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The family of Virgil Olson uploaded a photo
Monday, February 9, 2015
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The family of Virgil Olson uploaded a photo
Monday, February 9, 2015
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The family of Virgil Olson uploaded a photo
Monday, February 9, 2015
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The family of Virgil Olson uploaded a photo
Monday, February 9, 2015
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Sven Ohm posted a condolence
Friday, May 30, 2014
I met Virgil and his lovely family when he was doing research work at the University of Uppsala. My wife and I invited them to our home after a meeting at the Bethel Seminary in Stockholm. We all enjoyed that evening. After that we have met many a time in the US, in Sweden and in many countries all over the world. He was a wonderful host as the Dean of the Bethel Seminary in St Paul and I remember expecielly The Founders Week in 1971 when both of us were lecturing under the heading Old Drums to March By. We were colleagues as General Secretaries of the International Ministry of our denominations and met regularly at the Congresses and annual meetings of the Baptist World Alliance and its special Conference of the International Mission Secretaries. Virgil was a respected teacher, an experienced world leader but above all: I will always remember him as the closest of all my international friends.
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Mildred Dunterman Nordstrom posted a condolence
Monday, June 24, 2013
When I was 18 years old, Pastor Virgil Olson was my Pastor at the Emerald Avenue Baptist Church, in Chicago, IL. Pastor Olson was looking for some help taking attendance in the various Sunday AM and PM classes. I asked if I could help. Pastor Virgil Olson suggested I teach a Sunday School Primary Girls Class instead and it was there I met my future husband, Donald Nordstrom who was teaching Primary age Boys Sunday school class. Thanks, Pastor Virgil. I look forward to seeing you and Don again.
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Gayle Olson posted a condolence
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Virgil was a good story teller. I remember one story about his traveling to the northwestern town and church in Karlstad, Minnesota. He had been invited to teach at a rural vacation bible school one summer back in the 1930's while a student at Bethel. My mother and her sister were also teaching there with him and he would ask me about them from time to time, so the story is memorable.
He told how he arrived and was going to camp in a tent in one of our neighbor's farm yard. It began to rain as soon as he was setting up and he was feeling pretty miserable just lying there in a cold rain with nothing to warm him when Mrs. Peterson, the farmer's wife, called out to him asking if he would like to come into the house for pie and coffee. He happily responded and sat down at the kitchen table. Mrs. Peterson then proceeded to go to the big wood burning kitchen range and open the attached warming oven located directly above it. And what did he see but about a dozen baby chicks sharing the same space. He didn't know if he could eat that pie, but he said he prayed really hard that God would bless the pie and protect him.
He survived that experience and many others in his long life and it was an honor to know him and his family.
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Sven Ohm posted a condolence
Thursday, June 13, 2013
We praise the Lord for the life and work of our dear friend Virgil. I worked with him as the Dean of the Seminary and as the International Secretary of the Baptist General Conference. He was a close friend of Sweden and of the Baptist Union of Sweden. May he rest in peace - he is now with his Lord and Saviour.
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Norman and Beverly Anderson posted a condolence
Monday, June 10, 2013
Heaven is much richer now that one of the great saints is home. Dr. Virgil was my church history teacher in Bethel Seminary days. He could make the pages of church history live! What a wonderful, gentle, loving, wise and caring man Virgil was! He always made one feel that you were important to him. Family, you had a wonderful heritage! With all of your love and prayers, Norm and Bev Anderson
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Mary (Blomquist) Johnson posted a condolence
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Our sympathies to you. My father, Alrik Blomquist, and Virgil had many good times. I so wanted to attend the service to share with you in person but cannot due to a prior commitment. Our thoughts and prayers are with you as you celebrate a wonderful life and man of God.
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Ned and Anna Garlington posted a condolence
Friday, June 7, 2013
We were blessed to know him in Pasadena with Dr. Olson and have fond memories of a godly man who lovingly reflected his Savior. Seeing his gentle smile again makes us miss him! But we look forward to seeing him again! Blessings on the family...
