How sweet to be Swedish

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Sandy Bressner –  sbressner@kcchronicle.com Marguerite Karl, director of the Swedish American Children's Choir, work with Little Sweethearts (from left) Annabel Johnson, 6, Elizabeth Johnson, 4, and Sarah Jerdee, 4, during a rehearsal for their Christmas program at Bethany Lutheran Church in Batavia Friday afternoon. Karl is a member of the Vasa Order of America Viljan Lodge 349 in Batavia and created the choir to help preserve Swedish heritage.

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Dorothy Patzer was born of Swedish immigrants, and as a first-generation daughter, she kept all the customs of the old country.

They ate rice pudding with lingonberries for Christmas Eve, pepparkakor ginger cookies, fried herring and – even the source of much Scandinavian humor – lutefisk.

"I ate it to please my dad," Patzer said of the salted cod or whitefish soaked in lye delicacy. "We put cream sauce on it because it's just tasteless. There are jokes about it. 'If you put lutefisk on the board, you throw away lutefisk and eat the board.' "
 
As a matter of pride in her ancestry, Patzer is the longest serving member of the Vasa Order of America Viljan Lodge 349 Batavia.

"I've been a member since 1945," said Patzer, 83, of Batavia. "It's my heritage."

Geneva, Batavia and St. Charles, known for its Swedish immigrants, also is home to ethnic fraternal lodges founded a century or more ago.

The Independent Order of Vikings has three local lodges: Mimer 33 in Geneva will turn 100 this month; Neptun 34 in St. Charles will turn 100 next month; and Ring 18 in Batavia is 105 years old. Mimer and Ring are men-only. Neptun opened its membership to women in 1986. 

Patzer's Viljan Lodge was established 93 years ago. The younger generation is less involved, she said. Viljan and Sons of Norway Polar Star Lodge 100, which meets in Montgomery, is open to men and women. Polar Star was established 48 years ago.

"My kids like the customs, which we still do on Christmas Eve, and they belong to Vasa, but they're not as interested," Patzer said. "They do not have the time to pursue the lodge. They are proud of their heritage, but they are busy with their own interests."

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The various lodges report memberships from more than 100 down to 20 active members, even as they try to draw more interest. David Oberg, executive director of the Geneva History Center, said in the broader context of American history, the fraternal organizations served an important function for immigrants.

"They were social, fraternal and mutual-aid societies," Oberg said. "People could remember the old country, sing songs, enjoy the food from the old country. If members were injured on the job, sometimes they offered insurance and provided a societal network."

As the ethnic lodges helped new immigrants get acclimated, many offered life and burial insurance. Some still do, but as the third and fourth generations showed less interest, the lodges evolved into preserving their ethnic heritage, Oberg said.

"They are an extraordinarily important way to preserve heritage and a wonderful way to reconnect with immigrant culture – and a lot of fun," Oberg said. "These are not the homogenized cultures of nowhere."

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Gordon Lindgren, 76, a member of Neptun for 59 years, currently serves as financial secretary and treasurer.

"All the lodges are down, that's what's happening," Lindgren said. "Memberships are declining in all organizations. Young people today, they don't want to join."

Neptun lodge supports a burn camp and a Scandinavian language camp in Minnesota, he said.

"Some people send their children to learn Swedish or Norwegian or one of the other languages," Lindgren said. "It's for two weeks. They do everything in the language."

Language is an important component of maintaining one's ethnic heritage. Marguerite Karl of Elburn, director of the Swedish American Children's Choir, maintains hers by teaching children to sing in Swedish. The choir just marked its 10th anniversary.

"I'm half Swedish, half German," said Karl, of Elburn. "I joined the Viljan lodge 10 years ago. I am a person of Swedish heritage and I thought it would be fun to be part of a group of adults who share the same heritage."

Though separate, the lodge supports the choir when its members go on tour every two years, Karl said. About two-thirds of the 27-member choir are of Scandinavian descent, but the choir is open to any child from age 4 to 16.

They sing both American and Swedish songs, but to sing in Swedish takes a greater effort.

"My job is to teach them how to learn a foreign language so their pronunciation sounds fluent when they sing," Karl said.

•••

Ralph Beck, 67, of Batavia, chief of Ring Lodge and a member for 25 years, said the lodge has 50 members on the rolls, but about 20 to 25 who are active.

But that is enough to do the fried herring breakfasts on Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day.

Beck said fried herring is nothing like the pickled herring that most people might be familiar with.

"They come from the Baltic or Bering Sea and we have to desalinate them, otherwise they would be so salty as to be inedible – but some old Swedes like the salt," Beck said. "I like fried herring, it tastes like breaded fillets. You serve it with boiled potatoes, bacon and eggs."

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Time will tell whether the younger generation will be interested in joining a Scandinavian lodge. They will, if Leona Olson is a case in point.

Olson, 82, of St. Charles  joined Polar Star 12 years ago and Viljan about five years ago. Her late husband's parents came from Sweden and her grandparents were from Norway.

"I did not have time when my children were younger and I was working and raising a family," Olson said. "I had my own business. I was a tax accountant. Sometimes I was working seven days a week."

But she was drawn to find out more about she and her husband's heritage.

"I joined because I have friends who joined and I've been to Norway to visit my grandparents' home," Olson said. "I wanted to find out more about the country. And the people in the lodge are so friendly and so nice."

Olson said her daughters do not show an interest in joining, but then, until recently, neither did she.
 
"Maybe when they get older," she said.

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