Death Notice

Richard Svanoe, class of 1937, passed away on Sunday, Sept. 16 at Cherry Creek Retirement Village, Aurora, Colorado where he had been living the last five years. Formerly of Sun City, Arizona Dick will be remembered by the Augustana Community as the author of the Augustana Alma Mater Song. Surviving him are his wife, Marjory, five children, eight grandchildren, and five great grandchildren.

To quote the words of his song, “As we march on through life, we’ll let love o’ercome strife…” Those of us still on the march, find inspiration from those who have gone before and who have left a legacy of overcoming love.
Rev. Rolf Svanoe, 1978, Peace Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls, SD

Augustana Alma Mater Song

Augustana, we sing out thy praises,
Our hearts are overflowing with love.
As thy banners we bear,
We willingly share
That gift that was given from above.
We cherish thy aims and traditions,
To thee we will ever be true,
As we march on through life,
We’ll let love o’ercome strife,
Thanking God, Augustana, for you.

More from Rolf: We are saddened to learn of Uncle Dick’s death. Uncle Dick was certainly a favorite uncle. I will remember his kind and gentle spirit and even personality. Twice I visited in Sun City and stayed with Dick and Marge and enjoyed their hospitality. Seeing Dick always helped me remember my own father, Ansgar. The voice, the physical resemblance, the tall thin frame and receding hairline, all reminded me of Dad and warmed my heart. I remember having several conversations with Dick about religion and was always impressed with his thirst for knowledge and understanding. He was always asking questions and growing in his faith. Dick was a member of the greatest generation that Tom Brokaw wrote about. He was truly a builder.

Living in Sioux Falls I often run into people who ask me if I’m related to the Richard Svanoe who wrote the Augustana Alma Mater Song. It is with great pride that I claim him as my Uncle. If I ever win the lottery I will give a large gift to Augie to build the Svanoe Performing Arts Center in honor of three brothers and a sister who attended so long ago and left an enduring legacy. We will miss Dick. We thank God for him. He is singing in the heavenly choir now, and someday we will get to join in the eternal song of praise that will fill the heavens.
Rolf and Kimberly Svanoe

REMEMBRANCES

28 September 2007 Memorial Service, Cherry Creek Retirement Center, Aurora, Colorado

Description by Thomas Morgan Svanoe

Today’s memorial for our beloved Dad was wonderful. Lots of good folk from CCRV, St Andrew's, Namaste, and All Saint's packed the large atrium. I hope Dad was watching, because we sure had a splendid time making a big fuss over him.

Pastor Petty didn't know Dad well, but claimed to know the "type". His impression of Dad was of a Norwegian descended from the Hans Neilson Hauge piety movement that hadn't quite lost his "fizz". Of course I've reduced his homily down to one sentence, but suffice it to say it was a great sermon on ‘account a’ because he made us all smile and cry at the same time! Jake read Rolf's letter, and almost lost it. Josh gave a beautiful remembrance of his grandpa, and did lose it. Suzie talked about Dad's status as the youngest boy of the tribe who was always in trouble, and then pointed at me like I had something to do with it!

I got to play my bass with a rompin', stompin' Southern Baptist fire breathing pianist who gave our Lutheran hymns as much jazz as she could slip by the censors. We connected immediately, but alas she's already married with 2 kids. We played for 20 minutes before and after the service, plus 3 songs during. I'm tellin' ya, there's no better way for a bass player to send off his ol' Dad! Not quite sure where Suzie found this gal but she done good.

John's talk on "The Greatest Generation" thanked the old folks for their efforts to rebuild the world after the war. I was sitting facing the audience, and I can tell you John's speech got everyone's attention.

Next we had a US Navy Color Guard display the flag, play taps, and present the ceremoniously folded flag to Mom. There was not a dry eye in the house after that.

The best part of all was that Mom was in heaven, and for a few moments shared the spotlight with her special darling. It won't be too much longer when she can join him full time.

If you guys had been here today, that would mean that the whole thing was over. Fortunately, you were not here, so there are more fun memories we can share. And if we try really hard, maybe we can get Dad to join us once again.

Love ya,
Tom

13 October 2007 Family Memorial Gathering, Horizon House, Seattle, Washington

Dad’s five children and spouses, eight grandchildren and spouses, and five great grandchildren were on hand for this memorial and celebration event. Other attendees included our cousin Lorene and husband Tony Fortini and Jim Marich (last surviving member of the Timbre Kings quartet) and wife Jane. What a pleasure to see them after so many years. The memorial included a wonderful hymn medley sung by Julie and Bob and a quartet number by Joshua, Heather, Jacob, and Sue accompanied by Tom on guitar and Jane Kelsey piano. Richard, Jr., Elizabeth, and Mom read poems and scriptures before Sue’s sermon and prayers with all circled around Dad’s urn. Dad himself was heard singing the Lords prayer, a recording from Keri and Tim’s wedding.

