Tag Archives: David Crockett

Authors, Publishing, Reading, Religion, Uncategorized

A day trip, and historical meditations

1 Comment

I shall tell you the tale of my adventures last Friday. I was part of a group of members of the Georg Sverdrup Society, and we went to visit a seminary not our own.

I think I won’t mention the name of this seminary, though there’ll be enough clues to work it out, if anybody cares to. It is an impressive cluster of buildings on an impressive campus, with a  history going back to the 1870s. However, the church body it serves, which I generally refer to here as the Very Large Lutheran Church Body That Shall Remain Nameless, finds itself now unable to support the institution’s real estate, so the property is being sold. The seminary will continue, but in more modest quarters.

Because of this approaching change, our society president arranged a visit. It would allow us to view the buildings, the library (now being packed up) and the archives (soon to be packed up). We got to see a number of interesting items on display. Below is a copy of Martin Luther’s death mask, with matching hands (his right one swollen and cramped from much writing). Luther was a man who liked his carbohydrates:

There was also the legendary bust of Hans Nielsen Hauge, the Norwegian lay evangelist about whom I’ve written a lot on this blog. I had the pleasure of informing those present that this bust is not actually a portrait, but the product of an artist’s imagination, originally carved in wood for a ship’s figurehead.

Our guide was very cordial, so nobody mentioned the well-attested fact that seminary students have a tradition of holding a beer bash on Hauge’s birthday, with the bust present, in order to demonstrate their contempt for the man and his movement.

We also got to visit Old Muskego Church:

Old Muskego Church from Muskego, Wisconsin is often called the first Norwegian Lutheran church building in America. This is not true – I, for one, favor the Haugean church in Fox River, Illinois. But Old Muskego, which was moved here in 1904, is the oldest surviving one. A new location will have to be found for it. All our guide would tell us was that they were in negotiations about the matter. I have my suspicions, and I wish the project well. The old place deserves preservation.

We sang the old Scandinavian hymn, “Children of the Heav’nly Father” in harmony before we left.

Afterward we wove our way through circuitous highway repairs to Lakewood Cemetery, traditional resting place of Minneapolis’ great and good. There we visited the graves of Professors Georg Sverdrup and Sven Oftedal, the founders of the Lutheran Free Church. Our guys.

This outing got me thinking about our tradition, the Haugean movement, and its place in history.

Continue reading A day trip, and historical meditations →
Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Crockett,’ by Buddy Levy

3 Comments

Patience and compromise were two necessities for political success at the highest levels, and Crockett would never possess either.

I am, and will always be, I expect, fascinated by the American legend of “Davy” Crockett. The “Crockett Craze,” sparked by a three-episode series on Walt Disney’s television show, exploded on the scene just at the time when I was becoming aware of the world around me. The image of actor Fess Parker in his coonskin cap and buckskins remains etched on my mind. This memory I share with many other Baby Boomers. I think each of the several books I’ve read previously about Crockett’s life have been presented in the form of a sort of dialogue with my generation’s memories of that cultural moment.

But we Boomers are passing from the scene, and it’s time for a book that handles the life of Col. David Crockett, bear hunter and Tennessee congressman, more or less from scratch. Which is what Buddy Levy’s Crockett: The Real-Life Adventures of the Frontier Legend does. Disney does not appear on stage until the mop-up chapters at the end.

Viewed historically, the 1950s Crockett Craze was a second act. Crockett was America’s (perhaps the world’s) first celebrity in the modern sense – a person made famous by the media. A rising population of literate common people was hungry for a hero with whom they could identify. And Crockett, an unpolished, definitely not wealthy congressman from the ragged western edge of the republic, filled the bill perfectly. He had sufficient credentials as a wilderness hunter and army scout to provide the bare bones for a legend, and his rustic wit and braggadocio always made him good newspaper copy.

Author Levy has organized sometimes meager documentary evidence, presenting it along with Crockett’s own (generally pretty reliable) autobiography to recount the man’s story in a fascinating and sympathetic way. He believes (as some historians doubt) that Crockett was sincere in his opposition to Pres. Jackson’s removal of the Native American tribes – certainly prejudice (which sprang from cruel warfare on both sides) caused most of his fellow settlers to hate the tribes generally, but it’s also true that Crockett had fought alongside friendly Indians during the Creek War, and some of their race had saved his life on at least one occasion. (He does gloss over Crockett’s slave-holding, though). He affirms the traditional account of Crockett’s execution at the Alamo, though a footnote mentions that there are contrary views.

All in all, I found Crockett a very readable and fascinating account of a remarkable American life. I do recommend it.