don't know where she is on the she'd gone to get
her mail or something and then they hit located again. But by five o'clock when I walked
into the hospital with her and met the psychiatrists, and she was registered in and I could
finally having given it over two dinners. When my way home. I thought I had never lived
through that kind of a day. And what kind of impression with these people have of me
and my work? Well just look up to the record of the report when we were credited and see
what they say about Garrett and Martin's. There were two people, faculty people that
were singled out for distinctive comment when they created this. One was Ernie Anderson
is the head of Physical Education Department. And his standard describes athletes
athletics is concerned. And the second person was Gary Martin. Who is doing well. At least
credit to see Marion is insisting didn't tell her well, it just said that she is just Well, they
were disapproved of things. And Dr. Christensen said to me afterwards, you got us
accredited was an art center Association. Yes, I think so.
G
Gerda Mortensen 24:27
So of course I was terribly happy because I had really gotten Gilberg to get interested. But
it was a student that private me his own son that prompted me to do this. And these
students confident in me and in my interested in institution, and they're showing their
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interest. And then in turn getting Mr. Bird to come I opened my home for them they were
there and and I'm caught some of these things encourage them. And OES set for he had
his 50th birthday and discovered it was the same day that Bernard Kristensen had 15th
birthday. So they had open house over there. Now everybody spoke very fondly of Dr.
Christensen. They either used his initials BMCZ spoke about him or Dr. Christensen. And
when Gilbert came in, he slapped him on the shoulder and said, Hi, Bernie, how are you?
So we we were credited with the North Central Association. This made a very wonderful
feeling among the people on the faculty and the students at the college catalog and now
carry the statement fully credit with the North Central Association. This was a very
important aspect of the student need that had been met. Faculty felt very happy about
this. And proceeded immediately to make a five year plan again for a study of the growth
and development of the college faculty study committees reshare we had some faculty
workshops every fall with sometimes an extra week of summer school workshop. In
addition to this, in order to try to take a look at the problems of the growing College and
the needs for a current college. That was meeting the needs of today. Data Christensen
came as president box for college without the experience of being trained and
administration. He immediately set forth and his brilliant wife with him to study and read
everything possible that they could lay their hands on, on the problems of higher
education in the United States.
G
Gerda Mortensen 26:43
The progressive movements within higher education the United States and immediately
became became friends with Ruth Eckert Paulson, at the University Minnesota and other
people attended the national convention. And and I think intellectually equipped
themselves both Dr. Christensen and his wife to know what some of the trends were and
what some of the needs were. In. in those early years, we had a feeling that they were
really they intellectual leaders, they had a scope and their own education and scope in
their intellectual thinking, which rubbed off on to other faculty people. And we felt that
here, we had real intellectual leaders, as well as spiritual leaders. adapter, Nash was asked
to be Dean of the College for a year, he served a year and then he said to me one day, I
just can't be the Dean of the College. Because I don't feel that that Christensen comes in
and talks over problems with me. He talks him over with his wife at home and comes with
these ideas. And this is it and we all felt this way. When he came on, he asked us all to sit
down and he scrapped everything we ever had in student personnel work. And he wanted
this to simply to start from scratch all over again. It was very difficult I know. And some of
those first years, I resigned by letters three times, I said, I can't stand this, I have to have
the scope to work and move. And to do as I think is right to do and the insight that I've
gained. And so graduate after Christmas and came to census and to realize it. And when
we moved into the setup and decided to have student personnel work, he said, Now I want
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you to be coordinators, student activities, so all the Student Life on the campus is under
your direction. So I really was an associate dean of students, which Title I didn't get until
my retirement year. It was an honorary promotion, Dr. Anderson said it carried no financial
increment. So on is accepted to but this was one of the things that I think that the North
Central Association workshop in problems of higher education to University Minnesota
had one or two people at Augsburg College continuously from 1945.
G
Gerda Mortensen 29:20
Through all the years, some problem which needed to further study at Oxbridge was taken
by some faculty person. And I remember when we were starting to talk about building a
college center, college union Student Union, that I asked the inquiry one day, there's
anybody done anything in background, the philosophy of what is needed in all of this?
Maybe this is a topic that should be selected, maybe Mrs. Peters and your barn or Ernie
Anderson, or somebody turned around and said, Well, I think maybe you better go. So I
went from my third workshop and problems apparently education, and did the
preliminary study for the philosophy and the basis on which you're going to develop a
college center. These workshops and came back and with reports, and we tried to
implement some of these things that we had learned. And also at this time, other teachers
were encouraged to go to national conventions. There had been no but for national
conventions earlier, although doctors allowed me to go to conventions of the resistors.
