THEODORA CORMONTAN, Composer
and Bonnie Jorgensen
Afew miles southwest of Decorah, Iowa, in the midst of a meadow and encircled by Norwegian pines that whisper secrets when the wind stirs them, the Aase Haugen Cemetery serves as the final resting place for Norwegian-American pioneers who came to the “Aase Haugen Sunset Home for Old People” to live their last years. This includes Theodora Cormontan, whose tombstone, with its misspelled last name and incorrect birth date, attests that she was being forgotten even while she lived. Forgotten, that is, until May 2011, when over 150 of her original handwritten music manuscripts were rediscovered in St. Peter, Minnesota. Subsequent research reveals that Theodora Cormontan was the first woman to start her own music publishing business in Norway,1 and one of the first
to have her classical compositions published and widely performed there.2 She continued composing after she immigrated to the United States, and saw several of her hymns published in a Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran songbook. She is still remembered in Norway, where one of her hymns appears in the Church of Norway hymnal. Considering her compelling life and beautiful music, we would do well to remember her here.
Theodora Nicoline Meldal Cormontan was born on June 9, 1840, in Beitstad, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. At age 7 she moved to the southern coastal town of Arendal, where her father, Reverend Even Meldal Schjelderup Cormontan (17981893), was called to lead the Trinity Church.3 She received her early musical education from the town musician, F.W. Thoschag, and performed regularly in concerts.4
Young women could not attend high school in Norway until the 1880s, and Norwegian public colleges were not open to them until 1890,5 but Theodora’s economically advantaged and supportive parents enabled her to continue her
Michael
Theodora Cormontan, approximately 1865, 25 years old, taken in Norway. Photo courtesy of the authors, given to them by Nancy Clasen, the great grand-daughter of Theodora’s younger sister. Marie Cormontan Lyders.
From left to right, Eivinda, Theodora and Even Cormontan, circa 1865-1870, Norway. Photo courtesy of Aust-Agder Cultural History Center, Arendal, Norway.
musical studies, first in Leipzig and then, from 1863-1865, in Copenhagen.6 The death of her mother, Louise Augusta Hirsch Cormontan, in 1865 compelled Theodora to return to Arendal to be with her father. By this time he had been assigned to the position of Provst, giving him regional authority in the Church of Norway.7 Theodora assumed a central position in the local culture and made her presence felt in Arendal’s music scene, often with the assistance of the city choir or the Arendal Hornmusikk Association. She also held a permanent seat in the choir of her father’s church.8
Cormontan probably began composing during her student days or earlier, and certainly continued writing after returning to Arendal. However, while study and performance in piano and voice belonged to a young girl’s upbringing, societal conventions all but prohibited Norwegian women from composing professionally.9 Only after great perseverance did Theodora Cormontan succeed in getting her first work published in 1875 (when she was 35 years old) by Warmuth,10 the leading Nordic music publisher of that era.11 Over the next four years Warmuth issued fourteen of her songs, but only one piano piece.
Perhaps frustrated with the struggle to get anything but her songs published, in 1879 Cormontan started her own music publishing firm and music rental agency in Arendal.12 Over the next several years both businesses flourished. By 1885 Cormontan held about 8000 works in her rental library and published six of her own piano pieces in that year alone.13 She became the primary provider for the family when her father retired in 1882 after 57 years in the ministry.14
In 1886 the Cormontan residence burned down15 and an economic depression caused three Arendal banks to fail.16 The next year. Provst Cormontan (at the age of 89), Theodora, and her older sister Eivinda immigrated to Sacred Heart, Minnesota, to live temporarily with Theodora’s younger sister Marie and her husband Edward O. Lyders, the town’s first doctor and pharmacist.17 Within months Theodora presented a concert in which she sang in five languages and played her own compositions for the piano.18
Cormontan also excelled as a music instructor and started offering lessons in nearby Granite Falls on December 3, 1887. After a day of teaching, she began boarding the train to return to Sacred Heart when it lurched forward, causing her to fall and resulting in a spinal injury that left her partially paralyzed.19 Cormontan sued the railroad company and, in what the Minneapolis North newspaper described in October of 1889 as “a hotly contested personal injury case,” the twelveman jury found in favor of the plaintiff and awarded her $5,000 in damages.20
In early 1888 Theodora, her father, and her sister traveled thirty-five miles by sleigh to Franklin, Minnesota, to reside in their permanent home with Theodora’s older brother, Gottfred Christian Vogelsang (C.G.V.) Cormontan. A pharmacist, C.G.V. operated the first drug store in Franklin and served on the first town council.21 Theodora’s brother Hans, a carpenter, would join them by 1891. None of the four siblings would ever marry.
