The Danish American Archive and Library: A Life Saver

By Christie Jensen Gehringer – 

The Danish American Archive and Library (DAAL) saved my life. Although that is not literally true, the DAAL preserves my heritage. As the descendant of Danish immigrants, I have always been proud of my roots, my Danish forefathers, Danish traditions, and just about anything that has to do with Denmark.

My grandparents on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family came to America from Denmark in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They came from small towns in Jutland in my mother’s case and from small towns on Fyn on my father’s side. My mother, Dorthea Sorensen, met my father, Earl Jensen, at a Danish Brotherhood Convention. Earl was the Danish Vice Consul for Nebraska and Iowa and was a Knight of Dannebrog. My engagement and marriage were written up in The Danish Pioneer and Clifford Madsen, the minister who married my parents in 1938 at the Danish Lutheran Church in Kansas City went on to become the president of Dana College. (I have always said that when your father was a Jensen and your mother was a Sorensen you had no choice but to be Danish!)

My parents and grandparents are no longer living; however, the things they taught me and wrote about, the writings and books that they preserved for me, and the pictures and videos that became my inheritance will always be a part of me. The question then becomes what to do with these materials. The answer came when I contacted the Danish American Archive and Library and learned how the DAAL maintained a safe and permanent environment for all the writings I had. I couldn’t hand the many papers over to my son; he would never have the room to store them. Yet I wanted not only him, but also my grandchildren, to have the opportunity to look at these items. I also wanted others interested in the life of Danish immigrants to have the primary resources to use for research and study. Today, these papers comprise one of the collections at the DAAL, and I find that I am still organizing and sending papers to them on a regular basis. I was especially proud that my heritage and pictures of my parents were included in the DAAL’s exhibit Danish Children Growing Up American.

The Danish American Archive and Library, located at 1738 Washington Street in Blair, Nebraska, is available to anyone who has letters, cards, documents, books, videos, tapes—actually, anything that is a record—and doesn’t know where or how to store them. The DAAL began some ninety years ago as a college- and church-centered collection. Today it is the largest repository of written, visual and recorded materials relating to Danish Americans in the western hemisphere. The DAAL collections consist of approximately 1,200 cubic feet of unpublished written materials. Researchers, genealogists and academics from around the world appreciate the opportunity to use these rare source materials. The library contains more than 11,000 books in Danish and English dating from the 1500s to the present.

You can learn more about the DAAL by going to its website: www.danishamericanarchive.com or calling the DAAL at (402) 426-7910. Currently, one of the best things about the Archive is that it is free—it accepts materials without charging and those choosing to use the Archive pay nothing.

The Danish American Archive and Library saved my life and will save it for future generations of my family. It can do the same for you.

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