{"id":951,"date":"2014-03-10T09:51:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T14:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/?page_id=951"},"modified":"2023-06-07T08:31:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T13:31:37","slug":"1949-and-before-alumni","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/1949-and-before-alumni\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 1949 and Earlier"},"content":{"rendered":"

E. Roald Carlson, Class of 1948<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There was one lone professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College\u00a0when I returned from the United States Navy in September of 1948 after\u00a0spending the last 10 months of my enlistment on the island of Guam\u00a0serving in the Naval Operating Base at Apra Harbor there and doing\u00a0part time work as a translator of Japanese as I had learned that\u00a0language somewhat as a student at the Naval Oriental Language School\u00a0at the University of Colorado at Boulder having been commissioned as\u00a0an ensign in the United States Naval Reserve in March of 1945.\u00a0That Professor of Philosophy was Dr. William H. K. Narum who had\u00a0just received his doctorate in Theology from Princeton Seminary.\u00a0Professor Howard Hong, who had been the Professor of Philosophy had\u00a0been selected as the administrator of a Lutheran Relief Agency in\u00a0Europe seeking to serve the huge needs of Lutheran Refugees and others\u00a0in Europe in the aftermath of \u00a0World War II. \u00a0 Dr. Hong had\u00a0specialized in the study of Soren Kierkegaard in Denmark before the\u00a0war . . . knew Europe better than many members of the Norwegian\u00a0Lutheran Church in America at the time . . . and went to Europe to\u00a0head up that monstrous effort – – enlisting the help of students like\u00a0Loren Halvorson, Ed Bersagel and Anderson as able assistants. \u00a0 Dr.\u00a0Hong, and his able assistants along with many others, \u00a0did a great\u00a0work.\u00a0He returned to St. Olaf once during my two years as a junior and\u00a0a senior there when he spoke in Chapel one day about his experiences\u00a0and ministry – – the Chapel (the old Gym) was full, many of them\u00a0veterans of the war who knew the destruction and pathos of the\u00a0residents of Germany and other nearby countries as well as the plight\u00a0of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who had fled the encroaching\u00a0advance of the Russian Army and Communism and made their way into\u00a0camps set up all over the place to house them and then provide food\u00a0for them as well.\u00a0It was a great work and in his Chapel Talk Dr. Hong told of\u00a0driving his Jeep along an Autobahn once and picking up a lone\u00a0hitch-hiker with whom he conversed regarding his plight and being told\u00a0that he was a “Nihilist” now as nothing made any sense anymore to him\u00a0as he viewed the situation in Europe and his future there. \u00a0 I have\u00a0never forgotten the picture Dr. Hong painted and his mention of the\u00a0term “Nihilist” as that was a new term to me.\u00a0I was fortunate to have Dr. Hong as a professor of Freshman\u00a0English Literature in the second half of my Freshman Year at St Olaf\u00a0(January-June of 1943) when Dr. Arthur Paulson was pulled out of\u00a0English Classes and became an Instructor in Navigation for trhe United\u00a0States Naval Cadets in the Pre-Flight Program of the V-5 effort of the\u00a0Navy to train pilots for the thousands of planes being produced by a\u00a0rejuvenated industry. \u00a0 The one thing I remember from Dr Hong’s class\u00a0was his effort to expound on Thomas Hardy’s book, \u00a0“The Return of the\u00a0Native” . . . an effort I discussed with him several times when I\u00a0returned to the Hill and visited with Dr. Hong about that semester,\u00a0when he helped me so much in appreciating English Literature.\u00a0In my Philosophy Major I focused on Kierkegaard rather heavily and\u00a0then to do my Philosophy \u00a0Major Thesis (required at the time and for\u00a0which I received 3 credits) I wrote a long paper on Dostoyevsky and\u00a0particularly his message in “Crime and Punishment” and “Brothers\u00a0Karamasov” – – two books that sort of changed my life as Dostoyevsky\u00a0wrestled with the great themes of sin and forgiveness and God and hope\u00a0. \u00a0. and whatnot!<\/p>\n

Graduating with honors in the Department of Philosophy, a great\u00a0surprise to me, I went on to Luther Seminary, Biblical Seminary in New\u00a0York CIty, and finally earning a Masters in Theology at Princeton\u00a0Seminary in June of 1953 . . . and then being ordained as a pastor of\u00a0the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Henning Lutheran Parish, Henning,\u00a0Minnesota, Ottertail County \u00a0in August of 1953 serving three churches\u00a0in the city and countryside. \u00a0The GI Bill\u00ae was a “God-send” to me and\u00a0many others. \u00a0I used up all 48 months of education on the GI Bill\u00ae.<\/p>\n

After four years I was called to Immanuel Lutheran CHurch on\u00a0Snelling Avenue across from Macalester College where I served seven\u00a0years and then accepted a call to Bethany Lutheran Church in Bay\u00a0Ridge, Brooklyn, New York serving 17 years after which I was at\u00a0Concordia Lutheran CHurch in Superior, Wisconsin for ten years . . .\u00a0retired at age 65 and have lived in St. Paul across the avenue from\u00a0Stub Hall of Luther Seminary ever since.<\/p>\n

My wife is the former Marjorie Jean Mueller, born and raised in\u00a0Bemidji, MN and a graduate of Concordia College in Moorhead, MN – –\u00a0later earning a Masters in Library Science at Pratt Institute,\u00a0Brooklyn, N. Y. \u00a0She served for years as a Counselor at the\u00a0Educational Opportunity Center in Bedford-Stuyvesant where students\u00a0seeking to get up from poverty learned a trade and went to work in\u00a0Manhattan mostly as clerks and secretaries in the vast office\u00a0buildings there.<\/p>\n

We have four daughters . . . the Rev. Kristine L. Carlson,\u00a0pastor of Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis, \u00a0Dr Paula Carlson,\u00a0soon to be installed as the 10th President of Luther College, Decorah,\u00a0Iowa, \u00a0the Rev. Janet Carlson who served a parish in Winthrop, MN and\u00a0then Grace Lutheran Church, in Lincoln, CA (a suburb of Sacramento)\u00a0and now a Real Estate Agent in Sacramento, \u00a0and Carolyn Carlson, an\u00a0Executive Editor of Viking Penguin Publishing in New York CIty\u00a0I am now 89 years old, in good health, and happy that I studied\u00a0Philosophy at St. Olaf and was exposed to great thinkers who\u00a0stimulated in me good thinking and later action seeking to serve\u00a0people in a calling as a Lutheran Pastor.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E. Roald Carlson, Class of 1948 There was one lone professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College\u00a0when I returned from the United States Navy in September of 1948 after\u00a0spending the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-951","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3872,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/951\/revisions\/3872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}