A celebration Norwegian dinner was held following the service. After stuffing ourselves on a fabulous Norwegian menu, many stories were shared, songs sung, memorabilia and pictures enjoyed, and new pictures taken. The entire event was indeed a fantastic tribute.

Dad was….. Dad!

He was devoted to his God, his family, and his country. Born in Norway, he was fiercely proud of his Svanoe heritage, a pride he has passed on to his children and grandchildren. He could recite Svanoe history back to the 14th century off the top of his head.

He was kind, ever trying to help someone if he could. He was generous, in his church contributions and helping his children with home purchases, car repairs, and other financial tight spots.

He loved all kinds of music (Bach to barbershop), a passion which brought him the love of his life, Marjory, when he went to Madison to attend the University of Wisconsin to study for a master’s degree. This love he also passed on to his children. He sang in church choirs and barbershop choruses and quartets as well as directing them, an avocation which also helped him support his family.

He was certainly not loquacious (his older son shares this trait), but when he did speak, his thoughtful, deliberate style compelled one to listen no matter how long it took for him to complete his thought. Breaking in with a word edgewise was next to impossible.

He could be stubborn and determined. He did not have a favorable attitude about moving to Aurora from his “homestead” in Sun City but after about five years of negotiation, discussion, and encouragement (insistence) from his wife, he finally relented and seemed happy about it. He was not exactly patient when trying to teach someone else how to play cribbage. He was a staunch Chicago Cubs FANATIC (also passed on to his children) and a CNN junkie which further made it difficult to carry on conversations with him. He was prone to jumping in with his opinions and actions when his children were trying to make various life decisions, not always a constructive activity. But we always knew that his efforts were motivated by love and his desire to be helpful. He was a TERRIBLE driver until the keys were finally taken away from him, the ultimate dilemma for those of us with aged parents, hopefully I will recognize when to give up the keys!

In the end, we all knew he loved us and we loved him (does love emanate from mutual frustration?). He is missed and will be remembered forever.

I remember Dad:

-on a boy-scout camping trip with me when he put a hand axe into his shin

-taking many, many pictures at my college graduation only to find later that the camera had no film in it

-mowing the lawn while the rest of the family was in the car waiting to leave on a vacation trip

-at a 1959 barbershop (SPEBSQSA) convention in Chicago with the Timbre Kings quartet practicing in their hotel room soothing their scratchy voices with “throat medicine” (could that have been Jack Daniels?)

-at the piano writing down barbershop arrangements from recordings

-and I visiting grandpa Atle at his nursing home in Stoughton, WI

-and I visiting our cousin Earl Gale in his Chicago apt bldg

-directing one of his barbershop choruses in its annual show with toddler brother Tom wandering around the stage after his Dad

-endlessly listening to Cubs ball games on the car radio filling up the car with smoke (he was a smoker ‘til about age 67)

-and his repair jobs, duct tape and old belts are very handy repair materials, especially his flag pole in Sun City

-and Luther Strommen owning a boat together in Rockford (Mom was less than thrilled)

-telling the story of his mine sweeper finding German mines off the coast of Jacksonville, FL on the Saturday before Easter

-telling the joke about Alexander’s Rag Time band and being unable to get through the punch line

-mesmerizing 13? Year old Hilary with stories and maps of Norway and Svanoe

These are some of my memories that hopefully are accurate.

Richard, Jr.

Cousins reflect on “Uncle Dick”:

Jeffrey Williams:

There is a great cribbage game going on in heaven. The family has lost a great and wonderful man.

Carol Svanoe:

I first met Dick and Marge the summer of 1961 when the Augsburg College Quartet was on their way to the East Coast and then to Norway for their five week concert tour. It meant alot to me to be welcomed so warmly and sincerely into the Svanoe family!

Some of my favorite memories occurred when Dick and Marge spent summer time at their cabin near Delavan, Wisconsin. We lived just 30 minutes from Delavan. My three children and I were often invited to visit and share a meal, especially when one or more of Dick and Marge's children was visiting.