Sometimes I had to pay my own expenses. But I just felt that a national convention, to
keep me abreast with my professional field was a necessity. And when Peter armor class
came, and they were talking about other people taking turns each three people in
department taking one year each in which to go to national convention, I said
administrative people and people in administration should go every year, you can't
possibly wait every three years. Two great changes are occurring in all of this feeling. So he
agreed to this. And the last years that I was there, I went to conventions with expenses
paid every year on these things had some implication as you came back and tried to
implement many of these. So we needed to keep accredited and keep growing. One of
the areas that needed more strengthening was the Business Administration. We also
needed to know where we were going to go and current educational trends.
G
Gerda Mortensen 31:38
The year that Mr. Harbo was acting president, we had the Booz Allen Hamilton study. And
they made a survey of us to see where we should go and head for the next five years, the
next 10 years. And this last year 1960 evidence 68 the business department and the
business director arrange to have a study made and so at this point, Mr. posses become
the Administrative Assistant to the President. And there is a new program plan for the
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financial record keeping in the development of some of these things at the college. But
these are all things which were steps in the direction of accreditation, we were again
examined by n Kate, or we were examined first about seven years ago. And we were given
the accreditation, and Kate for higher for the high school education that we're training for
secondary schools, and then temporary accreditation for elementary education. But if you
listen to the are taped interview with Martha Maxim, you see that we were given full
accreditation with NK now for elementary education. And it's a real appreciation the kind
of work when she came in the insight that she had as to what should be taught in
clambake had gone to a workshop in higher education and came back with a program,
which we thought would be the kind of coursework which we needed for setting up a
department we all enjoy each occasion. And she being interested in this area, I asked her
to take a look at it. And she said well, then didn't come back. He had to talk with her and
he and he said we'll come back with what you would think would be a course. So she sat
down on the basis of the needs teachers, it's a to me, I have not about a course in
elementary education, which I would like to suggest. And this subsequently, of the Martin
clambake somewhat reluctantly gave up the full plan which he thought was perfect to
bowed out as it were to her. And the department structured is Martha Madson thought it
should be. And she has done demonstrated, in the years since that this has been
exceedingly important and very effective program. We could do well to do something
with secondary education along the same line.
G
Gerda Mortensen 34:18
Of course, a college is composed of students and faculty. I think over the years of some of
the people who started some of the strengths in their various departments. RB nail came
as a first teacher of science. He was there dogs frequent I came a very simple little
laboratory down on the ground floor of Old Main and exceedingly simple little Physics
Laboratory. But in that Physics Laboratory, somebody's been experimenting with a radio.
And at that time, headline radio stations, Physics Laboratory, and second for a day, these
girls Walden I were offered is to provide some music for the radio, we were sorry that we
didn't have money enough to be able to continue this. But after a while, the station went
off the air and subsequently WCAO picked up the air and you get all the sort of thing that
we could do. But nails stayed for a while and then moved on. But among his students was
Arthur Nash, who spent a lifetime in service in science at Augsburg College. And he got his
beginning through the work with RB now. But to have science come into the curriculum at
this time, meant that we're really reaching out into different aspects of a current
curriculum. And beyond the idea that you're just educating men for the ministry, although
it might be a good thing for some of the men in the ministry to note something about
science. Following now, we had, I think, several other people in between, but then came
Mr. Fossey, who, during the poverty period at Augsburg was able to, to teach science in
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such a way that he was the teacher of a number of people who've gone into research.
G
Gerda Mortensen 36:18
Among those who really admired and followed in his footsteps in research and studied
Margaret Hubbard, always paid tribute to Mr. Fosse. The hard, hard work was some very,
very difficult. And she became, went into the field of nursing. And then she for a number of
years was head of neurological Nursing at the best Institutes of Health. And now she is in
the huge department of the government. And she is a counselor to schools of nursing who
want to set up trainings programs for the education of training nurses for neurological
issues. She has a highest position in the government, she has a highest rank as an armed
forces person, of any of the women that have ever gone to Augsburg. She's on the
centennial commission. Then we during the war period, here we needed to have
somebody to come in to be in the field of chemistry. We had brought to America and
Estonian refugee by the name of Mar, Nevada, Audrey. He was also taking work at the
University of Minnesota to to learn the English and to learn to do some advanced work.
