31 December 2023
Only a few months before retiring as director of the Gammelgården Museum in Scandia, Lynne Blomstrand Moratzka accepted a momentous gift to the museum: a dala painting by Swedish folk-art painter Birgitta Hedengren.
One of Moratzka’s responsibilities is to evaluate possible donations to the museum’s collection. She knew its value immediately. “It’s the most fabulous piece,” she said. “It will absolutely knock your socks off.”
The story of how Hedengren’s painting, “The Queen of Sheba Comes to the Court of King Solomon,” ended up at Gammelgården is a saga that began in 1984.
That’s when Hedengren came to Minnesota from Sweden with famed Swedish artist Bengt Engman to work on the dining-room frieze at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis.
“While she was here, she stayed with her cousin for room and board and whatnot,” Moratzka said. “In gratitude, she gave her this painting when she left, and the family has had it ever since.”
After Hedengren’s cousin died, her husband called Moratzka with an offer. “He said, ‘I’m 92, my wife has died, and we need to find a home for it. Would you be interested?’” Moratzka said. “I said: ‘What’s your address? I’ll be right there.’”
The painting is displayed in a light-controlled area of the museum, directly across from one of the museum’s other prized possessions: a dala painting by Engman. Dala painting is the traditional style of folk painting in Sweden; it originated in the province of Dalarna, a little northwest of Stockholm.
Both paintings depict scenes from the Bible and decorative flower compositions called “kurbits.”
Moratzka discusses the significance of a dala painting on display at the Gammelgarden Museum. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
“The Swedish church invented this kind of painting in the 1700s as a way to share Bible stories to an illiterate population,” Moratzka said during a recent tour of the museum. “They illustrated the Bible stories as though they happened in Sweden at that time, so people would pay attention.”
The painting is “just one of a long list of phenomenal treasures” the museum has been entrusted with, Moratzka said. “It is astonishing, truly, to be able to say these were all gifts to us to help tell the story of Swedish immigration. It’s the story that’s important. The story is often more important than the thing because it brings it to life, and it tells us how they lived and what they valued.”
Gammelgården history
Established in 1972, Gammelgården, which means “old farm” in Swedish, is an open-air museum that honors the Swedish immigrants who settled the area in and around Scandia.
“It celebrates the story of all immigrants to their new land,” Moratzka said. “But you have to tell the story accurately – the warts, the wrinkles and the high points.”
The idea for Gammelgården was conceived in 1971 when the congregation of Elim Lutheran Church learned that its former pastor’s house and barn — dating to the 1850s — were for sale.
It turned out the church’s 1856 log sanctuary, which was being used as a hay barn, also was available and could be moved to the 11-acre site and restored.
A group of church members formed a committee, and Gammelgården opened soon after. Other buildings have since been added to the site, including a welcome center, known as the Välkommen Hus, that opened in 2002.
“We have the oldest Lutheran pastor’s house in Minnesota, as well as the oldest Lutheran sanctuary in Minnesota,” Moratzka said. “This is the third century for five of our historic buildings.”
Moratzka, 79, of Forest Lake, was hired as a museum curator in 1981 and named director of the museum in 1986.
Joanna Carlson Swanson is a former museum board member and longtime supporter. Her late father, The Rev. Dr. Edgar Carlson, served as president of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter from 1944 to 1968 and was among the museum’s initial leaders.
“When Lynne was hired, he commented to me that the museum had found a director and ‘she would be just fine, just right for the position,’” Swanson said. “Her enthusiasm, warmth, and attention to detail always must have been a distinctive part of her personality. Over the decades, those traits became even more established as she led the museum.”
Moratzka is “an extraordinary leader, whose gifts were appropriate to the challenges of creating a museum,” Swanson said. “Lynne built a cadre of dedicated volunteers and supporters, recognized the financial imperatives necessary to plan for the future, and then shared all the wisdom and richness of Gammelgården with so many through children’s programs, tours, events, programs and displays,” she said.
Moratzka helped steer the museum through a difficult transition two years ago when it went from being a part of Elim Lutheran Church to its own nonprofit organization, complete with 501(c)(3) status, said Jim Thoreson, president of the museum’s board.
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“This transition turned out to be far more difficult than anyone had anticipated,” he said. “Lynne stepped in and has served as the volunteer director for the last 1 1/2 years – often working six days a week. Without her leadership and knowledge, the museum would not have survived.”
Moratzka is involved in every aspect of the museum – from the weeding and watering of the flower gardens to the church services held on Sunday mornings between Memorial Day and Labor Day at Gammelkyrkan, the first sanctuary of Elim Lutheran Church, built in 1856, Thoreson said.
“For as long as I can remember, Lynne has hosted this service, every Sunday without fail,” he said. “She bakes the communion bread, opens and sets up the Gammelkyrkan, and sets out the bulletins for visitors. She also ensures there is coffee and snacks after the service.”
Education, immigration — and American Girls
Moratzka, who grew up in Roseville, went to Mankato State University, where she majored in elementary education. She graduated in 1966. She taught in Colorado for a year while her husband, Jim, worked on his master’s degree in vocational counseling at the University of Colorado.
When the couple moved back to Minnesota, Lynne Moratzka took a job teaching kindergarten at Ames Elementary School on White Bear Avenue in St. Paul.
