Helga Fjelstad (1864-1938)
Helga Fjelstad served as matron of Concordia College for thirty-three years. An excellent cook and manager, Fjelstad was the head of the dining hall staff and helped manage the boarding department’s finances. She was affectionately nicknamed “Mother Fjelstad” by the students, who often sought her out for comfort and advice. Fjelstad Hall is named after her, in honor of her many contributions to Concordia College.
Helga P. Fjelstad was born on October 16, 1864, in Vestre Toten, Norway. Around the age of twenty-one, she immigrated to the United States. After spending a short time in New York, she moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and shortly after to Moorhead.[1]
Fjelstad’s work at Concordia College began in 1895. The school had grown to the point of needing a matron, and the boarding department began searching for someone to fill the position. Fjelstad was recommended to department head Rasmus Bogstad. She was initially reluctant to take the position, as she feared she was unqualified, but Bogstad eventually persuaded her. She was hired as matron starting that fall.[2]
Fjelstad had a variety of responsibilities as matron of the college. She efficiently managed the dining hall staff and built a stellar reputation as a cook. As she expressed to the Concordian, Fjelstad believed, "When [the students] work so hard, they must have something good to eat.”[3] To that end, she ordered high-quality food supplies at the lowest possible price. Fjelstad’s staff included many student workers, who she trained for their positions; girls learned to cook and wait tables, and boys learned to clean the tables, dishes, and floors. When the boarding department briefly shut down due to a typhoid outbreak, Fjelstad and her helpers set up a temporary dining hall in the lower floor of the Bogstads’ house. She brought food to the sick students during that and subsequent illness outbreaks. Before Concordia had a resident nurse, Fjelstad tended to students who were ill. She also spent a short time supervising the girls’ dormitory as preceptress.[4]
Fjelstad’s practical knowledge was valuable in maintaining the boarding department budget. She developed strategies to save money, including buying the year’s supply of wheat in the fall when it was cheapest, keeping cows for milk and pigs for pork, and buying fish from the source rather than resale. These methods led to the boarding department regularly having a surplus of up to $2,000, while other departments had deficits. As a mark of gratitude for her work, the college raised her salary each year, until eventually they let her set her own salary. They trusted her and knew she would not be greedy.[5]
However, Fjelstad was best known for her unofficial services to the college and its students. Early on, Concordia was an academy and had students as young as fourteen years old, most of whom were Norwegian immigrants. Fjelstad served as a second mother to the students, earning her the nickname “Mother Fjelstad.” She continued this role for the rest of her years at Concordia. Her bakery was always open to students, who often came to her for advice, fresh coffee, and baked goods. Fjelstad enjoyed these visits, and she helped many students through personal crises.[6]
Fjelstad was involved in the larger Fargo-Moorhead community, as well. Homeless people from town would beg to Fjelstad for meals, which she gave to them. However, if they were Norwegian, she also gave them a lecture on good Christian life, because to her, begging was seen as a “sin against Norwegian nature.” Fjelstad was often described as a humble, grounded Christian woman. She was a member of the Ladies Aid Society at Trinity Lutheran Church in Moorhead and the Concordia Women’s League.[7]
In 1921, after twenty-six years of service, Fjelstad decided to retire. She bought a house in Moorhead and lived there with her niece Olga Christina Fjelstad, who worked at Concordia as secretary to President Brown. However, Fjelstad’s first replacement lasted less than six months. Two years later, Fjelstad was persuaded to come back to her position at Concordia. She continued until the spring of 1930, when she retired for the final time due to ill health. In all, she worked at Concordia for thirty-three years.[8]
The students and faculty of Concordia College expressed their gratitude to Fjelstad through a variety of honors. On her twenty-fifth year of service, she was given an engraved cup and a check for $500. At Concordia’s fortieth anniversary, she was given a certificate of appreciation, which she framed and hung in her living room. The new school song written for the anniversary, “Hymn to Concordia,” was dedicated to her. In 1937, construction began on what would become Fjelstad Hall, a new women’s dormitory. Fjelstad felt that it was “too great an honor” to have the building named after her.[9] She ceremoniously shoveled the first dirt for the building in the spring of 1937 and attended the dormitory’s cornerstone-laying ceremony later that year. Unfortunately, Fjelstad did not live to see the building’s completion in 1938.[10]
The loss of Helga Fjelstad was keenly felt by the students, staff, and community members she influenced during her years at Concordia. She passed away in a Fargo hospital on January 28, 1938. Over 600 people attended her funeral, an indication of the many lives she touched. The day following her funeral, the college held consecration rites and illuminated Fjelstad Hall for the first time. Over her years of work, it is estimated she served over six million meals to well over 7,000 total students. Fjelstad loved Concordia College, which she showed through her service. She is regarded as one of the most important contributors to Concordia’s success. Still, Fjelstad insisted, “I’ve only tried to do what I could. That was all.”[11]
Author: Caroline Cronk
Footnotes
[1] “Concordia Pays Final Tribute To 'Grand Old Lady,' Miss Helga Fjelstad, At Funeral Services Tuesday,” Concordian, February 3, 1938, 1; Ancestry.com, U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Records, 1781-1969 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), 444, Helga Fjelstad.
[2] Rasmus Bogstad, Concordia College Through Fifty Years (Moorhead, MN, 1942), 106.
[3] “Concordia Dining Hall Has Enviable Record for Its Meals,” Concordian, November 23, 1927.
[4] Bogstad, Concordia College, 106-107; Erling Nicolai Rolfsrud, Cobber Chronicle: An Informal History of Concordia College (Moorhead, MN: Concordia College, 1966) 36, 40-41; “Miss Helga Fjelstad,” Moorhead Daily News, October 35, 1923.
[5] Bogstad, Concordia College, 109-110.
[6] Thomas Christenson, “Persons of Interest: Helga Fjelstad,” in Scout (Moorhead, MN: Concordia College, 1976), 11; Bogstad, Concordia College, 107-108; Rolfsrud, Cobber Chronicle, 36-37; “Matron Surprised,” Concordian, October 23, 1925.
[7] Christenson, “Persons,” 11; Bogstad, Concordia College, 108; “Concordia Pays.”
[8] Bogstad, Concordia College, 111; “Concordia Pays;” “Matron at Concordia to Share Dedication Honor,” Moorhead Daily News, October 9, 1937; “Helga Fjelstad, ‘Mother’ to Many Students, is Dead,” Moorhead Daily News, January 29, 1938.
[10] Bogstad, Concordia College, 110-111; Rolfsrud, Cobber Chronicle, 100, 102; “Matron at Concordia;” “Fjelstad Hall Nearly Completed,” Moorhead Daily News, October 1937.
[11] WDAY, Inc., Concordia College, October 31, 1937, Moorhead, MN, radio broadcast transcript; “Helga Fjelstad;” “Consecration Rites, Illumination Mark Dormitory Opening,” Concordian, February 3, 1938, 1; “Mother to 7,000 Pupils Resigns,” Moorhead Daily News, 1921; “Matron Has Served Thirty-One Years,” Concordian, February 3, 1928.