Having heard that Uncle Dick had been a judge for barbershop contests, I called and asked if they'd like to come with us to an event where we'd see and hear a variety of talent acts for the Miss Teen-age Wisconsin competition. My daughter, Colette was one of the contestants. She was singing a song from the musical Pippin and accompanying herself on the piano. Dick and I decided to be the unofficial judges in the audience! We agreed to not sit together, try to be impartial, and then would compare notes at intermission time! To keep it simple, we responded to each act with a "yes, no, or maybe"! Sometimes we'd write an additional comment. The two of us (almost) totally agreed as we evaluated each contestant! The teen-ager who won the competition sang the song "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie. Dick and I had both voted "no" after listening to her solo because of the harshness of her voice! We decided the official judges must not have been too musical! :-) Just in case you're curious, Colette was one of the runner-ups!

Another unforgettable memory happened during the Svanoe reunion held at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Someone had brought along men's quartet music, both in English and Norwegian. I was at the piano, only to help them rehearse. They sang without piano accompaniment for the program. A couple of the other younger quartet members needed a little help learning their part, but Uncle Dick sight-read the music and sang it beautifully right away! I was totally impressed!

I'm grateful for all the times shared with Uncle Dick and Marge for 46 years! He and Marge will be in my heart forever!

With love, Carol Svanoe

Kristi Zitkus:

This whole event has brought back to mind a lot of feelings and thoughts that I had when Ansgar died so suddenly. Twenty four years later, I still cry at the thought of losing him at the tender age of 75. But I hold on to the thought of all of us being together again in the future and that really helps get through the sorrow. Guess God knew how that would work!

Karen:

Your dad was my favorite uncle.

Anna Grethe Svanoe:

He was such a fabulous man.

Rennard Svanoe:

“Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He that has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.” (Psalm 100: 3, 4)

When Dick Svanoe died at age 93, it was at a moment when the people of God had gathered, so that they heard the news in the context of their worship of God our Maker. How special was this timing for a man who once exhorted our whole extended family at a reunion that Jesus Christ is still the center of everything for us! Dick’s belief in the resurrection made Sunday a fitting day for his passing, as Sunday is our Christian day for worship, commemorating the resurrection of Christ.
Dick has been a light on a hill for me his nephew, as one who combined qualities of being deeply grounded, while being radically free. In this way he was wonderfully Christ-like.

His brother Sig once characterized Richard as being, ever since childhood, the most spontaneous of the children of Atle and Martha. As a consequence, said Sig, Richard suffered the most under the Atle Svanoe rule for his children of no talking at the table. Richard grew up in a day when some believed that children are to be seen and not heard.

But Dick’s spontaneity soon found an outlet in his love of music. Just as with his father, Dick was known for his singing. Belting out with his quartet close harmony chords put him on top of the world. He composed a symphony, and wrote arrangements for songs like Silent Night in close harmony. His feeling for his departed loved ones soared as he sang at funerals “Behold the Host, Arrayed in White”. In retirement he used his job as cantor for a Jewish synagogue to freely praise God with other people of good will, not just Christians. Dick’s voice had resonance, like that of his older brother Ansgar, a marvelous gift for one whose vision of God and his rule on earth was so all-encompassing.

A towering tree with wide branches requires deep roots. He was sympathetic with the reform movement Word Alone because it went back to the roots. Not only was Dick’s grounding to be found in the centrality of his faith in Christ, but in the history of his people, both that of his family’s immediate ancestors and that of the whole Norwegian people. We were dumb-founded when, at one family reunion, Uncle Dick stood up and began tracing his heritage reaching back to the 14th Century. He was finding our modern beginnings in the world shaking event of the Great Plague that decimated the elite in Europe, leaving child kings like Haakon and his Danish wife of only 10 years of age in charge. The Norwegian heritage that he cherished started in pre-Lutheran days in a kind of power vacuum where God was beginning a new thing. Already in the 13th Century feudal traditions were starting to give way in Norway to regional representative assemblies.
Dick’s parents named him Richard Frederick, a name he also gave to his oldest son. Frederick came from the Danish side of our heritage and was the name of an absolute monarch of the 17th Century, but also the middle name of a crown prince Christian Frederick in the 19th Century. When his father King Frederick VI yielded to the Swedes after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, Christian Frederick laid aside his prerogative to kingship and assisted the Norwegians in founding the modern state of Norway, with a new constitution guaranteeing democracy. Norwegians have ever since felt warmly toward this Danish line of kings for their openness to Norway’s evolution to rule by the common people through mostly rural representatives. Dick’s great-grandfather Christopher and his father Ole are stirring examples of this tradition of democratic rule right within our own ancestry. But he was not snobbish and reminded us all at one family gathering that the Svanoe line is but a small part of our total ancestry. His appreciation for history was both deep and wide.