The family became members of the Fort Ridgely and Dale Evangelical Lutheran church in nearby Camp Township. The church’s Ministerial Book contains a log by its pastor, Nils Paul Xavier, recording several visits he made between 1888 and 1891 to “gamle” (old) Provst Cormontan and his “sygelige Datter” (sickly Daughter) Theodora. Rev. Xavier typically gave communion to them and the other family members
Scan of Opus 4, “Tre Sange” (Three Songs) by Theodora Cormontan. Published by Warmuth Musikforlag (Music Publishing) in 1877. Used with permission from Ringve Museum in Trondheim, Norway.
Theodora Cormontan circa 1870, 30 years old,taken in Norway. Photo courtesy of Aust-Agder Cultural History Center; Arendal, Norway.
and seemed to enjoy and appreciate his visits to the devout, educated family.22
By 1891 Theodora was well enough to host a Kvindeforeningen (Women’s Association) meeting,23 and in the next year local newspapers report that she began offering music lessons in Franklin and Morton, Minnesota.24 Grateful for her recovery, in 1892 the family donated a reed organ
to the church and Theodora became the first organist at Ft. Ridgely and Dale.25 She also conducted choirs in the area, and would play and direct at her father’s funeral following his death on February 14, 1893.26 While Theodora resumed much of her professional activity, it appears that she could not walk unaided and after her injury did not give public voice recitals, which required her to stand for long periods of time.
In the early 1890s Cormontan contributed several hymns to a magazine for young Lutherans called Ungdommens Ven (The Youth’s Friend) that subsequently appeared in a collection of choral music entitled Frydetoner (Joyful Songs).27 It is interesting to note that these hymns were published by ministers from the Hauge Synod, while at that time the Cormontan family worshiped in a Norwegian Synod church, the synod that would most closely reflect the theology of the Church of Norway. Despite both the Norwegian and United Synods issuing resolutions in opposition to the “gospel hymns” that appeared in the Frydetoner, it found great popularity in Norwegian-American communities, going through at least 25 printings.28 After the three synods merged in 1917 and English gradually became the language of the church, Cormontan’s Norwegian language hymns faded into history.
Her life as a church musician brought varied opportunities to Theodora. In addition to playing the organ
This is the first page of Theodora’s manuscript copy of “Ungbirken” for voice and piano, and varies somewhat from the arrangement in the Frydetoner
Reed (pump) organ at the Fort Ridgely and Dale Lutheran Church, donated to the church by the Cormontan family in 1892, when Theodora became the church’s first organist and choir director. Photo courtesy of the authors.