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Randy & Cheryl Stauter posted a condolence
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Olsen family during this sad time. We are rejoicing that he is with Jesus. His influence at Bethel and around the world will not be forgotten.
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Ruth Zhanay posted a condolence
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Sorry to hear about your Dad. Your Dad is with the Dear Lord and resting in peace now. My prayers go out to you and all your family.
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Dan Blomquist posted a condolence
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
After receiving the email from Dan Olson, I listened again to Vigil giving a tribute to my father, Alrik, back in Feb '06. Stan Rendahl also spoke. Virgil recounted how his Dad would go on weekends from Bethel to Grantsburg, WI to preach. Virgil met a young boy his age (Alrik) at the church which his parents were cleaning. They started playing together and decided that the sanctuary would be a good place to play tag. So they raced in and out of the pews and even on top of them, of course leaving their shoe prints behind. Then they decided to practice baseball. Al was the catcher with the pulpit as the backstop and Virgil tried to throw slow curves up the center aisle. They were friends through Bethel and beyond.
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Virgil Olson Family posted a condolence
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Dreams have never had much significance for me. I remember only a few dreams. However, the messages from these few dreams stand out in my memory. Both were significant in my public life and career.
As a kid I dreamed more than once that I was on the platform of a church preaching. There I stood, glaring at the audience. My mouth seemed to be filled with cotton. I couldn't get a word out. I felt humiliated, embarrassed. When I woke up I vowed I would never become a preacher. Perhaps the preaching dream repeated itself because my father was a preacher and the members of the church seemed to take it for granted that I was going to grow up and become a preacher just like my father. But I resented these prophecies. It was not that I did not appreciate and respect my father and his preaching. That was not the problem. At the age of 12 or 13 I had other goals in life. I was more interested in being a bus driver. I even thought it would be neat to be a conductor on a transcontinental train. That way I could see the country. Those were the days before commercial air travel was common.
Other dreams that I had in my youth had to do with singing. I had a pretty good singing voice and when I was in high school I sang in choirs and quartets. At church I often sang solos. One dream I vividly remember. Every time I thought of it I would experience a feeling of tightness and fear. I dreamed I was before a concert audience singing a solo and my voice cracked and I sang way off key. People laughed out loud. Some got up, making derogatory gestures while walking out of the auditorium. When I awoke from my dream I was relieved that I was in my small room in my old cast iron bed. I never asked my parents if they heard me howling during the night.
When I was at Bethel Junior College I took some voice lessons from Professor George Hultgren, who directed the choirs at Bethel and who was recognized in the Minnesota music community as a superb tenor soloist. It was the fall of 1935. I was a college sophomore. One afternoon after my voice lesson, Hultgren told me that he was organizing an all-school choir to present Handel's Messiah. I thought that was great. What a musical challenge! I had never before had the opportunity to sing in such a significant and historic musical production.
Then the shocker came. Hultgren said, "Virgil, I want you to sing the tenor solos." "No," I confusedly replied, "You are the tenor. The presentation of the Messiah without you singing in it would be flat." "Virgil, you are it," Hultgren said with finality. "I am going to direct the choir. Here, take the book and start working on the first two tenor solos, 'Comfort Ye My People' and 'Every Valley Shall be Exalted'."
As I walked out of the room I had conflicting sensations. I had the dizzying excitement of being asked by George Hultgren to sing the tenor solos in the Messiah. What a challenge! But then I remembered the trauma of my dream. It could all come true. My throat would tighten up as a vice grip. I would never be able to hit the high notes. I would not be able to do it. Worst of all, I would have the first numbers on the program, before any chorus has been sung, before any of the other soloists have had a part. There I would stand, feeling bare naked, trying to get enough breath and voice control to sustain the notes of the opening line in the recitative, "Coooommmfort Ye my People."
