“Professor Olav Lee was called as temporary pastor from 1912 to 1913.”
I hadn’t noticed this line before in the modest history book written about my little church, published in 1976 for the congregation’s centennial. This book includes photographs of pastors, noting names and years of service to my Norwegian Lutheran congregation. Professor Lee is NOT listed among them, underscoring his temporary status until a long(er)-term solution emerged.
His role may also have been to calm turbulent waters. The sentence immediately preceding mention of Professor Lee: “In 1910 thirty-eight families withdrew from the congregation and organized Our Savior's Lutheran Church at Lyle, Minnesota.” Lyle, just north of the Iowa–Minnesota line, one mile from Mona, Iowa, boasted 552 residents in 1910 but no Lutheran church. Withdrawing 38 families can be a difficult challenge for any church to overcome.
I’m intrigued. So, who’s Professor Lee and what else did he do? Turns out, quite a bit.
Born in Norway in 1859, Olav Lee immigrated to the U.S. in 1877. He studied at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, 1878-83; Luther Seminary, Madison, Wisconsin, 1883-85; and Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, 1885-86. Ordained in 1886, he served nine congregations in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, generally for one or two years. Brief tenures suggest interim pastoral assignments; professor was his primary career.
Lee taught at two colleges, at Augustana College, Canton, South Dakota, 1890-94 (Latin, Religion, German, Norwegian, and English Composition) and, beginning in 1894, at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota (Hebrew, Latin, and Religion). He married Bertha Schmidt in 1887; they had six children. He was named professor emeritus at St. Olaf in 1933 and died in Northfield in 1943.
Lee also translated hymns from Scandinavian languages into English. His best-known example: “Lost in the Night,”often categorized as an Advent hymn, occasionally as a mission hymn. The first verse: “Lost in the night do the people yet languish / Longing for morning the darkness to vanquish, / Plaintively sighing with hearts full of anguish, / Will not day come soon? Will not day come soon?”*
This hymn is an adaptation of a Finnish folksong, modified by Lee’s translation from waiting for a lover to waiting for the Messiah. The haunting tune comes from the province of Karelia, now part of Russia, published in 1857 in a collection of Finnish folk melodies. The melancholy, Nordic harmony – featuring a soaring minor 6th – meshes effectively with the text… people in darkness searching for light.
As one hymnologist noted, “The original text was secular and quite erotic.” And yes, Finns objected to the adaptation. Quoting a representative of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, “If this hymn is included in the Service Book and Hymnal, (1958) the ‘Suomi Synod’ will not buy!” To Finns, this love song was simply not suitable for church. (Apparently, Finns prevailed; it’s NOT in the 1958 hymnal.) But with minimal modifications to modernize dated language in Lee’s original translation, the hymn appears in Lutherans’ 1978 hymnal. “Doth the heathen yet languish” became “Do the people yet languish,” “let him borrow” became “let us borrow,” etc.
Two of Lees’ St. Olaf faculty collaborators deserve mention here. F. Melius Christiansen, iconic choral conductor, composer, and arranger, worked with Lee in the late 1920s on a stunning vocal rendition of “Lost in the Night” showcasing a soprano solo. The same decade, O. E. Rölvaag expressed gratitude to Lee, among others, for aiding in the English translation of his classic novel, “Giants in the Earth.” Lee also authored two books himself, “The Religious Training of Our Children,” 1915, and “The Second Coming of Christ,” 1931.
By all accounts, Professor Lee enjoyed a remarkable career. I’m thrilled he spent a brief while living and working in my home community, in my home church, ministering to ancestors on both parental sides of my family tree, tending temporarily to the needs of then-youthful neighbors, individuals recalled dimly from my childhood when they were quite old (about my age, sigh).
I pay homage to you, Olav Lee, for your significant downstream impact. Might we all so aspire.
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*-This last line sometimes translated as "Are you coming soon?"
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I’m pleased to be part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. These are my colleagues: