Bethel University - Spire Yearbook (St Paul, MN)

Page 9 text:

Dn cz -jifixsciakion For twenty-seven years Dr. G. Arvid Hagstrom has been both a friend and a counsellor to students at Bethel as he has, with a God-given humility, wisely directed the course of our school. In appreciation for these years of service and for his unfailing kindness and sympathetic understanding, we dedicate to Dr. Hagstrom this 1941 SPIRE.

Page 8 text:

 Good morning! ... Is everyone here? . . . We're glad to have you v ith us today. Rev. Mangs . . . And now home. DR G. ARVID HAGSTROM, DD.

Page 10 text:

' S o tzacfi us, • • Time determines the stature of a man and fathoms his innate worth. This test of time has been applied to Dr. G. Arvid Hagstrom, and each succeeding year he has emerged with a richer and a fuller character. On the personal side, time has endowed Dr. Hagstrom with a dignity and courtliness few men possess. Anyone who has seen him will not soon forget his erect, youthful posture, his gray hair and his kindly blue eyes with their perennial twinkle. His is a life that is full indeed. He might well have said with the Psalmist, So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Every day in the life of this man seems veritably to have been numbered and every hour seems to have had its well-ordered place. And always he has been of a keen and inquiring mind—truly a seeker after wisdom. Yes, this one has made good use of the time given him. And so time has in turn dealt kindly . . . Dr. Hagstrom was bom in Sundsvall, Sweden, on September 8, 1867. His parents brought him to this country the following year, so he remembers nothing of his first long sea voyage. As a boy, he attended Sunday School and worship services at the First Swedish Baptist Church of Minneapolis. When he arrived at the age of fifteen, the age when most boys must make important decisions, he decided to accept the Lord lesus Christ as his personal Saviour and was beplized that same year. Dr. Frank Peterson was then serving the Minneapolis church Dr. Hagstrom, in later life, performed a labor of love and admiration for his pastor when he set his pen to the task of writing the Biography of Dr. Frank Peterson. The young lad was educated in Minneapolis public and business schools and also through the extension department of the University of Des Moines. He entered seminary training in 1889 and graduated from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Later he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Wake Forest College, Wake Forest, North Carolina. He gained his earliest actual preaching experience at Kenyon, Minnesota, where he served the church in 1890 and 1891. He next accepted a call to the church at Newark, Illinois, where he served from 1891 to 1893. In this church, in 1892, he was ordcined as a minister. On the first of June, 1892, the young minister of the Gospel married Caroline Wilhelmina An-