Danish Day in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 1, 2014 includes the opening of the ‘Caroline Olsen Danish American Archive’
The June 1st Danish Day Program in Minneapolis, Minnesota this year is “Celebrating 90 Years of Danebo, 1924-2014”. It is a celebration of the Danish heritage in the Twin Cities, and an important part of the day is the opening of the “CAROLINE OLSEN DANISH AMERICAN ARCHIVE”. Caroline Olsen, who for many years served as the Minnesota Local Editor for The Danish Pioneer Newspaper, was an integral and active part of Minnesota’s Danish-American community. The Danish Pioneer, its staff and readers send their heartiest congratulations and thanks to our friends in Minnesota on the opening of the “CAROLINE OLSEN DANISH AMERICAN ARCHIVE”.
News courtesy of Erik Bruun and The Heritage Committee
Naming the Archive at the Danish American Center in Minneapolis after Caroline Olsen honors the energy, talent and time that she devoted to preserving Danish American culture and history in the Twin Cities.
Born in Tyler, MN, July 12, 1908, Caroline was the daughter of Danish immigrant parents, Nis Nissen Wogensen and Petrine Jacobsen Wogensen. They left Denmark as young adults, met at the Danebod Folkschool and married in Tyler in the 1890s. Caroline grew up speaking Danish with seven older brothers and one younger sister.
After finishing school in Tyler and summer study at Danebod, Caroline taught school for a short time before marrying a young law student, L. Byron Olsen, who was also a teacher. They wed in 1928 and lived in Askov, MN, Byron’s hometown. When the bank in which he worked failed, during the Depression, the young couple moved to St. Paul where Byron found a job working for the state. They remained there for the rest of their lives, rearing two sons, Byron Jr. and Glen. Although the parents became very active in the Twin Cities Danish community, they also remained connected to their roots in Tyler and Askov.
Caroline’s early and middle years spanned the decades in this country when women did not typically hold paying jobs outside the home. For middle and upper class women of her generation, making a home was idealized more than making a living. But Caroline proved to be a bit of a hybrid. Rather than focus solely on family and domestic life, she turned her enormous talents and energies into myriad volunteer activities that benefited the Danish community then and now. She helped to found the women’s group, Virkelyst, in 1938. That organization continues to the present time with their charitable activities. One decade later, Caroline also helped to form the Danish American Fellowship Institute. Beginning in 1966 she founded, wrote and edited its newsletter for over 20 years. She accomplished this with a manual typewriter and a hand-turned mimeograph machine.
Caroline also served as a reporter for Den Danske Pioneer, the nationally circulating paper, begun in 1872 and published in Chicago, that continues to the present. Her column kept readers updated on activities of Danes in Minnesota. In the process, she interviewed, recorded and transcribed conversations with leading older Danes in the community.
An interest in genealogy and calligraphy led her to research her Wogensen roots and create a beautiful family tree document which has been displayed at the Museum of Danish America in Elk Horn, Iowa.
Caroline’s artistic and sewing talent evolved when she became interested in Danish folk costumes. Always striving to make them authentic, she researched as thoroughly as she was able and then sewed meticulously. Her efforts resulted in the beginning of a costume collection for the Danish American Fellowship Institute. Her energies and expertise overflowed to the International Institute of Minnesota, in St. Paul, where she helped to create their costume collection. This outreach eventually resulted in the International Institute donating the pictures of folk figures in traditional regional costumes that now grace the walls of the Danish American Center.
Caroline’s visual art skills also produced crafts and paintings. Paper cutting designs, straw weaving, and Ukrainian eggs, to name a few, emerged from her prodigious talents. She taught crafts in Danebod Family Camps. She also displayed and sold her craft work at fairs and fund raising events. Although her friends knew of her craft creations, many were surprised to learn that she was accomplished in oils and watercolors. Her family has saved many of her sketches as well as framed paintings. The totality of this work testifies to a life-long talent that began with pencil and charcoal sketches of figures and faces, before progressing to mature portraits as well as landscapes, abstracts and still life.
A modest woman, blessed with health and longevity, Caroline Olsen lived to the age of 97 years and nine months, dying in 2006. Her son, Glen, when asked to describe his mother in one word, immediately responded: “BUSY.”
She was “on the go all the time.” Despite such energy, it is unlikely that, had she been employed in a paying job outside her home, she would have accomplished all that we honor her for by naming the Twin Cities repository for archival materials the Caroline Olsen Danish American Archive!
MISSION STATEMENT OF THE CAROLINE OLSEN DANISH AMERICAN ARCHIVE: To collect, organize, describe, preserve, and make available for research the archival material of the Danish American community in greater Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN. The Archive is a repository for retrievable, recorded historical information. It does not collect artifacts. The Archive is actively seeking donations: memoirs, family histories, tributes and recorded information about churches, businesses, cultural traditions, organizations and publications. The Archive is also actively seeking researchers interested in the story of Danish Americans in the Twin Cities.
Come visit the Archive and the Heritage Exhibit Room next door. The first exhibit is CAROLINE OLSEN: THE ARTISTa collection of sketches, portraits, landscapes, abstract designs and craft items. The Archive will be open and staffed at designated times and by appointment. For appointments and assistance call Helen E. Stub 612-886-3701, or e-mail: back4145@hotmail.com. (New courtesy of The Heritage Committee, April, 2014)
The Danish American Center is located at 3030 West River Parkway South, Minneapolis, MN 55406, Tlf. 612-729-3800, Website: www.dac.mn
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