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“Music is a universal language” Marilyn said quietly from the welcoming front porch of Gustaf’s on Main Eatery. As the historic 1879 home of Gustaf Anderson, it has been converted to a charming eatery featuring fresh food and Scandinavian specialties in the heart of bustling Lindström.  There was pie involved, along with a touch of ice cream and some fresh brewed coffee as the interview proceeded. A decidedly Fika moment on a perfect spring day.

Music was to be the topic, Swedish Folk music to be exact, and its melodic impact on the preservation of Swedish culture. Vilhelm Moberg himself would have been lucky to find any one person outside of Småland, Sweden more well-versed and qualified than Marilyn Wahlstrom. Swedish heritage is not only in her music, but also in her blood.

As the great granddaughter of Carl Linn, the man who built the now-famous Karl Oskar House in the 1860’s, Marilyn is uniquely qualified to speak on the culture but it is her lifetime experience as a musician that gives her the unique ability to share Swedish folk music with the people of Minnesota.

The title Nya Duvemåla Folkmusiklag does not directly translate into the “The House Band” as in “The Karl Oskar House Band” but you won’t offend Marilyn if that is how you need to know them.  A more accurate translation would be New Duvemåla Folk Music Team. 

Duvemåla was the home of Kristina Johansdotter of Småland, Sweden, a fictional character who is Karl Oskar’s beloved from the famous Emigrants series written by Vilhelm Moberg.

Marilyn is instantly recognizable as long as you know what to look for. A woman of modest stature slinging a bow across the strings of what looks like a giant violin, the bass viol. Marilyn’s mastery of the bass viol is both the rock and the foundation on which the other very talented musicians of the Nya Duvemåla Folkmusiklag team build their symphonic melodies. But the bass viol is not all she plays.

When asked which is her favorite instrument to play, she did not hesitate for even the slightest moment. “The pipe organ,” she said enthusiastically. Marilyn’s 50 plus years of service in various Lutheran churches in Minnesota no doubt held some influence over her answer. If there was ever any question in her mind it was decidedly answered when she was fortunate enough to tickle the ivory keys of the Domkyrka Cathedral, the largest and arguably most well-known cathedral in all of Scandinavia.

Now a resident of Brooklyn Park, Marilyn grew up in Clear Lake, Wisconsin where she played the church organ since high school. Showing an affinity, she attended the Rymer School of Music in Roseville for two years before taking on a four year degree at Augsburg College in Minneapolis majoring in music.

As a freshman at Augsburg, Marilyn began her lifetime of service as an organist at the First Lutheran Church in St. Paul. Established in 1854, services were held in Swedish here until well into the 1890’s. Marilyn also established the famous hand bell choir that still delights the congregation to this day.

Years later Marilyn would come full circle by applying her many musical talents at Chisago Lake Lutheran Church which was consequently established only one week after First Lutheran in St. Paul in 1854. Coincidentally, Marilyn’s great grandfather Carl Linn, was a charter member of Chisago Lake Lutheran Church which is also known as the church in the wedding scene in the 1993 Hollywood production “Grumpy Old Men.”

There is hardly an instrument Marilyn cannot play. 

Most recently she is in the process of mastering the very Swedish nyckelharpa, or “keyed fiddle.” Similar to a violin but larger, it employs keyed tangent along the neck in order to change the pitch.

As far as future goals are concerned, Marilyn is on the hunt to learn and perform folk music from the original “sisters” related to many cities of rural Minnesota,  such as Tingsyrd, Sweden is to Lindström. Although the music must be arranged by the members of the team, and much of it is still not written down, Marilyn herself feels that technology in the computer age helps to spread and preserve the music as opposed to the fear of letting it be lost between the many bits, ones, and zeros.

As a board member of Friends of The Karl Oskar House, someone who portrays “Kristina Johansdotter” in the annual Karl Oskar Days parade, and a frequent performer at Karl Oskar House in Ki Chi Saga County Park, Marilyn is easy to find, and pleasant to get to know. Just look for the woman with the giant violin under the Astrakhan apple tree enjoying the smiling, happy faces of her audience.

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