MONDAY MORNING MUSEUM UPDATE – June 30, 2025 – Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum

In this week’s update: Independence Day schedule; Historical Speaker Series recording; museum newsletter; 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 24-29, 2025:

The museum will be closed on this Friday, July 4 for Independence Day, but we WILL be open on Saturday, July 5!
The final presentation of the 2024-2025 Historical Speaker Series was last week. The recording of this engaging presentation is now available on-demand HERE!
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
The Museum Messenger newsletter for Summer 2025 is now available online! Check it out HERE.
The stability repairs on the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion are now complete!
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.
We are now moving into the “Raise the Roof” portion of the Pavilion repairs fundraising campaign.
More tax credits are now available for the 2025 tax year for donations under this campaign. Proceeds go to help with a new planned Pavilion roof that will be more durable and with a more historically accurate look! There will also be opportunities to have a “roof tile” with custom wording added to a permanent honor wall to recognize contributions to replace the roof; details will be coming soon. Learn more at www.oldmillmuseum.org/raise-the-roof.
Lenora presented about the Svensk Hyllningsfest project for the Swedish coffee group last Friday.
Aubrey worked on the scope of work for the museum roof project in preparation for putting the work out to bid.
Aubrey worked on reordering gift shop items and looking into new items to carry in the shop. Adam assisted with ideas and advice.
Aubrey reviewed the museum’s insurance plans.
Aubrey attended the community Cultural Directors meeting.
Aubrey met with a board member about potential upcoming fundraisers.
Adam looked into a quarter-page ad in “The Music Man” playbill.
Staff attended Sunflower Summer training webinars.
Lenora completed several historic research requests last week, including: helping a couple find the house where her grandparents lived; helping a family traveling to Sweden in September to make contact with the Swedish churches they plan to visit and ensure they will be open; researching landing the the King City and Turkey Creek townships for a man in the Kansas City area.
Tyler continued working on the Historic Image Database on Tuesday and Thursday. The database now has more than 9,200 images.
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!