WED., OCT. 5, 2011 • INTER-COUNTY LEADER NORTHERN CURRENTS • SECTION B
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The tale of an immigrant violin
Editor’s note: The author is a former Grantsburg resident.
by Vranna Selander Manor GRANTSBURG - The year was 1911. Roald Amundsen was the first explorer to reach the South Pole; a first-class stamp cost 2 cents; and Rutherford discovered the structure of an atom. The first Indianapolis 500 auto race was held that year—and a young man named Charles Lindberg immigrated to America. Oh, not the Lindbergh who later flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean. No, this Lindberg was to become Grantsburg’s very own Dr. C. O. Lindberg. That was quite a journey we had coming to America from Hamrange in Gavleborg, Sweden, where Charles Olov Lindberg was born on July 3, 1891. You notice that I said “we.” Perhaps I should tell you that among the few items he was able to take on the ship, Dr. Lindberg chose me, his lowly but oh-so-beautiful violin, if I might brag a little. I went everywhere with him. He was only 20 years old, after all, when he immigrated so he needed my companionship. Yes, I was with him when he studied at North Park College in Chicago and later at the University of Chicago. How very proud I was when he received his medical degree on June 4, 1924, from the University of Oklahoma where he was on the medical faculty. Then came nearly three years of experience in Army and hospital work. Now I don’t want you to think that I was the only important thing in his life. Doc Lindberg also had a wife, Effie, who accompanied us when we moved from Clyde, Kan., to Grantsburg on Nov 4, 1926. A son, Charles Jr., was born into our little family a few years later in 1932. Eventually four grandsons became part of our lives. At first we lived briefly in the Silas Thoreson residence and had a practice above Thoreson’s store in downtown Grantsburg. I know that Dr. Lindberg also made a lot of house calls to people in the village as well as to farms in the country. Those were very busy years for our Lindberg household. It is a wonder that the good doctor even had any time for me. One of Dr. Lindberg’s biggest accomplishments was in 1929 when he called the community together to talk about building
Vranna (Selander) Manor presented Dr. C.O. Lindberg’s violin to Charlie Lindberg and his father, Joe Lindberg. – Photos submitted a hospital in Grantsburg. Four hundred people turned out! By then we were living in our own nice house on Broadway Avenue. A busy committee of H.A. Anderson, Byron Selves, V.E Hawley, C.C. L. Peterson and F.B. Huth met in our home many evenings to discuss how to raise the needed $30,000-$40,000 for the hospital. Stocks were sold at $100 a share but the Depression made it hard for people to pay the balance on their pledges. One day I overheard the doctor saying that those who didn’t have cash offered services instead – D.O. Olson offered to deliver milk and other men offered to paint the hospital rooms. Churches and clubs furnished hospital rooms at $125 apiece. In September 1930, three board members – Philip Carlson, Dr. Lindberg and pharmacist N.C. Unseth – went on a train called the Blueberry Special to Minneapolis, Minn., to pick out operating room equipment. I was absolutely flabbergasted when they told me the outrageous cost of just a few simple items – $1,100!! Next they needed to hire some nurses whom I really loved. Neva Parker of Mud Hen Lake community – daughter of the F.E. Parkers of Falun – was offered $60 a
The old hospital (now Village Square Apartments) looks much the same today as it did in 1930, except for the statue of Sheriff Big Gust that now stands in front of the building. The statue was carved by Alf Olson, a good Swedish friend of Dr. Lindberg.
month as night nurse. Dorothy Sandberg – daughter of the Fred Sandbergs – was to earn $75 a month as general nurse. And Lillian Lunde from Frederic would get $75 a month plus meals and laundry as superintendent of nurses. I also got to know the rest of the staff who were all wonderful local people: cook – Mrs. Chas. Anderson of Alpha ($45 a month); janitor – Arthur Skog; business manager – Philip Carlson. Now I realize that people would be quick to point out that Dr. Lindberg was not the first to wish for a hospital, but I am so pleased that it was on his watch that it was actually accomplished. Dedication came in November 1930, just four short years after we moved to the village. In all, Dr. Lindberg practiced in Grantsburg for nearly 30 years, except for a short stint in Lawton, Mich., in 1932. I was a part of almost everything. There was one exception, though, when on Dec. 2, 1930, Carol Halvorson (Mrs. Jake Lysdahl) became the first baby born in the brand-new hospital. The beautiful and pleasing strains of an instrument like me should have been soothing music to mother Hazel, I would have thought, but Doc put his foot down and I was not allowed to do any serenading in the birthing room. Well, soon the hospital was bursting with activity. But remember that I said this was during the Great Depression and many people could not pay for the services rendered. Sometimes they had to find other ways to pay off their bills. One such person was Philip Selander. He was a young man in his mid-20s who had lost his mother to tuberculosis when he was a mere child – 9 years old. For several years after that, he stayed with the Nels O. Nelson family near North Fork, on Grantsburg’s northeast side, and also worked for the nearby Roy Anderson and Otto Peterson families. When Philip needed an emergency appendectomy, Dr. Lindberg came up with an arrangement where Philip could work off the cost of the operation. Oh, how I remember Philip working so hard to earn the room and board that he also got at the hospital. Yes, that’s right – he actually lived at
the hospital for five or six years! I would see Philip mowing the lawn, tending to the furnace, repairing furniture and equipment, washing windows, shoveling snow, laundering sheets, making beds, getting surgical instruments ready for use, going on house calls with the doctor, and even assisting in surgeries along with nurses Helen Northam and Laurene Dahle, among others. The hospital was not the only place Doc and Philip worked together, however. Many evenings after work, I would look out the window of the house on Broadway Avenue in Grantsburg that served as the Lindberg residence as well as the medical clinic, and I would observe the two of them hard at work on a rock garden in the backyard. Now this was no ordinary rock garden, mind you. It contained, among other things, an exact replica of the church Dr. Lindberg attended in Sweden, as well as models of his birthplace and his grandfather’s stone blacksmith shop where the doctor played as a boy. A waterwheel furnished power for the shop. Three times – in 1931, 1933 and 1938 – he made trips to his native land to take precise measurements of buildings so he could build them to scale in his miniature village. Small bridges, rivers, lakes, walks, stone fences and flowers – like the landscape in Sweden – made the yard a sight to behold. Oh, how exciting it was for me to see Philip and the doctor using their skills and creativity to build something so beautiful! Often I would beg to be taken into the garden where I could add music to the peaceful setting. Then the doctor decided to take on another project, this time on property he bought at Mud Hen Lake on the way to Siren. I spent much time at that relaxing
See Immigrant violin, page 2
Dr. Lindberg beside the church he and Philip Selander built to model his boyhood church in Sweden. (Do any readers know whatever happened to the little church?)
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