Scandinavian Conference Bios

Rick Matthews
On Thursday evening, Rick Matthews from the Icelandic Association of Utah will offer tidbits of know-how on “Finding your Scandinavian Roots.”

Specifically, Matthews will discuss how to conduct Danish family-history research. The presentation will give an overview of basic skills needed for Danish family-history. Included will be a brief overview of Danish history, geography and culture. Matthews will also explain the four major record sources used in Danish family-history, and what can be learned from each.

Though Matthews’ area of emphasis is Denmark, he says his presentation “will help those doing research in Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland, as all of Scandinavia uses the same basic techniques and has the same basic resources.”

Matthews has been actively involved in family-history research for 18 years, and for the last six years has teaching family-history as a consultant at the Brigham Young University Family History Library for where he has taught beginning classes on Scandinavian family-history.

Matthews has strong ties to both Scandinavia and Ephraim. His grandparents were Mortensens from Ephraim, and as a Snow College student he worked at his Uncle Doyle and Aunt Arthella Larsen’s store in Ephraim, Doyle’s Ace Hardware.

“Most of my ancestors come from Denmark, and most of those who came to Utah settled in Sanpete County,” he says.

Shirely Bahlmann
Friday morning will find conference-goers entertained by local historian/writer/storyteller Shirley Bahlmann. Bahlmann will transport her listeners into the past through a combination of hands-on demonstrations and stories that will give a glimpse of life in early Scandinavian Sanpete.

“Those of us who have not figured out the intricacies of time travel must rely on the writings, buildings, clothing and every day items that the people who lived before us have left behind,” Bahlmann says of her presentation.

Bahlmann will demonstrate such charming old-world chores as grinding grain with a rock, washing clothes on a washboard, and unraveling thread for sewing your underwear, “which, by the way,” she says, “is made from an old flour sack.”

Interspersed with all that, Bahlmann will delight the audience with selections from her vault of Scandinavian pioneer stories, for which she is well-known.

“One story will make you laugh when you find out what really happened to the geese. Another keeps you on the edge of your seat while you wait to find out if the killer in the hen house will be the last thing that Adelia sees in this life,” Bahlmann hints.

In fact, she just published her seventh book of tales from Sanpete’s early settlers, “The Pioneers: A Course in Miracles,” released on May 15.

Kim Cragun
The final presentation of the conference, Saturday morning, will offer more hands-on activities, this time dealing with Scandinavian food.

Kim Cragun, an associate professor in Snow College’s Department of Home and Family Studies, will talk a little about Danish food, and then will lead the participating audience in actually preparing some.

The presentation will begin with a brief history of Danish cuisine and an explanation of why Danes eat the food they eat and why they use the condiments they use.

After the lecture portion, Cragun and conference attendees will move to the Food Lab in the Snow College Home and Family Studies. There, audience members will try their hands at preparing a different dishes, whose names look much worse than the food tastes:

• Smorrebrod (open-faced sandwiches)
• Rejesalat (shrimp salad)
• Agurkesalat (cucumber salad)
• Ris a l’amande (rice pudding)
• Rodkal (red cabbage)
• Flaekesteg and Brunede kartofler (roast pork and carmelized potatoes) • Kogt torsk and sennepsovs til kogt torsk (boiled cod and mustard sauce)