Dick had a characteristic openness to the future and to the younger generation. He did not get stuck in resentments toward the authoritarianism of his past, while still he identified with the younger people in his life. While in graduate school in the late 30’s he directed a youth choir. He married the choir’s pretty young pianist, our Aunt Marge. Two of my brothers and I would at times join him at the piano at his home in a make shift barbershop quartet. His example and assistance helped launch us and a friend on a three year career as the Augsburg College Quartet starting in the late 50’s. He advocated for younger members of our extended family in the 60’s, getting his brothers to invest with him in their start up solar energy ventures. My brother Victor so admired Uncle Dick that he was ready to promote him for president.

Dick also reached out to the generation that preceded him. He had gotten his lead for the job that began his long career with the telephone company from his dad’s cousin. He later attended to single and widowed persons in this generation in their old age—persons like his dad’s cousin Earl Gale, Aunt Adele and Aunt Augusta. Dick cemented relations of three generations by taking on the job of contacting the whole extended family in emergencies and for periodic family reunions. When his barber shopping began to take important time away from his family, he was willing to put his own interests second to those of his wife and children and gave it up. This demonstration of the importance of family and of setting priorities was not lost on all of us who knew and loved him.

Dick’s love for Christ, his ancestry, and his family were closely followed by his love for the church. He came to be good friends with Luther Strommen, his pastor in Rockford, Illinois, and in retirement through Pastor Strommen many other Lutheran pastors became friends of his. He came by my house more than once on summer trips to pick up copies of his dad’s book in English, “The Work of Lay Persons in Lutheran Perspective.” These he gave to his friends in Sun City, together no doubt with a word in support of the importance of lay leadership and witness in the church.

He had once early in his telephone career gotten a transfer to the division of public relations on the strength of a Chicago newspaper article telling of his winning speech with the Toastmasters. Unfortunately it was not a pastor at his church but his boss at work who recognized and made full use of this gift of speaking.

Dick knew how to witness of his faith in words, as he did more than once in my hearing. Besides his stirring challenge to our entire gathered Svanoe clan to keep Christ central, he was heard reminding his brother Harold of the Christian hope of the resurrection on the occasion of Aunt Lucille’s death.

But he also knew how to give expression to his faith in his daily vocation and to translate the Christian witness into deeds. While training telephone operators the ideal of Christian love turned into the down-to-earth principle of customer service. Instead of aiming at the accumulation of earthly riches as a goal, he converted an occasional economic windfall to investments in the younger generation who believed in a sustainable future through solar energy. His verbal Christian witness was not strident or confrontational, but made with aptness and fitness. His witness in deeds was aimed at joining God in His activity of creating a better world.
I will remember Dick as having a unique personal freedom because he was grounded in the past which he cherished, while yet not clinging to it. He was free of resentment for the repression of his childlike spontaneity in a home dominated by his father. He was free to risk his money by investing in idealistic young family members. He was free even of his own love of barber shopping, giving himself to the greater value of family. He was free in retirement to move with Aunt Marge from the mid-west where he had lived all his life. While grounded in convictions about the centrality of Christ and the Word Alone, he was free to unite his voice with those of our Jewish brethren in praise of God. If his gift of leadership in voicing the Christian witness wasn’t fully utilized in the church, he put it to use in secular translation in the world. This freedom was not in spite of his firm commitment to Christ, but because of it. “For freedom Christ has set us free; do not again submit to a yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5: 1)

Dick will always be remembered for his tall and spare frame. An early visual memory of mine has him struggling up the hill at his home in Rockford, Illinois pushing a wheelbarrow full of dirt while stripped to the waist in the hot sun. But spare or not, Dick was comfortable with his body. I remember him writing of swimming a mile or more in the ocean while in the Navy in the 40’s. 60 years later, as we were visiting with Uncle Dick and Aunt Marge on their Sun City, Arizona home, Dick suddenly stood up and pulled himself up to his full height with his chest out—a pose characteristic of him. His body towered over everyone else, but his spirit did too. He shed light everywhere, in his family, at work, in his community, and in the church. We’ll see that magnificent body again, topped by his winning smile.

Rennard and Grace Svanoe
Anahuac, Chihuahua, Mexico

MANGA TUSEN TAKK to all for your comments, support, and love.
Hilsen,
Marjory, Richard, Jr., Sue, Julie, Elizabeth, and Tom