MONDAY MORNING MUSEUM UPDATE – June 16, 2025 – Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum

In this week’s update: Midsummer’s Festival, Pavilion stability repairs complete, final Historical Speaker Series, and more!

In this update, keep up to date on what staff and volunteers at the Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum are working on to lift up the history of Lindsborg and the surrounding region. This weekly update both looks back at what happened and looks ahead at what’s coming.

For June 9-15, 2025:

Our thanks to the HUNDREDS of people who came to the museum last Saturday as part of the 2025 Midsummer’s Festival in Lindsborg! We were proud to host the 13th annual Midsummer’s Festival Kubb Tournament (and livestream the championship round – with commentary!)
We also hosted evening ceremonies – which included music and dance performances from Front Porch Pickers, Broadway RFD, Scandinavian Folk Dancers of Kansas City, and the Lindsborg Arts Council Jazz Band. Rounding out the night was raising the Najstångsresning (Midsummer Pole) and Swedish Folk Dancing with audience participation!
It was a beautiful time of celebrating our Swedish Heritage and culture in Little Sweden, USA!
Perfect Blend Construction has completed all of the stability repairs work on the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion!
The crew also generously donated their time to make repairs on the Train Depot floor and entrance door!
We are now arranging a professional deep cleaning of the interior to allow for a suitable “soft” reopening to the public (after a year and a half with very little human contact, the Pavilion needs a little TLC to once again be “presentable.”) We will announce here when the inside will be available to the public again when we know a more specific date. Later, we are making plans for a “Grand Reopening” event of the Pavilion.
Thanks to everyone who donated to help us reach the $151,500 needed for these critical repairs! More tax credits are now available for the 2025 tax year, with proceeds now going to help with a new planned Pavilion roof that will be more durable and with a more historically accurate look in the “Raise the Roof” portion of the Pavilion campaign! Learn more at www.oldmillmuseum.org/raise-the-roof.
The final presentation of the Historical Speaker Series (postponed from earlier this year) has now been rescheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 24. Register for the FREE presentation at THIS LINK.
Amalia was hired in 1900 to teach in the Model School at Bethany College. More specifically, she started a new program in Slöyd, a curriculum of manual training that teaches the use of a slöyd knife to make a variety of structured projects, usually in wood.
Amalia was born in Sweden in 1868 and immigrated with her brother to the US in 1896. She attended a teacher’s college in Näs, Sweden.
Presented by Dr. Marlysue Holmquist. Dr. Holmquist is a retired Bethany College professor. Dr. Holmquist has spent considerable time researching and documenting furniture made in the Slöyd under Amalia’s instruction.

Amalia Rabenius
Lenora is working on a presentation about Svensk Hyllningsfest for the Swedish coffee group. It will be the morning of Friday, June 27 next week and is open to the public!
On June 12 last Friday, Lenora gave a short presentation on the Historical Speaker Series and Svensk Hyllningsfest projects – both funded by Humanities Kansas – to the Humanities Kansas Board meeting. She is now working on the final report for the Humanities Kansas Hyllningsfest grant.
Adam gave a tour to educators with the Kansas Geographic Alliance last Wednesday and on Saturday Aubrey gave a tour to a girls’ club.
Adam is very close to completing a first draft of the Summer newsletter.
Aubrey and Adam worked on designing vinyl stickers for the museum gift shop, based on historical images of the Old Mill and Swedish Pavilion.
Aubrey attended the new exhibit opening event at the McPherson Museum and Arts Foundation.
Lenora completed several historic research requests last week, including: Land descriptions and maps for a family who is visiting us this week, research of land records for a man in California, and a research appointment last Saturday with a Salina woman about her Swedish family roots in preparation for an upcoming trip to Sweden.
Tyler continued working on the Historic Image Database.
Lenora met for coffee at Sunflower Terrace on both Tuesdays to gather local oral history.
Lenora has continued working on an indexing project under contract with ArkivDigital.
Need a great gift for the genealogist or history enthusiast in your life? NEW in the museum gift shop, you can now purchase a gift certificate good for a free registration to one of the museum’s Online Swedish Genealogy Workshops anytime in 2025 ($50) or a 2025 Pursuing YOUR Past presentation ($10). Your gift recipient will receive a one-time-use code by email or mail good to pay for the registration fee for one of these popular sessions!