I kept taking lessons from Hultgren. He coached me on singing the recitative and aria. Through my teacher's encouragement, I was gaining more confidence. Then the evening of the concert arrived. The choir members were assembling in the classrooms on the second floor of the college building. (This was on the old Bethel campus on Snelling Avenue, St. Paul.) Hultgren had imported a guest accompanist and soloists. I, the tenor, was the only Bethel native to have a solo part. The other soloists were all well known in the Twin Cities. They knew each other and had performed together on several occasions. They were pros. The evening's performance was only one of two or three Messiah concerts at which they were soloists.
Hultgren took me over to this elite circle and introduced me as the tenor soloist. They made perfunctory acknowledgements to me, a young untested tenor soloist. With a dismissing smile they rattled on in their animated conversation, completely ignoring me. "Have you seen so and so lately? It appears she is putting on weight." "I wonder if there is a restroom nearby." "The weather is awful, snow piling up. Hope it lets up by the time we go home." In the meantime I slowly slinked away.
The featured soloists now began their warmups. The bass was belting out the aria, "And I will shaa--aa--aake the nations. The nations!" He sounded awesome. His voice filled the corridors of the second floor. The soprano, who was a slight women with a powerful voice, was testing her range. She started at middle G and then threw her voice into high gear to slide up to an octave higher. DoooooEeee. Then up a half step. DoooEee, becoming more powerful with each half step on the scale. The alto was a large, buxom woman with a commanding presence. And she had a voice to match her size. She pulled out all the stops by clearing her vocal pipes, blasting out, holding on to one note with the vowel sounds---eeeee, iiiii, aaaaa, ooooo, uuuuuuuuuuu. Then up a note. The same musical voweling. And I couldn't force out a squeak! My throat was drying up. I felt that my tongue was swelling. I was feeling terribly intimidated. I wanted to get away from it all. Why had I allowed myself to be coerced by Hultgren to sing? Didn't he know that I would sound like a bleating lamb besides these confident concertinos?
Hultgren was making the rounds, checking on every one, when he saw me in the shadow of one corner of the second floor hallway. He came over and asked, "Are you okay, Virgil? I croaked out, "I'm so scared. I feel so insecure. I keep running to the toilet every few minutes. Why did you choose me to sing this evening?" "Virgil," he said, "Let me tell you of an experience I had. I was studying voice with a famous teacher in Italy. The time had come for me to give a recital. I felt very insecure singing before an Italian audience. Then my teacher came to me and gave me this word of encouragement. George," he said, "there are some who can sing better than George Hultgren. Many who cannot sing as well as George Hultgren. But there is no one in the world who can sing just like George Hultgren. You go out and sing like George Hultgren." Then Hultgren put his hand on my shoulder. "Virgil. You go out and sing just...like... Virgil. You will do just fine." I did. I got through "Comfort Ye" and "Every Valley" with only a slight slip.
Many times through the years I have been asked to speak at conferences or special meetings where I am a lesser known speaker among a group of well known, popular conference preachers. Then I remember, I have been asked to speak like Virgil Olson. And Virgil Olson is who they will get. Many speak better, some perhaps not as well. But there is only one Virgil Olson.
I have never forgotten the advice: Go and sing just like Virgil.
Saturday
8
June
First Visitation
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Saturday, June 8, 2013
First Baptist Church of Cambridge
304 Main Street
S. Cambridge, Minnesota, United States
Need Directions?
Saturday
8
June
Service Information
11:00 am
Saturday, June 8, 2013
First Baptist Church of Cambridge
304 Main Street
S. Cambridge, Minnesota, United States
Need Directions?
Interment Information
Hillside Cemetery
2600 19th Avenue
NE Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Need Directions?
Carlson-Lillemoen Funeral Home & Cremation Services
311 South Ashland Street
Cambridge, MN 55008
Phone: 763-689-2244