for an annual salary of $25.00,29 her experiences included providing music for a children’s festival held in the grove near the parsonage, assisting with the music and singing at confirmation services, and conducting the choir at a temperance lecture.30 Her performance activity outside the church included leading the combined Palmyra, Minnesota, and Franklin choirs in a Syttende Mai concert, playing the piano at a wedding reception, and accompanying a violinist in a Franklin Town Hall concert, which elicited from the Morton newspaper’s reviewer the comment “Miss Cormontan is too well known to need our recommendation.”31
The paper also noted numerous personal incidents regarding the Cormontans. It reported that some strangers tried to steal a calf from the Cormontan barn, but the family’s barking dogs thwarted the effort.32 C.G.V. treated a woman who severed an artery with a knife while digging molasses candy out of a pan.33 On another occasion, Theodora’s team took off without the driver or her and traveled several miles to the church before turning around.34
Growing economic pressures on the aging, childless siblings may have led C.G.V. to sell the Franklin Drug Store early in 1899 and open one in the larger town of Madelia, Minnesota.35 Needing to rebuild her music studio in this new location, Theodora Cormontan advertised in the
local newspaper that she was a “Pupil of Europe’s Greatest Musicians” and that she offered lessons in “Piano, Organ, Vocal Music, and Vocal Culture.”36 By June 1900, fierce competition forced C.G.V. to close his drug store and go to work as a pharmacist ten miles away in Hanska.37 Later in the decade he would travel to the far northern town of Kennedy, Minnesota38 before returning to Watonwan County to work in St. James.39 he family followed him to Hanska and St. James.40 Theodora would compose over 100 pieces of music during her 30 years in Minnesota, probably in the early morning or late at night by the light of a kerosene lamp.41 She played the piano at public events until at least 1910,42 was still teaching music lessons in 1914,43 and continued as a professional organist until at least 1915, when she was 75 years old.44 By this time the Cormontan family was listed on county relief records for disbursements to the poor.45 The extent of their poverty required Watonwan County to bury Hans and C.G.V. in unmarked graves46 when they died in 1913 and 1917, respectively.47 Shortly after C.G.V.’s death, Theodora and Eivinda became the 65th and 66th residents of the Aase Haugen Home.48 The facility opened its doors in 1915 as a result of the generous estate left by Aase Haugen to the United Norwegian Lutheran Church to help build a home for seniors, as well as through the hard work of Rev. Otto Schmidt
Aase Haugen Home, taken in 1915 as it was opening. Photo courtesy of Barb and Roger Nelson.
Theodora Cormontan, left, 77, and Eivinda Cormontan, right, 79, at the Aase Haugen Sunset Home for Old People in Decorah, Iowa. Picture taken in the Fall of 1917, right after they moved to the Home. Photo courtesy of Barb and Roger Nelson.
Theodora Cormontan on the front porch of the Aase Haugen Home in Decorah, Iowa, circa 1920. Photo courtesy of Barb and Roger Nelson.
of Decorah Lutheran Church, who spearheaded a financial campaign that made Aase’s vision a reality. Schmidt resigned from the church to become the Home’s first superintendent, a position he held until 1944.49 Schmidt’s wife, Mollie Helgerson Schmidt, was a trained musician who played the piano for the residents and befriended Theodora.50 Cormontan gave her life’s work of original compositions to her friend Mollie before Theodora died on October 26, 1922. Eivinda would pass away on November 8, 1924.51
The two sisters rest side by side among the murmuring pines of the Aase Haugen Cemetery. Theodora’s scores also rested in the attics of three generations of Schmidt women for close to a century. Their careful conservation of one NorwegianAmerican woman’s artistic vision has made possible the reanimation of her beautiful music and the preservation of the memory of Theodora Cormontan and the pioneers with whom she shared her hopes and dreams.
The Music of Theodora Cormontan
Theodora Cormontan saw eighteen songs, two hymns, and eight piano pieces that she composed published in Norway between1875-1885. The hymns and two of the piano pieces were also published in the United States, along with several other hymns and piano works. When added to the approximately 150 unpublished manuscripts found in St. Peter, Minnesota in 2011 and an unknown number of lost works, a picture emerges of an industrious artist whose productive period spans from about 1870 to 1910.52
Cormontan’s sophisticated writing reflects a thorough knowledge of the works of other composers. Her music rental library provided easy access to the great music of past masters, including the complete works of Mozart and Beethoven.53 She was also clearly influenced by contemporary Norwegian composers: Several of Edvard Grieg’s works may be found in her personal library; she wrote a piano piece based on a composition by Norwegian composer Halfdan Kjerulf; she dedicated one of her works to Norway’s most renowned woman composer, Agathe Backer-Grøndahl; and the only piece not written by Cormontan found in her collection of manuscripts was Huldredansen by the Norwegian pianist and composer Thomas Dyke Acland Tellefsen.