And it was going on for a master's degree program at the University of Minnesota and on
later toward a doctorate. But we needed the second man in the field. At that time, we
asked Mr. George Michaels news on the faculties University and asked him who he knew if
you could recommend somebody and he recommended the Mr. Stanley reminisce key. So
the one problem with Mr. reminisce key is that he is Catholic at this early period at
Augsburg nearly everybody I suppose Marian Lindemann as Mary Wilson was the first big
change in the policy of just hiring Lutheran people to teach this I had been told that Mr.
reminisced he went to his priest and asked his permission to accept his teaching position
at Augsburg College and his preset yes he could do that providing he didn't take part in
any of the religious kind of activities to which then responded that they have a policy that
you expected to go to chapel there and I if I cannot accept the position unless I can do
this. But you may go to chapel providing you're participating.
G
Gerda Mortensen 39:02
And Stanley Romanesque he was always at Chapel any encourage students. He
announced in his classes when Spiritual Emphasis Week was coming. And he met students
he said well don't do you're going the wrong way we are belong in Chapel at this point.
And Stanley reminisce key and Marvel agree with the two who had the chance to help
plan the present day chemistry laboratories and science Hall and having planned and
they had the opportunity and the heavy responsibility of moving wherever equipment
there was over to the site or setting up all those laboratories. And carrying by hand
quantities in quantities and quantities of these things that were required for this new
laboratory. In the field of English, there were still many people who were born in Norway,
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who came to orgs. And with the advent of Reverend Peter a sphere again, came a new
day in the field of English. Here was a man I don't remember the date was in 19 1516. Under
15 I wonder if it wasn't about 1915 because Harold my brother spoke about him so often.
But here was a man who spoke perfect English. And he could in his English classes,
everybody had to have speeches, public speeches one day a week, and he would correct
these. And I recall after I came to Augsburg in 1923, that on one occasion Mr. reverent all
of Rodney was paying tribute to pa spag and saying thank you for all the patients you had
with us in pronouncing the SS. And the TH is well leafs virgin brand life bow.
G
Gerda Mortensen 41:01
And Bernard Helland. And many of these men paid very high tribute to the kind of insight
and the opening horizon that there was for the teaching of English which had changed so
remarkably, with the advent of swag and among his students who have since done
tremendous piece of work in our English department, I can mention and Peters news still is
there in this for many years acted as head of the English department, and Gerald Thorson,
who now is it to have college but who was head of the department at the impact of this
kind of thing. And the opening of horizons was very, very enriching to many of these
people. In the field of history, there was this man who sat at his desk in that one room and
was a registrar. And the registrar consisted of one man Professor HN Hendrix, new taught
history. But he was a perfect, groomed little gentleman, he taught Latin as well. There was
a hair never a hair out of place, he had a shoe brush that was in his desk. And when he
came into the office, he always looked just perfect. His grooming was his. He's singing, he
loved other kinds of things. He worked with people. But when students came in, he'd sit
down and talk with them and ask them where they had been, what courses it had, what
kinds of things they were like. And I can remember once when Omer Johnson came to
register, and he said his name was spelled OMER or OMAR and Professor Hendrickson
said, you are going to be a college educated man, you cannot have a name like that. You
that is a corruption of the name of Homer. So I'm going to read this to you as Homer
HOMER, Homer chance. That's a perfect name.
G
Gerda Mortensen 42:59
Well, among this student said he had was one Carl Chrislock, who today's head of the
history department, and he is doing a splendid piece of work in the field, and a writer, a
creative writer at present engaged in writing the history of Augsburg College, I also had a
chance to do some teaching in history. And when I had Carl Chrislock is a student in my
class--oh, I also had Paul Sonnack and Joel Torstenson and Irving whole and a number of
others who have distinguished themselves as students regardless of the teaching the had-but Carl Crisler did a term paper on the populist movement. And he is in right now being
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published by the Minnesota State Historical Society a volume, which he has written about
the Minnesota which is headed impetus or the seed planted as far as that class in history
was concerned. Joel Torstenson and took the paper that he'd written a paper term paper
farming and large it for his master's degree thesis at the University of Minnesota. It was a
subject which had to deal with the Lutheran Church and slavery during the Civil War
period. He has been interested in negro rights and negro problems all his life. And I think
he gained some real deep insight as he did that preliminary work for me and then
followed up later at the University. In the Department of Christianity, of course, when I
came to Augsburg there was as dean of men, Mr. Professor Simon, lb, who was not only the
Dean of men, but he was the head of the religion department. And he was the head of the
Physical Education Department, a rare combination of a great big he man who could
relate to students and to the men students, who also knew all the little finances that he
could contribute in many ways. And he said, Well, if you really want to know good,
manage, just buy a book and read it and practice it.
