October 23, 2020
Mr. D. Stephen Elliott
Former Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Minnesota Historical Society12857 Old Lakeshore Road East
Wainfleet, ON
LOS 1VO, Canada
RE: McPherson County Old Mill Museum Report
Submitted to McPherson County and the City of Lindsborg
June 14, 2019
Dear Mr. Elliott:
First, I hope this letter finds you and your family staying well and still enjoying life during this pandemic season.
Several months ago I discovered online your very fine, thoughtful, thorough, and helpful 14 page report.
However, if the director of the McPherson County Old Mill Museum had informed you on the history of 1966 inclusions of the Swedish American Bethany College Museum Collections – the Natural History Collection including the Taxidermy Collection (4,100 artifacts), and the Pioneer Collection (900 artifacts), part of your report on the “first exhibition space” would have been far different.
My great granduncle, Biology Professor Dr. Emil O. Deere (1877-1966), was primarily responsible for those collections being the curator of the Bethany College Museum, founded in 1882, for 58 years. He was recognized for his lifetime service by Bethany College when the men's dormitory, Deere Hall, was named to honor him in 1957.
It has been extremely upsetting for me to observe the omission of this piece of the history that was given to you from which you would write your report, especially after having read about your career background. Therefore, in respect for you and your profession and for the sake of the “truth,” I will share only a few comments from page 2, paragraph 4, of your report which reads:
The first exhibition space also fails to orient the visitor. This space should reinforce for visitors that they made a good decision to come and should not only strengthen a sense of welcome, but also begin to orient visitors to the site and its programmatic opportunities and to the main interpretive messages of the site. Instead one first encounters exhibits of much lower-tier interest – – folk art sculptural depictions of local personalities and scenes, and antique natural history mounts. (Only one person I encountered hoped the latter would stay.)
Comment on: The “first exhibition space” also fails to orient the visitor.
If this space with the artifacts of natural history occupying it had provided the written history about their Swedish and Swedish American origins with the Bethany College Museum; and, if it had been lovingly promoted and cared for on an ongoing basis since 1966, your report, no doubt, would have been far more kind and the group of 90 – especially those from Lindsborg, would have wanted to keep this “Swedish” curated exhibition by proposing steps toward preservation, restoration, and promotion, to effectively tell the story of the Bethany College Museum and its collections, starting with a title something like:
“The Swedish and Swedish American Curators of the Bethany College Museum Collections add 5,000 artifacts to the McPherson County Old Mill Museum’s 500 in 1966.”
Thus, most all the artifacts in the “first exhibition space” belonged to the Swedish American Bethany College Museum collections which were located at the Old Main building erected in 1887 (the grandest building of its kind west of the Mississippi River) that was razed in 1968. (See enclosed 2 Old Main images.)
Comment on: . . . “folk art sculptural depictions of local personalities”
These folk art sculptures are treasured by “last-living-link” Lindsborg residents of the community’s earliest settlers! Their beloved Lindsborg Swedish folk art artist Oscar Gunnarson created these pieces to honor and recognize Swedish Lindsborg’s most beloved and most notable Swedish and Swedish American Bethany College leaders and professors, my great granduncle being one of them.
Comment on: . . . “scenes, antique natural history mounts”
The scenes (the dioramas) of natural history mounts of Kansas Smoky Valley wildlife exemplified what visitors would have seen at the Old Main Bethany College Museum’s massive space with proportionately high ceilings surrounding the museum on at least 2 to nearly 3 sides. (The museums I saw in Glasgow, Scotland in the early 2000s reminded me so much of the interior of the Old Main Bethany College Museum.)
These natural history mounts were produced in the “Taxidermy Classes” on the fourth (4th) floor of Old Main with presiding Biology Professor Dean Emil O. Deere, a post he held for 51 years, and other assisting professors through the years, one being Biology Professor Dr. Leon Lungstrom who first learned this art form in 1934 from a correspondence course from Omaha, Nebraska’s Northwestern School of Taxidermy founded in 1903.
The story of the Bethany College Museum and the move of its collections to the McPherson County Old Mill Museum can be found in my website: Swedes: TheWayTheyWere (SWEDES) in these section links:
1.Deere's Swensson's “Bethany College Museum,” 1882-1966
2.Bethany College Museum Collections' New Location, 1966
3.Articles on the Bethany College Museum Collections Move of 1966
4.Deere’s Bethany College Field Trips (Lydia’s Photography, 1906 – 1925)
5.Deere's Swensson's Bethany College Museum Collections
6.Cliff Dwellers' Pottery Collection
- Fossils Collection, “The Find”
8.Taxidermy Collection (Lydia’s Photography, 1906 – 1925)
- Deere’s Dr. Leon Lungstrom on the “Bethany College Museum”
(Just google each section and “the link” should come up from SWEDES.)
