Around Swedish America in 548 Days - Day 65

Day 65 - Lindstrom

Lindstrom (www.lindstrom.mn.org) has managed to preserve several homes and churches built about a century ago. At 13045 Lake Boulevard is the two-story, red-brick Gustaf Anderson House, built in the Italianate style about 1879. Gustaf Anderson emigrated from Sweden in 1864 and settled in Minnesota, though later he prospected for gold in Montana. When he returned to farm in Chisago County, he constructed this house for his retirement; it is now the headquarters of the Chisago County Historical Society (651-257-5310).

The two-and-one-half-story frame C. A. Victor House, 30495 Park Street, was erected about 1905. Swedish-born Charles A. Victor settled in Lindstrom in the 1880s and became one of its earliest merchants, operating the C. A. Victor General Mercantile Store behind this residence. Involved in milling and politics, he founded the Medborgaren (The Citizen), one of several local Swedish newspapers, in 1898.

After the arrival of the railroad, Lindstrom became a resort area. Fridhem (Home of Peace), also known as the Frank A. Larson House, on Newell Avenue on the north side of South Lindstrom Lake, is a frame structure built about 1898 for use as a summer home. It features a large porch supported by columns and a roof broken by a central gabled dormer. Larson, a Chicago publisher and owner of the Svenska Amerikariaren Tribunen, purchased the house in 1911, and the family spent most of their summers there until 1932. It is still a private residence.

The white, frame Trinity Lutheran Church, 13025 Newell Avenue (651-257-5129), was erected in 1902 for a congregation that was an offshoot of the Chisago Lakes Lutheran Church. On the southeast corner of Lake Boulevard and Elm Street is the former Swedish Methodist Church, constructed in 1892 and now a Masonic Lodge. Also on Lake Boulevard is St. Bridget of Sweden Roman Catholic Church.

Lindstrom’s Swedish heritage is apparent in a plaque by the flagpole in Fair- view Cemetery honoring the founder of the town, Halsingland native Daniel Lindstrom, and other Swedish immigrants. On the west end of town on Lake Boulevard is a statue of Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson, based on an original work by Swedish sculptor Axel Olsson in Karlshamn, Blekinge, Sweden. The figures are characters from Vilhelm Moberg’s immigration novels that dramatize the dream of the new world and the grief of losing the old. Karl Oskar looks toward the new land and Kristina takes a last look back at Sweden. In July Lindstrom celebrates Karl Oskar Days. Below the monument to Karl Oskar and Kristina is a plaque in memory of Theodore A. Norelius (1908—1993), founder of the Chisago County Historical Society, author, storyteller, and Moberg’s host in 1948. Nearby is a boulder from Duvemåla, Sweden, with an inscription entitled The Emigrant Stone by Swedish immigrant historian Ulf Beijbom. Lindstrom’s water tower is decorated like a Swedish coffee pot. Its sister city in Sweden is Tingsryd.

In Kichi-Saga Park, on Glader Boulevard, is Nya Duvemåla (New Dove’s Home), which supposedly resembles the home described in Moberg’s novels. It was dedicated in 1996 on the occasion of a Swedish royal visit. A plaque on a boulder describes Småland with a quotation from Moberg’s The Emigrants: "And all the stones wherever he looked; broken stones, stones in piles, stone fences, stone above ground, stone in the ground, stone, stone, stone:"

Nearby is the small Glader Cemetery, named for Anders Peter Nilsson Glader who came from Furuby, Kronobergs lan, in 1853. A sign notes that this cemetery, dated 1855—1919, was the area’s first burial ground for settlers. Moberg was especially impressed by this cemetery. To reach it, drive south from U.S. Highway 8 on County Road 25 to Glader Boulevard, then east a short distance.