Part two of a series
Since 2002, a pair of life-sized, bronze sculptures appear unperturbed by the Highway 44/Main Street traffic passing just a few feet from their prominent position in Viking Memorial Park in Spring Grove. From 1918 to 1942, these two Norwegian-speaking cartoon characters Ola and Per (pronounced “pair”) appeared in the Norwegian-language Decorah-Posten newspaper. From those pages, they became folk heroes to Norwegian-Americans, who were delighted by their antics, which humorously portrayed the hopes, endeavors and experiences of the rural Norwegian-American way of life.
Why are their bronzed representations in Spring Grove? As covered in last week’s column, Ola, Per and their friends and relatives were created, drawn and submitted by Spring Grove farmer/artist Peter Rosendahl in a comic strip entitled “Han Ola og han Per.” (Him Ola and him Per). Although, one particular version of their pen and ink figures has become emblematic with the city of Spring Grove, Ola and Per have become recognized far beyond southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa and even by those who do not speak Norwegian.
As early as 1921, Anundsen Publishing Co. began to publish collections of the strips in book form, ultimately in eight volumes. In the 1980s, the cartoons were translated into English and published in two editions, both in the United States and Norway, by Joan Buckley (Concordia University) and Einar Haugen (Harvard University).
With inspiration, promotion and financing from Spring Grove residents Dr. Jim and Karen Gray, in collaboration with Spring Grove Area Past, Present and Future (SGAPPF) and Ye Olde Opera House, the beloved cartoon characters would make artistic appearances in the home town of their creator.
In 1981, Ola and Per were featured in an award-winning television documentary, “Ola and Per: The Cartoons of Peter Rosendahl.” A new carton appeared, in which Per says, “Say, Ola. Have you heard they’re going to put us on television, then?” Ola replies, “That’s wonderful, Per. But what is television?”
Before wider release, the half-hour documentary premiered in Spring Grove on May 3, 1981. It was written and produced by Paul D. Burtness, who lived in Minneapolis at the time, but like Rosendahl, was born in Spring Grove.
The following autumn, the documentary received the Gold Plaque, one of the top awards at the annual Chicago International Film Festival. Two decades and a year later, Burtness issued a new release, with an introduction by Greg Wennes, just in time for the 2002 dedication of the bronze Ola and Per, sculpted by Spring Grove native and 1970 graduate of Spring Grove High School, Craig Bergsgaard.
Four years before the bronze Ola and Per were unveiled in the park, Bergsgaard, who was residing in Littleton, Colo., received a phone call from Spring Grove with Karen Gray asking if he would be interested in sculpting the cartoon characters and having them cast in bronze. Bergsgaard said he recalled an old acquaintance once saying, “Get the job first, and then figure out how to do it.” He answered, “I can’t say yes fast enough.”
Almost immediately, he was seized by what he termed “a minor panic.” He remembered his parents having mentioned Ola and Per and something about the Decorah Posten. Gray sent him a book she had, and he bought one himself. “I was off on a four-year odyssey that has had a profound impact on my life and on the way I view my heritage and my country.”
Bergsgaard started first on Ola in December 1998. “I knew I needed to start three years prior to dedicating the life-sized pieces.” Transforming from a one-dimensional object to a three-dimensional sculpture was more than a challenge. “The cartoon characters were nearly always drawn in profile or from the back; frontal and 3/4 views are virtually nonexistent… Times of self-doubt, frustration and dissatisfaction with my abilities and myself were commonplace.” After sharing those thoughts with a mentor, Bergsgaard was told, “Welcome to the human race.”
Bergsgaard and the preliminary 18-inch characters, called maquettes, made two trips to Spring Grove for consultation with those who were most familiar with Ola and Per, including Peter Rosendahl’s daughter-in-law Georgia Rosendahl. Once the maquettes were adjusted, approved, molded and cast, it was time to begin the process of enlargement. Fashioning the heads and facial expressions was the most difficult part of enlargement. The heads made their own automobile excursion to Spring Grove, and then they returned to Colorado in search of their bodies. The committee from Spring Grove traveled in Lee and Louise Sundet’s motorhome, Monica, to Colorado for the next examination – out and back in two days. At the foundry, 2,000-degree molten lava was poured into a ceramic shell.
Peter Rosendahl, whose immigrant father died when Peter was only two, spent his life on the family farm. In 1905, in his 27th year of life, Peter married Othlelia Melbraaten. They had four children. There were a few vacation travels, but Peter was a full-time farmer. However, without field work in winter, there was time for him to pursue other interests. After only an eighth-grade formal education, he took a variety of correspondence courses, including electrical engineering and art. In 17 years (1918-1935), over 700 of his cartoons were published in the Decorah-Posten.
Despite creating so much laughter and pleasure for so long for so many others, Rosendahl experienced his own life progressing into melancholy and eventually depression. Peter grieved when his mother Gunhild and brother Oliver died in 1939. The world’s progression into World War II brought him distress. The progression of arthritis increasingly deprived him of his ability to draw and write. On August 23, 1942, about seven years after Rosendahl stopped writing cartoons, he took his own life at age 64.
Much of this information comes from a tribute to Peter Rosendahl and his art in Giants of the Earth Heritage Center (formerly the Ballard House) in Spring Grove. The 2002 reissued television documentary can be viewed as part of that exhibit. On the other end of Main Street, the bronzed Ola and Per await visitors, too.
Sources: “Ola and Per; Home to Stay,” (2002); Giants of the Earth Heritage Center
