Lodge Updates...................................................p 4-6

of Tivoli for five years. Then he enlisted to fight in the war against Prussia in Schleswig in 1848. Shortly after returning from the war he learned Tivoli’s advisory board had fired him for breach of contract. After a confrontation with the board, Carstensen went to the Danish West Indies and joined the army. He married the daughter of a planter on one of the islands and became an assistant manager of his father-inlaw’s property. From there he travelled to New York City where along with German architect Charles Gildemeister he designed the New York Crystal Palace for the 1853 Exhibition of Industry of All Nations. In 1855 he returned to Denmark and once again built a Danish amusement park, this time in Frederiksberg. It was called the Alhambra. It opened in the summer of 1857, but Carstensen died of pneumonia in January of that year and never saw it open. All that is left of this park built to rival Tivoli is a street in Frederiksberg named Alhambravej, but his first project went on to grow and thrive as we all know.

"Tivoli: One Man's Vision" will be continued in the September issue of the DSN.

Updates from Lodge 131 California District Planning Updates

Lodge Sec/treas Eunice Sanborn presenting 60 year certificate to her niece Diane Moran. Our lodge is very proud to have 3 60+ year members.

California District Scholarship winner was Emma Houseworth, shown with her Grandmother Sonya Houseworth. Emma was sponsored by Lodge 131, Ferndale, CA. The California District is pleased to announce three Virtual Presentations for our members! While specific dates are currently being finalized, the topics and months of presentations are as follows: September: Meet Your District Officers— Join us to learn a bit about each of your district officers and what their responsibilities are for your district. November: Christmas Crafts with Solvang members—Members of our planning board from Solvang will introduce and teach a Christmas craft.

February: A Taste of Convention—As we will celebrate our 100th District Convention in 2022, we’ll be sure to have special events and presentations to inspire everyone. At our February virtual presentation, join us to learn why you should attend Convention next year. Watch your email inbox for details about the upcoming presentations, especially the soonto-be-here September session!

The Museum of Danish America

Dear Sisters,

We are now in the final stretch of the Danish Sisterhood of America archives project. There are only two months remaining of the two-year project that we embarked on in October 2019. If we look back even further, it has been a nearly 140 year project to preserve this portion of Danish-American history. I have been honored to spend these two years rehousing, cataloguing, scanning and protecting your past as an organization. As you know, in early 2019 Angela Stanford and I wrote a grant to the State of Iowa’s Historical Resource Development Program to fund this two-year project to catalogue and make available the Danish Sisterhood of America Collection that you donated to us in 2016. We were awarded this grant in April 2019, with the condition that we match the funds the State provided to us. I would like to congratulate you all because in May 2021, through 84 separate donations small and large, you met the $43,000 goal. Each donation has been essential to reaching this milestone and I would like to thank you personally for making this project possible. I must highlight that due to two incredibly generous donors who gave a combined total of almost $28,000, we reached this goal before the end of the grant term in September. I would also like to recognize that one of the donations was given in memory of three illustrious Sisters whose names I see often during the cataloguing process, Virginia Christensen, Past National Secretary, Nancy Nyholm, Past National Secretary, and Jenny Jensen, Chairman of the History Gathering Committee and first National Historian. I have really enjoyed sifting through the DSS history and learning new things at every turn. As of today I have completed cataloguing nearly 40 banker’s boxes of documents and 286 ledgers, creating a total of 1,213 new records in our database. These records represent National, District and approximately 81 Lodges thus far. I saved the most fun stuff for last; I am now cataloguing pictures and albums within the collection. I am projected to complete the original cataloguing project by the end of September. However, as some of you may know, the job is never completely finished. There have been additional donations of DSS material that have come in while I have been working on this project and those will have to be catalogued at a later date. There are also inventories that need to be done periodically, possible digitization, as well as the care for DSS objects that are housed in our collections. I mention the cost of continued collections care to let you know that even though we have met the initial twoyear project goal, we will be caring for these collections indefinitely. I urge you to keep this in mind for any future donations you may want to give for the continued care of this very special collection. Again, I thank you for your generosity and for the opportunity to serve as the caretaker of this important historical collection.

Cheyenne Jansdatter