Features Editor- Eric Hofer
Melva Lind Interpretive Center
In 1953, Melva Lind came to Gustavus as a French professor and Dean of Students. She worked at several colleges as a French professor and as Associate in Higher Education for the American Association of University Women in Washington D.C. Later that same year, she used her role as Dean of Students to aid in overturning the college’s ban on dancing. She later became Director of International Education, deepening Gustavus’ exchange connections with Japan and Sweden.
In 1975, she was nominated as a candidate for president of Gustavus, though Edward Lindell was ultimately selected. Lind later served on the Board of Trustees throughout Lindell’s presidency. Throughout her life, she obtained several accolades, such as decoration as a knight by the Swedish Royal Order of the North Star, the King’s Gold Medal from Sweden, a Silver Medal from France, and was named an honorary princess of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma.
Anderson Hall
Arthur Anderson was born to Swedish immigrants and grew up in Minneapolis. He began a career in the Minneapolis court system, becoming the Clerk of the Hennepin County Municipal Courts after World War II. At the same time, he obtained his law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.
After over thirty years in the court system, Anderson continued working as a Workers’ Compensation Attorney, later receiving a promotion to Senior Workers’ Compensation Judge. He was deeply involved in philanthropy and briefly served on the Gustavus Board of Trustees. Upon his passing in 2002, his estate established the Arthur H. Anderson Trust, which has awarded over $300,000 to Gustavus as of 2024.
Olin Hall
Before becoming a prominent industrialist, Franklin Walter Olin briefly pursued a career in professional baseball. While studying civil engineering at Cornell University in 1881, he played for teams in Washington, Toledo, and a single game for Detroit. However, he performed quite poorly in the game, ending his short baseball career with an impressive batting average of 0.316.
In 1892, Olin founded the F. W. Olin Corporation, which eventually became part of the larger Olin Corporation, which is still around today. In 1898, he started another company to manufacture ammunition, which later saw use in World War I. Following World War II, his two companies were solidified into a single entity. Throughout his career, he oversaw the Franklin W. Olin Foundation, which gave grants to colleges across the country for the furtherment of science and engineering. In the late 1980s, Gustavus won one of these highly competitive grants, naming the building after the charity’s founder.
Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library
Folke Bernadotte was born to Prince Oscar II of Sweden and attended school in Stockholm, later entering training to become a cavalry officer. As World War II broke out, Bernadotte worked to train the Boy Scouts as medical assistants, becoming Vice Chairman of the Swedish Red Cross in 1943. That same year, he organized prisoner exchanges which brought over 11,000 prisoners from Germany. In April 1945, Heinrich Himmler circumvented Adolf Hitler by asking Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt which would allow Germany to surrender to the Western Allies but continue fighting against the Soviet Union. Bernadotte told Himmler it had no chance of approval, but passed it along anyway. It was not approved.
Following Hitler’s death, Bernadotte successfully freed nearly 15,000 people from concentration camps. In 1948 Bernadotte became a UN mediator during the Arab-Israeli conflict, succeeding in achieving a truce between both sides. He struggled to peacefully resolve the conflict, though faced opposition from the many parties involved. However, he managed to submit a peace proposal to the UN, until he was tragically assassinated in his UN convoy. Following his assassination, Gustavus decided to rename their library in his honor as a memorial site. Bernadotte’s wife traveled to Gustavus to attend its dedication in 1950.