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April 11, in the Wildcat Center at Chisago Lakes High School, 29400 Olinda Trail, Lindstrom. A recently discovered 30-minute video interview, with a Swedish pilot who came to Chisago Lakes in search of a cousin and found much more, will be featured.

Begin with FIKA (coffee and treats), entertainment by the Nya Duvemåla Folkmusiklag, and a short friends meeting, leading up to the video interview with the Swedish pilot and unofficial Chisago Lakes Area emissary, Carl Werner Pettersson (b.1933 - d. 2012). Sharing of stories, connections, and more FIKA will follow the video.

The name Carl Werner Pettersson is familiar to many long-time local residents. Pettersson was instrumental in promoting the Wilhelm Moberg’s emigrant stories and brought busloads of Swedish tourists to this area in search of links to family members who had emigrated here 100 years earlier.  

The story of Pettersson’s first visit to Chisago Lakes in 1972—when he arrived armed only with a picture of his dad’s “cousin in America” in Sunrise, Minn.—was published in the January 1974 issue of The Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly, Chicago, Ill.

That story tells of his yearning to learn more about relatives who had departed from Sweden and settled in Chisago County. Pettersson recalls arriving at the Mpls/St Paul airport planning to rent a Volvo or Saab and ending up uncomfortably driving a full-size Chevrolet up Interstate-35 and Highway 8. He describes driving straight through Lindstrom before realizing that the town was just a few blocks long.  After that first visit, he would return many times and bring many more Swedes with him.

Local historian Sally Barott was videotaped talking with Carl Werner at his homestead in Brinkelid, Sweden, and the Friends of The Karl Oskar House are eager to share it with the community. Pettersson recounts his experience finding many more relatives (Nordin, Norden, Magnuson, Nordlund, Tell, Videen, Mold, Nordgren, Shogren, Nordeen, Barott, Johnson and Andersson) and having dinner with the Jim Turner family in Lindstrom.  

Everyone with an interest in the area’s Swedish heritage is invited to attend the April 11 event. 

Sally Barrot to the left , a representative from 

Sweden and Carl-Werner Pettersson

    

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