Cormontan wrote in the smaller forms for piano and voice; the only forms (essentially) in which society allowed women to compose at that time. She penned mostly salon music, domestic music that Camilla Cai describes as “. . . for the entertainment of amateurs, students and the people of small towns, to be performed in housed concerts or small halls, rather than on the great public stage in competition with Beethoven.”54 There is evidence that Cormontan possessed the ability and the aspiration to compose in larger forms when society was ready. One of her compositions published in 1885, Honnør-Marsch for Norske Tunere, op. 42, was released in several different instrumental arrangements, including piano for two and four hands, piano and flute, piano and violin, piano and cornet, brass sextet and large orchestra, and military band.55
Cormontan frequently wrote in dance forms, including the polka, the gallop (similar to the polka but faster), the mazurka (the Polish national dance), and the dance-related march. She particularly favored the waltz, the most popular nineteenthcentury dance.56 Influenced by her beloved Norway’s struggle
for independence and its own national identity, she joined other artists of her time in creating works that celebrated the folk songs and dances of Norway, with approximately 10% of her unpublished compositions conveying a strong nationalistic character.
Theodora displays a pronounced gift for melody in her writing. She makes informed rhythmic and harmonic choices that are probably as adventurous as she dared to be and retain any hope of being published. She is typically less successful in developing themes and transitioning from one theme to the next in her music. This may reflect the apparently abrupt ending of her training in 1865 to return to Norway after the death of her mother. More likely, it is a product of the bias Cormontan experienced in her European education, where the great music conservatories typically excluded women from classes in advanced theory and composition until around the beginning of the twentieth century.57 Still, when one considers the many challenges she faced related to her gender, her injury, her immigrant status in the United States, and her artistic isolation on the Minnesota prairie, Theodora Cormontan must be considered a remarkable composer worthy of being heard and remembered.
The Schmidt Women
With no children and almost no relatives, Theodora Cormontan’s few possessions would have been distributed among the workers at the Aase Haugen Home or thrown
Mollie Schmidt, late 1890s, taken in Canton, South Dakota. Photo courtesy of Barb and Roger Nelson.
away when she died in 1922. However, Theodora had formed a strong friendship with fellow musician Mollie Helgerson Schmidt, the wife of the first administrator of the Home, and gave her compositions to Mollie. This started the journey of Theodora Cormontan’s music through three generations of Schmidt women, who kept it safe for nearly a century.
Mollie Helgerson was born in 1875 in Larchwood, Iowa, the daughter of Ole T. Helgerson and Bertha Marie Sogn Helgerson. Mollie went to Augustana College in Canton, South Dakota, studied music in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and taught piano for several years. Otto Schmidt was introduced to Mollie by his best friend, and Mollie and Otto married in 1897. Having completed seminary school, Otto accepted calls in Chicago, Illinois, and Muskego, Wisconsin before serving Decorah Lutheran Church and then the Aase Haugen Home. During this time the couple had four children: Waldemar, Carola, Orval, and Otto. Theodora doubtlessly enjoyed hearing Mollie play the piano for the residents of the home, and it is understood that she comforted Mollie when Waldemar died in 1918 while attending St. Olaf College, a victim of the influenza pandemic.