G
Gerda Mortensen 45:13
I think that I was sort of PQ nation and wanted to deal with a little delicate, individual
things where he could see things in a big scope. I recall one time, the state Dean's women
asked us each to bring our dean of students along. And I was most proud of Mr. Melfi
because he could handle themselves very well with everybody that was there. And I can
remember we had a Unitarian pastor was speaking. And he took issue with some of the
things that he said, and they had a little lively discussion during the noon hour. And the
deans of women said to me afterwards, my Aren't you lucky to have a man like that to be
your dean. Then came data Christensen, to the faculty and both in the field of philosophy,
BN in the field of Christianity, who is a scholar, and who, in everything that he read and
thought and said, seemed to reflect this tremendous scope of scholarship. in this field of
higher education in the fields of religion, we had Paul select later, and Philip Quebec, both
of whom, who turned some outstanding kind of work in this field. They are the kind of men
that students say, we go to these classes, they take us help us orient our whole field of
knowledge and thinking, and they do not make up our minds for us, but they show us how
we can make up our own minds, and challenge us to do the right kind of thinking. I've had
students say that the most valuable class that they've ever had at college was of course,
either with Sonic or with this is a marvelous kind of thing. And it is a way in which one can
really do something. adapter Christensen, who was always interested in great ideas, he
was a student in the seminary when I first came to Augsburg, and I recall that he had
selected 12 students at school who were the the best intellectual students and these men
had in one evening men only evening, where they talked about ideas. But he's always
been a man who is like to talk about ideas. And in his early years as a faculty person in
evening school work, which he inaugurated, and had some special classes and evening
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school, in deputation work wherever it was trying to get a few people together to talk
about ideas, not about people, not about things, but about ideas and how you can
implement ideas.
G
Gerda Mortensen 47:48
Of course, we had people who were characters like, and you love them for the warmth of
the person that they were. Dr. Image, I suppose, was one of these people who was a
teacher, German, who loved the German language, he looked as if he both need to be dry,
wet washed, his and his toupee needed to be dry, cleaned also, and brought down to wear
to a little gray of his hair, the fringe which hanged on black, but students who wanted to
really talk to somebody, I suppose Dr. Image did more informal counseling with students
than practically anybody else at school. And he had all kinds of love for people and
warmth. People took his class in German, because he was really a delightful person. Not
that they learned too much German characteristic would be first thing in the morning, he
would point to one of the girls and he said, Have you had breakfast yet? Shame on you,
you have to have breakfast before you came to class. Well, one never knew what was
going to come. I can remember one chapel talk to when he spoke to the chapel, students
and he said, this is a dangerous place. I repeat, this is a dangerous place. Students were
listening. Because one never knows what kind of challenge God is going to make you in
this dangerous place. But be ready for it. Then we had in the language department to
Marion Lindemann coming to teach in French. And an earlier record I've talked about
some of them are coming. But Marion was not a Lutheran. Marian was not a Scandinavian
background.
G
Gerda Mortensen 49:36
Marian came representing liberal arts. She came came to teach French. Did you also
teach Spanish to begin with? French. We didn't have Spanish Spanish was later. Little
Latin sometimes to help Hendrickson? But Marian came from the University of Minnesota
via...France where she had spent a summer. I shall never forget that entrance at the
magnificent, beautiful woman made onto our campus and into our lives. And how she
could like simple little me, I don't know. But she represented scholarship, refinement,
culture, centuries of breeding, all this kind of thing. She brought into our society at
Augsburg a quality of life that was more American than we were. We were still very much
an immigrant people. And I think many of us reached out for this quality in our life. And
this kind of something. When it came to counseling students, she said give me those who
are the non Lutherans and those who are on the fringe benefit fringe of the community.
And truly many of these people came and and sought her out, but in their quiet way. And
then especially, I think, a very wonderful way in which she could talk, education with Dr.
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Sverdrup. This led to an influence that was exceedingly meaningful in the development of
the college curriculum. She didn't come to many of the social things we did, she didn't do
some other things. But she was a part of our academic community that had some very
high standards, and herself capable teacher who demonstrated how she could be a friend.
And students who took a class in French not only learn the language, but they learned to
love it, and some of the culture of that people. Not only of that people, but of the breadth
of the world of knowledge that Marion moved around and with such perfect ease.
