Rev. Christensen was area’s first resident missionary pastor

HARTINGTON — Rev. Emil Gustav Andreas Christensen is considered to be the first resident Lutheran home missionary pastor in Northeast Nebraska and Southeast Dakota Territory.

He was the pastor who agreed to come to the Paragon area, even though he was already serving 12 churches in South Dakota.

Christensen was born Oct. 17, 1838, in Chistianisa (now Oslo) Norway. At the age of 10, he came to American with his parents, Gulbrand and Karein Marie Christensen, and lived in Manitowoo, Wis. His early desire was to serve God in the ministry, but illness and other circumstances forced him to give up his studies.

In 1862 he married Amalie Morbeck, from Stavanger, Norway, a teacher in the public schools and a true helper.

During the next couple of years, the call of the ministry grew very strong and with encouragement, he enrolled to study theology in St. Louis in 1865. He was graduated and ordained in 1867. In August, he and his wife and two little sons set out for the southern part of Dakota Territory. The trip over the Missouri Bottoms was unbelievable — the wagon was drawn by oxen through tall weeds and mosquito infested swamps.

He was exhausted from fighting the mosquitos and wiping blood from the faces of his family members. The first meal in their sod shanty consisted of porridge made from a little corn left in their sack that had to be ground in a coffee grinder.

Besides his pastoral duties, Christensen had those of a physician. In St. Louis, the future home missionaries were instructed in the elements of medicine and often had to give help to the bodily ill, as our foreign missionaries do today. Each home missionary carried his supply of drugs and medicine and new supplies were sent from St. Louis as needed.

He served his large Dakota-Nebraska parishes for nine years. Eight of them brought crop failures and many of his church members had moved to Stanwood, Wash., and wanted him to follow them.

He worked for several years in Washington and Oregon and then accepted a call to Idaho. In 1883, he was called to Winnebago County, Iowa. While there, a Forest City doctor came to take him along for a consultation. When he stepped into the buggy, though, the horses started and he was thrown on his back on the hard ground. He resigned from his congregation and moved to Milwaukee, but was never well after that. After many heart attacks, he died Nov. 23, 1889.

The last hymn he was heard singing was Far verder, farve (I bid three farewell, O world).