Carola Schmidt graduated from St. Olaf College in 1925 and subsequently received nurses’ training in Rochester, Minnesota. She hoped to find a nursing position in Chicago, but her mother’s poor health forced Carola to return home to care for Mollie until she died in 1933. Subsequently, her father expected Carola to run the house for him and to work at the Home, so she gave up her career and never married. Carola, like Mollie, loved music and kept Theodora’s compositions stored safely in the attic of the family home. Carola taught herself the art of Norwegian Hardanger embroidery and was well known in the Decorah area for her intricate needlework. One of the proudest moments of her life took place when Crown Prince Harald of Norway visited Vesterheim Museum in 1960 and stopped by the table where she was giving sewing demonstrations to compliment her work.
Carola passed away in 1975 and her brother Orval, with the help of his daughter Barb, began clearing out decades of collected contents from the Schmidt attic. Early in the process
they discovered a box of family letters from the 1880s and decided to save nearly everything for a later, more careful examination. The items they set aside included several boxes of music with Theodora’s manuscripts dispersed throughout them. Like her aunt, Barb Schmidt attended St. Olaf College, where she met her future husband, Roger Nelson, and became a registered nurse. The couple moved to St. Peter, Minnesota in 1959, where Roger taught junior high science for several decades. After a few years of working in hospitals, Barb focused on being a wife and mother before returning to work in an insurance office in 1976.58 Theodora’s music traveled to St. Peter and the Nelson attic where it stayed until 2011, when Barb gave several boxes of family music to the authors, Bonnie Jorgensen, a professional pianist, and her husband Michael, a professor of music at Gustavus Adolphus College. The couple believes this is an important historical and cultural discovery that needs to be researched, preserved, and disseminated.
End Notes
1 Kari Michelsen, Musikkhandel i Norge: Fra begynnelsen til 1909, (Oslo: University of Oslo, 2010) 216-218.
2 Cecilie Dahm, Kvinner komponerer. Ni portretter av norske kvinnelige komponister i tiden 1840-1930, (Oslo: Solum Publishing, 1987). While not one of the nine composers referenced in the title, this book considers Theodora Cormontan among 21 Norwegian women composers of note between 1840-1930.
3 Michelsen.
4 Dahm, 172.
5 Betty A Bergland and Lori Ann Lahlum, Norwegian American Women: Migration, Communities, and Identities, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2011) 32.
6 “Concert,” Granite Falls Tribune (Minnesota), October 18, 1887,1.
7 Stian Herlofsen Finne-Grønn, Arendals geistlighed: dens genealogi og personalhistorie, (Christiania: Thronsen and Co., 1897) 64-65.
8 Jan Hartvig Henriksen, “Den syngende prestedatter med eget musikkforlag,” Agderposten, February 8, 1984, 6.
9 Dahm, chapter 1.
10 Michelsen.
11 Dan Fog and Kari Michelsen, Norwegian music publication since 1800: A preliminary guide to music publishers, printers and dealers (Copenhagen: Fog Musikforlag, 1976) 24-26.
12 Michelsen.
13 Michelsen.
14 Parelius H Rognlie, “Provst Even Meldel Shieldrup [sic] Cormontan,” Evangelisk luthersk kirketidende, 20, (Decorah: Den norske synodes forlag, 1893) 154-155.
15 Michelsen.
16 Sverre Knutsen, and Gunhild J. Ecklund, Vern mot kriser? Norsk finanstilsyn gjennom 100 år, (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2000).
17 “An Old Settler Gone,” People’s Watchman (Sacred Heart, Minnesota), May 18, 1898, 4.
18 “Concert,” Granite Falls Tribune, October 18, 1887, 1.
19 U.S. Circuit Court Case for the District of Minnesota, Case D-630, “Theodora Cormontan vs. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company,” Tuesday, October 1, 1889 to Monday, October 7, 1889. From the National Archives at Kansas City, Missouri.
20 “Minneapolis,” Minneapolis North, October 16, 1889, 8.