G
Gerda Mortensen 52:00
To assist in this foreign language department later came Mimi Kingsley, a beautiful Latin
lady. Here we are fortunate at Augsburg at times, somebody comes to the University of
Minnesota and their spouse wants to do something in the field teaching. And so it was
with me kings layer has been as on the faculty at the University of Minnesota, where they
have a regulation that no two members of the same family should be teaching. At least
that was the rule then. And we inherited lovely Mimi Kingsley, who speaks two languages
perfectly without any accent at all. She is an American made amazing piece of work in
the field of Spanish. And again, she has these high standards of quality that she can
somehow impart to our students and the great expectations. Don't peter out. And Ruth
Schmidt, who is has earned her doctorate in Spanish is one of the prized pupils that she
has had. In the field of drama, it took a long time before we could have somebody but
after we had decided that drama was a legitimate part of it. We had a Lucy made
Bergman come. And we did some operators and we did some serious drama. And then we
had Miss Eileen Cole and Dr. Esther Olsen come until we have developed in the field of this
some of the ideas that are really strong in the field to trailer. Dean Corbett came in the
field of education and helped us establish a much better background in the community
and and has been representative and many state committees and then some national
committees in developing the educational program for our own state of Minnesota is
highly respected for his contributions here. Later as he became Dean of the College, Dr.
Henry Britain is came to be in the education department and did a singular kind of
organization and set up a practice teaching program. And all this was just excellent. And
the fruit of that work is still being felt music and effort XR to other integral parts of the
community.
G
Gerda Mortensen 54:30
Way back in 1923 we had just barely started to have intercollegiate basketball. And we
were admitted into the Minnesota conference of basketball. And I can recall the
excitement that there was when we loaded up all the students in buses and went down to
Central College to play our first intercollegiate basketball game. Every student at school
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and I think every faculty, I think we had five six charted buses and there was one adult
person on each one and lo and behold, didn't we win this game? And one of the
cheerleaders for Sandoval had been in the academy at Augsburg Reverend theater Hi
Mark to the Good Shepherd. And I can still see the incredible surprise when I discovered
the dog sprig. We live August know when from them. Subsequently we went into football
and I can remember that we also did some rather startling thing by winning from Chris
Davis Adolphus when we played football one time. But the development of this program
under the leadership of Simon LB was passed on to Deke pouts, I suppose it was who
came in, then he went into the war. And then we had James Peterson, who had a different
concept of what the whole field of education for leisure should do. And in this the
importance of the activity of the individual, instead of so much emphasis upon
intercollegiate athletics, he wanted us to think in terms of the intramural getting more
people out there actually participating, doing things, learning to do things with their
hands, learning other sports, so we added other sports to our program in our curriculum.
G
Gerda Mortensen 56:24
And then oh, in the interests of the building a sort of a good community spirit. He had
talked to Dr. Sverdrup, and with me about when the first beautiful spring day comes, let's
have a skip the and dismiss school and go on our walk along the Mississippi River are too
many Park. But it turned out to be a beautiful spring. And so each day, this particular
week, Monday, we met in that disparate IPS office. Is this the day Oh, it's a Friday day of
warps. No, let's wait to see what it's like tomorrow. So tomorrow came and it was a little
warmer and more nice sunshine and the grass getting greener in the bugs coming up and
the trees. No, let's wait one day more. So I think it was on a Wednesday, we decided this
was the day that we were going to have our first skipped a doctor. And doctor spiritual at
the close of the chapel service said to the students, it is very beautiful day today that the
faculty decided that it would be very fun to dismiss classes and everybody go out to the
park and have a very wonderful day. And the students couldn't believe their ears to what
they were hearing. And that is fair to say, well, we really amended Are you interested? And
then Jimmy Peterson got up to announce that we were going to form in lines in 15 minutes
in front of them right in the center of the campus. And we were going to march out. And
he had men made arrangements, we would have food and coffee and donuts out beyond
Lake st page where we would gather and then we would hike out too many. And they
would have all kinds of recreation. There. People could bring their baseball bats and they
could bring their badminton and they could have softball teams, they could go hiking,
they could do this and we would have a huge picnic separate. This was the first time and I
don't know who the other man was. But I think we have a film on this in the historical
library somewhere. [Note: search for "Augsburg Skip Day 1947" on YouTube]
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G
Gerda Mortensen 58:38
And I think Professors Sveggen was one of the two first men that lead this hike, they went
out this big and I hiked out those five miles many a year with those students and stayed
and played all time till the end of the day. We never separate and picked up and metal
and fam family people could grow home and get pick up their families and take them
along. But it built a tremendous bridge of warmth and friendliness. And trying to help
people to be creative in learn how to enjoy simple things and the outdoors. And to do
things just with each other, just just to be happy. So this was the way our skip days started.
