Bethlehem Lutheran, Askov, Minnesota. Photos courtesy of the church.

admin | Jan/ 16/ 2020 | 0

Compiled by Laurie K. Sommers, Preserve Nordic Churches Project Manager, 2017-2019, based on emails by Asta Twedt and shared with her permission     There is a lovely land In Minnesota’s forests Where Danes have taken a stand: Have planted

Bethany Lutheran Church, Covington, Michigan, built in 1910, was the second church of this congregation. Photo by Laurie K. Sommers.

admin | Jan/ 15/ 2020 | 0

Written by Laurie K. Sommers, Preserve Nordic Churches Project Manager, 2017-2019   It was pure serendipity.  Elmer A. Forsberg—head of the Department of Drawing, Painting. and Illustration at Chicago’s Art Institute, and Consul of Finland for the Midwest—was teaching a

The sanctuary of Augustana Lutheran, Sioux City, Iowa, features a large “Altar of Peace” installed in 1919. Photo by Laurie K. Sommers.

admin | Jan/ 12/ 2020 | 0

Written by Laurie K. Sommers, Preserve Nordic Churches Project Manager, 2017-2019   The congregation of Augustana Lutheran Church in Sioux City, Iowa, was grateful.  It was 1919.  World War 1 was finally over, and the young people of the church

Tunbridge Lutheran Church. Rugby, ND. Courtesy of the North Dakota State Historic Preservation Office.

admin | Jan/ 8/ 2020 | 0

For more than three decades now, the church on the prairie just west of Rugby, North Dakota has sat silent and vacant, its proud gray steeple belying the toll that weather and neglect has taken on the clapboard siding and

The original Savo Evangelical Lutheran Church, pictured here and built in 1888, was destroyed by a tornado in 1921. Hella Keranen used her creative talents to design a more interesting and wind-resistant building for the new church, dedicated in 1922. Photo courtesy of Carolyn Torma from an old Suomi Synod church history.

admin | Jan/ 3/ 2020 | 0

Written by Laurie K. Sommers, Preserve Nordic Heritage Churches Project Manager, 2017-2019   I was chatting by phone with the pastor of Savo Evangelical Lutheran Church outside Frederick, South Dakota as part of the Preserve Nordic Heritage Churches Project when

Jefferson Prairie Lutheran Church, Poplar Grove, Illinois. Photo by Teresa Sommers, 2017.

admin | Jan/ 3/ 2020 | 0

Written by Laurie K. Sommers, Preserve Nordic Churches Project Manager, 2017-2019   We all have a sacred place that warms our heart and fills our memory with the spirits of those who have gone before.  It may not be the