In late 2018 or early 2019, I emailed these links with information to the McPherson County Old Mill Museum director who has been in that position since somewhere in the early 1990s. I wanted to ensure that she approved of these presentations’ links. In my email, I finished it with something like, “Let me know if you want anything changed.” I also invited her to use any part of this information to promote these Bethany College Collections. As well, I invited her to use these links in the McPherson County Old Mill Museum website. I have yet to receive any feedback from her on this matter.
Also, in 1998, I sent letters, copies of which I have, to her with information and photographs to promote the Collections then, all of which were not placed with the Collections but in another building.
The Bethany College Museum had quite a good reputation in its day when under College oversight as these quotes confirm:
- 1966, Bethany College’s Carl Swenson’s eulogy on Biology Professor Dr. Emil O. Deere:
“The museum, largely the result of his [Deere's] efforts, has no peer among the mid-western Liberal
Arts Colleges.”
- 1966, Old Mill Museum Director Tib Anderson, the professional who would receive the College’s collections:
“After the move ... you will find one of the finest museums of this kind in the mid-west...”
- 1967, From research writer Mrs. Elizabeth Jaderborg’s 1967 book, Living in Lindsborg and Other Possibilities:
“It [the Bethany College Museum] has one of the most valuable collections in the State and has some items which have attracted national recognition.
Today's college has no file on the former Bethany College Museum as an email from the Bethany College Wallerstedt Learning Center Archives confirmed to me on December 19, 2018. The only information that remains at the College, that I know of, is found in Dr. Leon Lungstrom’s book of 1990 titled ”History of Natural Science and Mathematics at Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas," in the "Museum" chapter.
Unfortunately, my research concludes that Dr. Lungstrom’s book has been unknown to the College, most likely, for more than 25 years. It is not included in the College’s online catalogue. Other than a typist, Dr. Lungstrom (1915-2000) had no help financially or with any part of producing this most important work of which he gave copies to a limited number of persons. I would presume that recent college administrations (4 of them in 5 years since 2015: 2 presidents and 2 interim presidents) would be very surprised to discover that the College had a very fine museum at one time.
I hope to be sending a report to Bethany College and to the City of Lindsborg regarding my findings as I created this Swedish American historical website of Swedes: TheWayTheyWere (2010-2020) which profiles their earliest histories. The report will summarize past cultural heritage achievements and losses of this most extraordinary rural American Swedish Lutheran community founded in 1869 with its most unique college culture founded in 1881. Included in this report will be the issues concerning the former College Museum and its 1966 Collections at the McPherson County Old Mill Museum and Dr. Lungstrom’s unknown book.
It is clear that you have based your work ethic, i.e. your career, on truth! I have done the same. Therefore, it was expedient that I let you know about this small matter, yet large ethically, in which you were not allowed to fully work from truth while composing this most necessary comprehensive report of June 14, 2019.
Personally, it is further imperative that the foundational history of this most important rural American and culturally rich community founded by Swedes be preserved and promoted with true facts. Thus, having the online resource of SWEDES accomplishes that goal temporarily by providing documented information, regardless of the fact that my information given for the “first exhibition space” continued to be ignored and therefore was omitted by the McPherson County Old Mill Museum when you were there to gather information from which you would write your report.
I can, now, do nothing more than to bring attention of this Swedish history omission also to Lindsborg and to Bethany College and offer them some kind of restorative suggestions, while I try to find a way that SWEDES with its documented information will live on into perpetuity, after we are gone.
I have enclosed an outline which is online of SWEDES titled Navigating SWEDES ~ The "Outline" "Online." This lists its 170+ topic sections and is periodically updated as I continue to edit it while adding a few more sections. (For the latest update, google Navigating SWEDES ~ The “Outline” “Online,” for a pdf printout.)
I so appreciate your time in reading my letter as I realize you continue to be a very busy person. However, should you wish to contact me with your comments, I would appreciate that very much.
With kindest regards,
Bethany College, Class of 1968
A last-living-link to foundational Bethany College history
Great grandniece of Dr. Emil O. Deere (1877-1966)
- At Bethany College for 67 years (1899-1966)
- Colleague and friend to the first seven (7) Swedish American Bethany College presidents and founder
- Biology Department head for 51 years (1904-1955)
- Bethany College Museum curator for 58 years (1908-1966)
- Dean of the Bethany College of Arts and Sciences for 31 years (1917-1948)
- College Vice President for 3 years (1918-1921)
- Honored by the Deere Hall name (1957-2015)
- And much more . . .
Enclosures: McPherson County Old Mill Museum Report of June 14, 2019, page 2
2 Old Main images
Navigating SWEDES ~ The "Outline" "Online"