Well, we added other kinds of sports, we had a very difficult time finding some physical
education for women. We go over and rented the gymnasium at Monroe school and the
girls wonder were there for Tim. And we have to get this is the bond Peterson and the
people who worked in physical education together in RJ have a separate tape recording
above this. But this is a part of some of the things that came and after Jim BP and left
then we had a Mr. Ernie Anderson coming back from the word service in between we had
the handsome Robert Carlson as there and we had Kelly Swanson, who worked with us in
the nr department who later went to St. Joe college, who's retiring this year incidentally
from sandwich. Then we had the field of music and Augsburg people had always been
known how to sing. I can recall when I first came to Augsburg, the faculty sat and chairs
on the platform in the chapel. There was something like two 300 students over 35 girls I
know from where I said I could always count quickly to see 35 if all my proteges were in
Chapel, but that first day as I sat down and the chair next to Bill me who's and Anna
monger and just I sat right below the bust of Professor Georg spared. And I could
remember as a child, when I lived in Minneapolis, I had gone to commencement with my
father and mother. And we sat in a second pew. And professors Phaedra came and sat
down in front of us before the service was to begin. And he turned to me and he said, Dr.
Davis, Dr. This is your daughter. Yes, this is Garrett. You're hoping to box up to be in may
get a sneak peek. I hope that you will grow up to be a good little girl. A good person.
G
Gerda Mortensen 61:35
So somehow this is geared the older spirit. And so this was in 1923 that had been in 1986.
So here I started felt as if the spirit of the man was reaching out to give me a little blessing
upon my work cited starting as a dean of women at this college. But the singing, these
students could sing, they love to sing. And there was of course a Glee Club going there
had been sextet, there had been quartets there had been gospel duels, there had been all
kinds of singing but singing was Integra later on in the year among the 35. Women some
came to me and said we should really start a girls good. So I went to Mr. upsets who had
come to be the teacher of music at that time and the director of the male choir or male
Glee Club. As until all 35 girls came with whatever boys or lack of boys, they had to just
demonstrate that they had this interest. So we practiced in this true upsets put us through
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our paces. And we were getting ready after Christmas to prepare for a little concert tour.
In one of the girls came to me and she said Miss Morton's we've gotten this girls good club
started now. They call it the crowd. We've gotten it started. And some of us just simply
can't think and this is just awful agony for us. But we've done the cause, you know, can you
talk to Mr. Upset to single out now 20 people or the group that he thinks could be used for
this? So Jenny squirrels for who taught voice and I who is taking some voices from Jenny
and who could sing a little, we always traveled with this girls, the club called the crowd
club. And Mr. upsets played the cello. So we took his cello along, and the first year we
went out on a tour. Well it happened that the second year I was a dog spring, a broken
ankle, and I had to walk around in 25 with high shoes and and crutches for quite a while.
And the following year, I had to have surgery for gallbladder in January, and we're going
to start this tour in March. And that is very upset. Oh you have to go with the girls and
their first tour. We can't possibly let these girls go out alone without you with it. And it was
hard for me to carry even when one purse because in those days they operated from
Northeast southwest and we have 23 stitches I had been laid wide open. Well, after this I
just said yes, I'll go with them. But they girls carried my suitcase. They carried my
handbag and they gave me the best place we could halfway through the tour. We were in
doubt in Minnesota, the home of SG barely who was in the choir. She [recording cuts off]
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Show less
Transcript of “The Challenge of the City to Augsburg College,” a speech by Dr. Joel S. Torstenson
delivered on 1966 April 13
Oscar Anderson 0:00
[recording cuts in mid-sentence] a major concern in his life. Dr. Joel Torstenson. Dr. Torstenson
is the Chairman of the Department of Sociology ... Show more
Transcript of “The Challenge of the City to Augsburg College,” a speech by Dr. Joel S. Torstenson
delivered on 1966 April 13
Oscar Anderson 0:00
[recording cuts in mid-sentence] a major concern in his life. Dr. Joel Torstenson. Dr. Torstenson
is the Chairman of the Department of Sociology and graduate of Augsburg. He has his Ph.D.
from the University of Minnesota. He is presently on leave from the college in order that he
might go further into this whole matter of the place of the liberal arts college in the emerging
urban culture. And I've asked him to give a brief address to this group today, on this subject,
"The Challenge of the City to Augsburg College." Dr. Joel Torstenson.
Joel Torstenson 0:39
I have a feeling that the pressure of time really makes it critical for me to condense my remarks
in some very few brief observations. And I feel entirely justified in this, since so many of the
things that I have intended to say have already been expressed by people far better qualified to
express them than myself. I was very gratified with a with the stance of Dr. Blegen's
presentation, the sense of linkages between the past and the present and with a with a deep
commitment to the future. It seems to me, this is one of the most urgent needs of our time, is
that instead of lamenting the perils of our time, somehow, with a sense of optimism that is not
naive, face the future with hope and vigor and creativity, and, and confidence.
