Sam and I appreciated being invited to the premier documentary about Ivar Sandberg shown in a theater in the JFSB theater at BYU on Thursday, January 26, 2023. It was nice to see members of the Sandberg family there and others who had been part of the Gettysburg branch in South Dakota in those early years.
Members of the Sandberg family
plus me (Narene, 2nd from right) & Otis Clinton Jones (center), the 90-year-old gentleman seated in the center wearing a yellow sweater who is the missionary having served as the district president when Ivar was the branch president in Gettysburg.
Ivar would later have served as the district president had he not died following an accident while driving, and so my dad who was going to be Ivar's councilor became the first South Dakotan to serve as president in this newly formed district.
I had always enjoyed hearing the inspirational story about Ivar Sandberg during my years of growing up and had shared it with my family; but the documentary included things I had not known before, including the reason for his coming to the United States from Sweden as a teenager because of the hunting accident.
Professor Fred Woods who produced the documentary had come to our home in Spanish Fork twice to interview me knowing my parents were the first church members in South Dakota Ivar had met and they became good friends.
Watching this film, I was completely surprised to see that several times I was included in the film sharing my comments.
My mother and dad holding me in 1938 (back row, left)
with K. and Louise standing in front of our dad.
The Larson parents are at the right with their two older daughters at the left and right of Louise and their youngest daughter in front of Louise. Ivar Sandberg is between my dad and Lulu Larsen.
The name of the film is A Swede and a Seed: The conversion story f Ivar Sandberg. To watch it, here is the link:
https://www.byutv.org/2cbefc46-58bb-45a9-a25b-f01d29c8c597/a-swede-and-a-seed:-the-ivar-sandberg-story?player-open=true&content-id=2cbefc46-58bb-45a9-a25b-f01d29c8c597
The next photo of Ivar and his wife, Mildred, was included in the documentary and is a photographer's photo I provided from one I inherited from my parents.
Ivar and his wife, Mildred
My brother, being 12 years older than me, remembers when Ivar baptized Mildred in the Missouri River near our home in Cheyenne Agency. My father wrote in his autobiography that Ivar and Mildred came to our home to get ready for the baptism and then returned to their home following the baptism where Mildred was confirmed and they had a fast and testimony meeting.
After Ivar's death, my dad, who would have served as Ivar's counselor had Ivar not died as a result of the accident, was then called to be the district president.
Art Eliason (left, Ivar's brother-in-law, married to Vivian who is Mildred's sister) and Elmer Peters (right) were my dad's counselors
(LeRoi Nelson, center).
A current photo of Ivar and Mildred's children (with Gilbert's wife, Michelle, in the front and left of Gilbert): (l to r) Wanda, (Michelle), Gilbert, Philip, Charlotte, David, and Kathleen
I have many nice memories of attending branch and district conferences of the Gettysburg branch in the small rural chapel. As an older teenager I often was the driver to branch and district conferences while my dad would spend the time thinking about and preparing for the conference.
In the documentary there is a photo of my dad with Ivar at the groundbreaking for this chapel. Years later, a very memorable district conference for me was when Elder Bruce R. McConkie was the visiting General Authority. I took notes in shorthand of his talk, "Born Again." Sam had also gone to this conference with me.
"Now, we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have taken upon ourselves his name in the waters of baptism. We renew the covenant therein made when we partake of the sacrament. If we have been born again, we have become the sons and daughters of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are members of his family. We are obligated and expected to live by the standards of the family. Because of that family membership, that close association, we have the privilege of an intimate association with him. We have been given the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is the constant companionship of that member of the Godhead based on faithfulness. And that Holy Spirit has as one of his chief missions to bear record of the Father and the Son, and to reveal to us, in a way that cannot be controverted or questioned, his divine sonship and the glorious truths that are in him." (Elder Bruce R. McConkie)
Family of Ivar Sandberg
at the premier showing of the film "A Sweed and a Seed. The Ivar Sandberg Story." - BYU on Jan. 26, 2023.
We saw David Sandberg and his wife (2nd row at the right in brown suits) in St. Petersburg when we were on our mission in Russia. David was the mission president in St. Petersburg.
In my dad's autobiography, he wrote this about the Sandberg's children, as of August 1988: "All graduated from BYU. Their son Gilbert is a stake president in Denver, Colorado; Philip is a bishop in Canada, and David is a bishop in Sadia Arabia."
What a wonderful family legacy!
