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She's the Official Keeper of Covenant History

CHICAGO, IL (March 19, 2001) -

The history of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) is full of many stories - and most of them can be found in a room that's probably no bigger than your average apartment.

The ECC Archives, located at North Park Theological Seminary, may be a bit cramped, but the facility houses plenty of primary source material for the denomination. Ellen Engseth, director of Archives and Special Collections at North Park University, has enjoyed learning about the ECC while settling into a job that seems a perfect fit.

Besides her archival work for North Park and the ECC, Engseth serves as an archivist with the Swedish-American Archives of greater Chicago. She was a teaching professor at the University of Illinois in Champaign before coming to North Park.

The daughter of a Covenant pastor, Engseth had thoughts of becoming a veterinarian until she took a trip to Great Britain at age 17 and fell in love with the history of the country. After attending the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as an undergraduate and earning a history degree, Engseth thought about working in a museum as her vocation, but feels comfortable in her current position. She appreciates both the mission of the Covenant church and its reverence of church history.

"I loved working with paper documents far more than I ever thought I would," Engseth said. "The historical value of them and the research value they had for people intrigued me. Professionally, I have a mission and an ethic to document the past accurately and to make that source material available to a wide variety of people so that we can make history and interpret history. Combining that with an understanding of the very important ministry of this denomination made it appealing to me, too. It was a wonderful way to combine my professional skills with the ministry of this denomination.

"History is important," she continued. "People may not think so, but they're always interested in an old story or history. I know that because I have such a wide variety of people walking through the door and wanting to find something from 20 years ago or 50 years ago. And they all have a wide variety of reasons for wanting that information."

Engseth sees her main role as overseer of documented material for the ECC. The archives serves as a record-keeping resource for the ECC administration and gathers stories of activities and personalities making news in the Covenant. Engseth also serves in an advisory role, helping churches compile records, aiding them in prioritizing what records to keep and offering limited research assistance for individual churches. The Commission on Covenant History is also a resource to help churches in their record keeping.

"The most difficult thing is handling the amount of documentary material we have available," said Engseth, who has a Masters degree in History/Library & Information Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "You can't keep everything, so it's a management issue. We can't actively be an information agency for every query - it's impossible."

In making archival information more accessible to churches, newspapers from the early years of the denomination, written in Swedish, have been put on microfilm. So have the early records of more than 350 churches. However, much of the early ECC primary source material is only available on-site.

"The archives has much unique material, like Karl Olsson's personal research papers, for example," Engseth said. "People have to come and sit at these tables to look at these documents. But, in many ways, that's the way it should be. A unique document has inherent value to itself as a document that loses value in the reproduction. We want to make the information as accessible as possible, but we want to make sure to care for the original document because it has its own value . . . that's what I feel my job is."

If documents chronicling the rich history of the ECC won't draw visitors to the archives, the unique objects interspersed around the building might. A unique collection of artifacts includes a giant marionette used by evangelists Margaret and Willard Grant, a bust of early church leader Peter Paul Waldenstrom and a clock owned by an early North Park Theological Seminary professor, Axel Mellander. The collection also includes artwork, carvings, textiles and records of all types. "That's what is really fun and varied about this job," Engseth said. The accompanying photo shows a chair that once belonged to pastor and hymn writer Nils Frykman.

Who uses the archives? According to Engseth, the primary clientele includes students, denominational and North Park administration, Covenanters around North America (usually researching their churches) and genealogists looking for information about a relative who attended a Mission Friends or Evangelical Covenant Church. "Genealogists are incredibly rewarding to work with," said Engseth. "Their questions are always so personal to them and finding an answer is such a great reward to them."

Swedish authors have taken information about the past history of the denomination and Swedish-American culture and have used it for background material for their works. Local historians have used the archives to document the history of Chicago. Recently, Engseth aided a filmmaker producing a documentary about famous Covenant painter Warner Sallman, providing film footage of Sallman producing a chalk talk sketch at a church meeting.

During the next year, much of Engseth's time will be spent organizing records for an anticipated move this fall into the new Paul and Bernice Brandel Library under construction at North Park University. She doesn't mind the extra work, however, knowing that her new digs will make life immensely easier for future researchers.

"We are really excited about the new library," she said. "The archives is going to feel and manage itself a lot differently at the new building. We'll have fantastic physical resources, which we haven't had up to this point - 10,000 square feet of vertical shelving (quadruple the current space), which will appropriately house material. We'll also have plenty of research space and there will be a staff workroom."

Will Engseth miss her old haunts? Perhaps, but not as much as the spirits of the old building, rumored to be the unofficial gatekeepers of the facility. "I haven't heard of any actual ghosts, although I believe they are in here," Engseth mused. "They're probably just enjoying the atmosphere."

Engseth updates her archival web site, which can be accessed at www.northpark.edu under the Information Resources link. The Commission on Covenant History has drafted guidelines for congregations to help them maintain their own archives. For a look at the guidelines, as well as a link to the archival web site, visit Covenant Archives. Engseth can be contacted by email at eengseth@northpark.edu or by telephone at 773-244-6224. Historical documentation will only be accepted after prior consultation.

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