Joel Torstenson 1:44
Now, I just want to say make a few comments about the way it looks to me concerning the
challenges of the city to Augsburg College. It seems to me that if even if the pioneers who
planned and promoted the transfer of this college from a small village in Wisconsin, to its
present location in the very center of our great city, had had the pre-vision of pre-vision of the
social reality of 1966, they could hardly have chosen a more appropriate and strategic place to
locate the beginnings of this institution in this area.
Joel Torstenson 2:30
If you look at the map of the Twin City Metropolitan Area--as it is now defined by the transit of
Metropolitan Planning commissioners, as Dr. Naftalin, had recently alluded to--you will find
that Augsburg College, together with the University of Minnesota and the other institutions
that now form the University Development Corporation, you'll find that we are located at the
very center of this great emerging metropolis. Some of us have been lamenting the high cost of
land, you know, around here, when it comes to getting the land and making ready for new
facilities. And I share that sense of frustration about the rather exorbitant price. Yet, it may well
be, though, I'm not a complete disciple of those who think that the market really determines
justice, you know, [inaudible] has something to say about the market, being the automatic
regulator of justice and human society didn't exactly confirm it. But it may well be that the high
price of land is really a pretty cheap price. Because it seems to me we have chosen a very
strategic place to carry on liberal education in the modern world. It is as if we have a ringside
seat at the emerging and emerging metropolis.
Joel Torstenson 3:10
For those who think that we ought to have you know, fanned out into suburbia back in 1946,
when this was a condition, an option, I think we have, and there were reasons for and against
this kind of a move. It seems to me that in retrospect, I think we can agree that it was a
fortunate thing, that those who believe we ought to stay right here, that their judgment
prevailed. Now, I suppose everybody won't agree with that. But it seems to me in the very
nature of the case, our location is strategic.
Joel Torstenson 4:40
Now. I think it is our cognizance of this fact that has led to the theme of this symposium, "The
Challenge of the City."
Joel Torstenson 4:54
Now, this is is not a unique event in our country, and one of the things that has impressed me
about the theme we have selected, and the motif of our first centennial celebration is that it is
a very similar to the kinds of themes that are reproduced in other centers of higher learning at
this very moment. When I was on the campus of the of MIT, I learned that at this very moment,
there is an Intercollegiate Conference on the Urban Challenge. So while we're talking about this
challenge of the city, right now, at MIT campus, students from the universities and colleges in
New England are assembled to talk about the urban challenge. The president of the MIT, in
lending his support to this venture, alluded to the fact that the challenge of our time is defined-leadership, for our time, enlightened leadership to direct and utilize our technique, technical
power, and prowess, to humanize, to beautify, and to make economically viable, our great
urban centers, I would like to have added one more dimension to that make politically viable,
our urban centers.
Joel Torstenson 6:22
Now, there are many other ways in which the kinds of things we're doing are being replicated
throughout the country, and the development of centers for urban studies throughout the
country is one of these, I am not going to say any more about this, because our time is really,
really up.
Joel Torstenson 6:42
But I would just like to say, now why is this such a strategic location? And what is the challenge
before us? It seems to me that the first instance we are strategically located to do a creative job
in building an image of the city that is appropriate and adequate for the time in which we live.
Our address this morning, I think, has helped to convince us, more than perhaps we have been
convinced already, that we all have a strong legacy of agrarian fundamentalism running through
our veins, or our psyche, or our nervous system, or where just where it is, you know, where
these centers are is something of a problem. But in any case, we are children of an agrarian
fundamentalism living in an urban age. And I think to examine this historically is a source for
emancipation. History is always potentially a source for entrapment as well as a source for
enlightenment and freedom. And I think this self-examination of our historical past gives us a
sense of freedom from the traps of history. I'm sure that there is a lot of work yet to do to
clearing out our mental fabric of some of the negative dimensions of our agrarian legacy.
Joel Torstenson 8:20
Now don't tell all my farmer friends that I said this, they are still deeply impressed by the
agrarian fundamentalism some. Now, I think once we have come to terms with an adequate
image of the city, then we immediately began to see the resources of the community that are
available to us, we are open to them. And I think we are living, literally in a in a laboratory for
liberal learning, which is really unsurpassed in the upper Midwest. And we share this with the
University of Minnesota and similar institutions in this part of the country. And when I
mentioned the University of Minnesota, it is it is an interesting thing, that that the pioneers
who decided to make the move here made two judgments, which I think have proven to be
sound.
