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The Swedona Lutheran Church (Swedona, Mercer County, Illinois) was organized 7 March 1859 with 183 charter members. The town was first named Berlin. Collection includes one record booklet of ministerial acts (communion) from Berlins Evangelical Lutheran Församling from 1859-1861. 

In what Augustana President Steve Bahls said likely was the first joint event in 140 years between Augustana College of Rock Island and Augustana College of Sioux Falls, the two schools came together Saturday, June 5, 2010, at Jefferson Prairie Lutheran Church near the Illinois-Wisconsin border to celebrate the 150th anniversary of their founding.

Clara Kristina Hammarquist was born in Sweden in 1845. She immigrated to the United States in 1868 and was active in the choir at First Lutheran Church in Rockford, Illinois. Collection contains one handwritten songbook of hymns with both music and text used in First Lutheran Church circa 1868-1870. 

Marie Westerberg Vader (1893-1994) was the daughter of Swedish immigrants and attended Iowa Lutheran Hospital’s Nurses Training School in Des Moines, Iowa from 1915 to 1917. Collection includes her remembrances of her time there and a brief history of the hospital.

Erik Jönsson immigrated to the United States in 1856 and settled in Nicollet County, Minnesota. His wife, Maria, and son, Per, were murdered by Indians during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Collection includes a photocopy and English translation of a letter describing the Sioux Uprising and Jönsson’s experience as well as a typed article recollection of the same by another survivor, C.C. Nelson, in The Lafayette Ledger newspaper. 

Alex J. Erickson (1896-1995), the son of Swedish immigrants, worked in Buxton and Pershing, Iowa coal mines. Collection consists of a typed summary of an interview with him in 1983 and copied information on coal mining in Buxton, Iowa.