The couple decided to move to Forest Lake in 1969 because “we wanted some acreage, and we wanted to be within about 30 miles of the metro area so we could enjoy all the art and museums,” she said. “This 40-acre parcel of land became available, and it was within our parameters of distance and price, so we bought it.”
The Moratzkas, who have two children and four grandchildren, have turned the acreage into a registered tree farm, reforesting the property and turning it into a wildlife refuge, she said.
Moratzka started and ran the Elim Lutheran Church Preschool for 15 years and then went to work at Luther Seminary as the donor relations coordinator, she said. “That was code for ‘all public events,’” she said. She retired from Luther in 2016.
Moratzka adjusts the covers on the altar in the Elim Lutheran Church at the Gammelgarden Museum. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
When she was hired as a curator at Gamelgården in 1981, she was paid $1,000 a year. Her duties included organizing regular events at the museum, putting out a newsletter, and having a regular schedule of tours. “It was basically to have it act like a museum,” she said.
In 1996, Gammelgården began offering tours and programming around Kirsten Larson, a fictional character in the American Girls Collection of books for girls. Visitors could learn about Kirsten, a 9-year-old Swedish immigrant who settled with her family in Minnesota in 1854, while wandering through the museum’s rustic log buildings, including a rustic cabin like the one where Kirsten’s family lived.
Tour participants got to learn a Swedish round dance and a traditional craft, eat a lunch similar to the one Kirsten carried to school each day, and receive a memory book containing history-related activities.
The Kirsten Tours and the museum’s partnership with Pleasant Co., the Middleton, Wis.-based creators of American Girls books, dolls and related accessories, “really put the museum on the map,” Moratzka said.
The thousands of new tourists to the museum also made museum officials “realize we were not well-prepared for guests,” she said. “We had no bathrooms, no running water.”
Church and museum officials began fundraising for the $600,000 Valkommen Hus & Butik. The building took about eight years to complete “since the church couldn’t take out loans and had to rely solely on donations,” Moratzka said.
The building is now home to language classes, craft classes, children’s programming, events and exhibits.
A few years ago the museum began hosting naturalization ceremonies for immigrants. Scandia Elementary fourth-graders are invited to witness the ceremonies and lead everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Last summer, 69 people – immigrants from 21 countries – became citizens at Gammelgården, said Alan Bakke, a longtime volunteer tour guide at the museum. “It was very, very moving,” he said. “Lynne had a real vision for the mission of Gammelgården, and that would be to educate people, especially kids, about the heritage of immigration in the U.S. — focused partly on Sweden, but also other nationalities.”
“Just to be packed up and dumped in the middle of a new culture has got to be pretty scary, and Lynne has really tried to keep that in the forefront,” Bakke said. “I stood in the driveway of the family farm in Norway remembering my grandfather’s writing about how he and his brother walked down the driveway leaving the farm, and he didn’t dare look back for fear he would lose his courage. And I thought, ‘Do I have that kind of courage?’”
Honored by King of Sweden
Moratzka stands in the doorway of Elim Lutheran Church at the Gammelgarden Museum. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Moratzka’s favorite building at the museum is the old church, the Gammelkyrkan, which features massive logs that stretch from one end of the building to the other. “Each one is one tree,” she said. “That’s a 30-foot wall.”
The structure is held in place by hand-carved pegs that secure the massive, exposed main support beams. “It was the job of the little boys who got their first pocket knife when they were 6 to sit and carve these pegs,” Moratzka said. “That was their participation in building the church for the community. Everybody had a task. The girls were responsible for making sure that they took care of the babies and that the water bucket was always full for the workers. Everybody contributed to the building, so there was a lot of investment for everybody in the building.”
The chapel is lit by candlelight, as there is no electricity in the building “other than we had to put some in to have a security system, but it’s hidden,” she said.
The museum celebrates St. Lucia’s Day on the Sunday closest to Dec. 13 by hosting a worship service in the building. “There is no heat, no electric lights,” Moratzka said. “It’s only about 20 minutes because it’s all in Swedish, and it’s chilly.”
Near the front of the chapel is a black carrying case that was constructed by a church deacon who was responsible for the communion wine.
“He didn’t think it looked very respectful to go off to church holding a jug of wine, so he built this box to carry it with some decorum,” Moratzka said. “Later when the railroad came, the wine came to the chapel via the railroad in a wooden box. When the jug was empty, it went in the box to the railroad, sent to Milwaukee, cleaned, refilled and sent back on the railroad.”
The side of the box has this message: “Return when empty to LaSalle Products Inc., 1612 West National Ave., Milwaukee, Wis.”
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In 2012, Moratzka, who is descended from Swedish immigrant families, was recognized by the king of Sweden for her work in preserving and promoting Swedish culture and causes in Minnesota. King Carl XVI Gustaf presented her with Sweden’s prestigious Order of the Polar Star in honor of her contributions to Swedish-American culture and heritage during a ceremony hosted by the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis.
Moratzka plans to step down as director Dec. 31. The museum’s new director is Ann Rinkenberger, who has been associate director since July.
Moratzka, however, will remain active as the museum’s first director emerita – a new volunteer position created just for her. She will lead tours, work with donors and work to establish relationships between the donors and the new director, she said.
“I’ll also continue to work with the collection of artifacts and displays, and help the new director learn what we have and where it’s kept,” she said. “It’s a position that allows me to still be active within the organization … because I’m the memory carer.”