Salem Lutheran Church Continues Festival Tradition

The St. Lucia festival is like a Salem Lutheran Church heirloom.

For the past 40 years, members of the West Central church have sung and eaten their way through the holiday celebration in honor of a Swedish martyr for the poor.

Most of the 40 festivals have been organized and directed by St. Lucia matriarch Alma Johnson. She did the cooking for the smorgasbords that used to accompany the festival, and has pictures of her two daughters as St. Lucia.

At 75, she says the festival is like a fountain of youth for older, largely Swedish church members.

“We have so many over 65, and this brings us back to our childhood,” said Johnson. “It’s kind of nice to have a tradition to hang on to. It carries you from one year to the next.”

With Johnson, dressed in a traditional Swedish costume given to her by her grandmother in 1939, directing from the side, the celebration went off without a hitch Sunday. For 15 minutes, a chorus of church members as angels, townspeople, elves and St. Lucia herself sang holiday songs.

Dick Johnson, Alma’s husband, looking very much like a Swiss yodeler, sang “Children of the Heavenly Father” in Swedish and English with his three grandchildren - Brian Freeland, 5, Karissa Sand, 12, and Krystianna Wichman, 2-1/2 - perched on his knee.

In legend, Lucia was a young bride-to-be in fourth-century Sicily who was killed at her greedy fiance’s request for giving away her dowry to the poor.

The festival was adopted by Swedes and St. Lucia is now supposed to appear on the shore of a Swedish lake every Dec. 13 between 3 and 4 a.m. to give food to the poor.

On that date in Sweden, the oldest daughter in a household gets up early to serve coffee and the Swedish pastry kringla to her family.

This year’s St. Lucia, 16-year-old Annie Anderson, a halo of candles topping her white gown, glided through the crowded church gym after the singing to hand out kringla.

For her, St. Lucia is a cumulation of years of festivals. She has been an elf, a townsperson, the star boy and an angel before working up to St. Lucia.

She likes the tradition of the event. “Even though you bring in new things, you can’t take away what’s already there, what’s set in concrete,” said Anderson, a North Central High School student.

Ken Strong, a longtime church member, has seen two daughters and three granddaughters as St. Lucia. A full-blooded Swede, he doesn’t know the language, but fakes it during St. Lucia festivals by singing the Swedish songs phonetically.

“It makes me feel more Swedish. You are kind of proud you have ancestors,” said Strong.

, DataTimes