Joel Torstenson 9:20
One is that that Minneapolis was going to be a big city, and a great city, and we ought to be
located in that. And it was also terribly important for the college to be closely related to the
University of Minnesota. These two judgments, I think, have proven entirely sound. And when I
make reference to the University of Minnesota, it just inescapable that we were just almost
were inspired by the resources that are available to us here. The movement of the library
across the river is a is a great convenience [audience laughs] which will, I think will have a great
deal to contribute to the life of this college, we kind of get it for free, and we should never
grumble about our taxes, [audience laughs] we should send a little extra contribution.
Joel Torstenson 10:19
And then the fine arts, the symphony and the and now we're going to have the museum I
believe the fine arts building will be developing on this site. I don't know all the developments,
but it's just a great thing to be so closely related to the university, both geographically and in
the other ways which have been emerging through our historical relationships.
Joel Torstenson 10:51
Now, the political structure, I cannot refrain from identifying the political life of this metropolis
as a great resource for liberal learning. I simply do not share the anti-government mentality
that has somehow accompanied the agrarian fundamentalist legacy. It takes about four
minutes to get down to the courthouse. And, you know, students can take a trip down the
courthouse and visit, you know--mayor's don't have anything else do but do entertain students
who want to interview them. [audience laughs]
Joel Torstenson 11:29
But to, to get so close to the centers of government. For educational institutions, our time is
terribly important. I'm sure that we haven't exploited fully the potential resources here, our
proximity to the state capitol, you know, the freeway is going to get us within 5-10 minutes
from that place if the freeways don't develop too much phacosclerosis
Joel Torstenson 11:56
The whole, the whole pattern of government, as a part, an indigenous part of modern
metropolitan life, is a tremendous resource for our students and for the faculty. And we are, of
course, close to some of the pioneering work that is going on in the urban ministries of our
churches. And during the last three weeks, I've stopped, as a rule, in every city at some of the
leading universities and two or three pioneering ventures of the church in the inner city, and,
and as well as at planning offices and governmental offices. And it's an inspiration to know that
religious leadership is beginning to take a new look at the city. And they are part of the
pioneering team and the front, the frontier of urban life in our time. Now, welfare institutions,
other educational institutions, health institutions, and so on are part of the resource at our at
our beck and call.
Joel Torstenson 13:08
Now, having said something about the community as a laboratory for living, for learning, I want
to say something about the community as an occasion for creative involvement. And I can just
name it really, but I think that there is no doubt that abstractions are important, but to
speculate only in terms of abstractions is inadequate in the learning process, creative
involvement in community life is certainly one of the most important challenges of the city for
Augsburg College. And I am glad that some of our students at least have become more deeply
involved in political life in the city of Minneapolis and this is I suppose, a nonpartisan
observation.
Joel Torstenson 14:06
They are becoming deeply involved in in this experimental religious efforts in some of the
special problems of Urban Ministry. They are involved in research, I suppose, every year that I
read, probably 100 research papers, in which the primary sources are taken from observations,
field trips, and interviews with representatives of the agencies and political groups and, and all
the rest that that are part of our community life. And then in the last point, I do want to make a
comment that it seems to me a, a an ideal setting for a creative encounter with the value issues
of our time.
Joel Torstenson 14:54
I have been reading literature of city planners a good deal in the last few years, particularly the
last year, and certainly one of the most critical issues that they are grappling with is what are
the values that are to guide us in the renewal of life in the modern metropolis. And it is
unthinkable to me, that students and faculty at an academic institution where the legacies of
liberal education that reached back to Jerusalem and Athens and Rome, a few other great cities
of our past, that students in this kind of situation should be unconcerned about the value issues
of creating a life that is viable, both in terms of our best judgments of human, what is a humane
society, as well as in terms of our judgments as to what is a viable, metropolitan life in the
future.
Joel Torstenson 15:57
I can't help but say a word about beauty. We had a professor in English when I was an
undergraduate student here who talked about three crucial values, truth, beauty, and
goodness. And I think they're all important. I don't think we have a debate about that. But I
have become increasingly interested in the issue of beauty. It seems to me ironic, that we
should have a renaissance in the interest of art and we we traveled through miles and miles of
monstrous ugliness to see beautiful paintings, you know. Yet somehow we must be part of a
community that is learning how to fashion the forms of urban life, so that it not only has justice
and truth and, and all the other values building, but also a sense of beauty.
Joel Torstenson 16:53
And to make--this is not the city of beautiful movement, but it's a part of the value orientation
that seems to me a liberal arts college must be concerned about. Well, those are some of the
reflections that I feel prompted to make concerning the challenges of the city to our college.
[audience applauds]
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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