21 Ruby Deming, The History of Franklin, Minnesota: 1880-1990, sponsored by the city of Franklin, 1990, 18, 62.
22 The original copy of the “Ministerialbog for Fort Ridgely og Dale: 1883-1929” is located at Central Lutheran Church on 430th Street between Franklin and Fairfax, Minnesota. A microfilm copy of the book, Fort Ridgely and Dale congregations: ministerial records,
Schmidt family: Otto Sr., Orval, Carola, Waldemar and Mollie, 1911. Photo courtesy of Barb and Roger Nelson.
undated, 1883-1924. In Norwegian, is available at the Minnesota Historical Society, M678, reel 53 [ALC 138], April 23, 1889, and other dates.
23 “Ministerialbog for Fort Ridgely og Dale: 1883-1929,” January 6, 1891.
24 “Town Talk,” Morton Enterprise (Minnesota), July 29, 1892, 4.
25 “Franklin Notes,” Morton Enterprise, January 1, 1892, 5.
26 Rognlie.
27 Bernt Haugan and Nils Nielsen Rønning, Frydetoner: Sange fra Ungdommens Ven 1890-1893, (Minneapolis: K.C. Holter Publishing Co, 1897). Five hymns attributed to Theodora Cormontan appeared in Ungdommens Ven between 1892-1894 and are included in the first two books (published in one volume) of the Frydetoner, first published in the mid 1890s. Another hymn written by Cormontan but not attributed to her (“Hvad ønsker du mer?”) appeared in the Frydetoner and apparently in Ungdommens Ven.
28 Gerhard M. Cartford, “Music for Youth in an Emerging Church,” Studies and Records of the Norwegian-American Historical Association, 22, (Northfield: NAHA, 1965), 169-170.
29 “Dale Lutheran Church, Franklin, Renville County, Minnesota: Congregational Minutes, Constitution 1884-1918. In Norwegian,” Minnesota Historical Society, M678, reel 61 [ACL 159], May 1, 1893, 114.
30 “Franklin Department,” Morton Enterprise, September 1, 1893, 5; September 22, 1893, 4; and April 6, 1894, 4.
31 “Franklin Department/Franklin,” Morton Enterprise, May 17, 1895, 4; January 7, 1898, 8; and April 26, 1895, 9.
32 “Franklin,” Morton Enterprise, August 13, 1897, 1.
33 “Franklin,” Morton Enterprise, December 17, 1897, 8.
34 “Franklin,” Morton Enterprise, October 15, 1897, 9.
35 “Neighborly Notes, Franklin,” Fairfax Standard (Minnesota), January 19, 1899, 8; and Madelia Messenger (Minnesota), February 17, 1899, 5.
36 Madelia Messenger, advertisements beginning on March 17, 1899. This first advertisement ran on page 1.
37 “The Local Layout,” Madelia Messenger, June 8, 1900, 5, and April 12, 1901, 5.
38 “Local News,” Hanska Herald (Minnesota), January 29, 1904, 4.
39 “Overflow Local,” St. James Journal Gazette (Minnesota), November 8, 1907, 7.
40 “Hanska (from the Herald),” New Ulm Review, May 21, 1902, 8, and “First Lutheran, St. James, Brown County [sic], Minnesota: United Norwegian Lutheran: St. James, Minnesota: Ministerial records, 1882-1928. In Norwegian,” Minnesota Historical Society, M678, reel 110 [ALC 255].
41 This figure is an estimate based on the few scores Theodora Cormontan dated, those to which she assigned an opus number, and the roughly two-thirds that she gave what appears to be a cataloguing number.
42 “Anti-Tuberculosis Meet,” St. James Journal Gazette, January 22, 1910, 1. “City is Filled with Farmers,” St. James Journal Gazette, February 5, 1910, 1.
43 “Of Local Interest,” St. James Journal Gazette, June 11, 1914.
44 “United Norwegian Lutheran: St. James, Minnesota: Ministerial records, 1882-1928. In Norwegian.”
45 “County Poor Disbursements Itemized,” St. James Journal Gazette, February 3, 1916, 9.
46 Interview in 2012 with the manager and the groundskeeper of Mt. Hope Cemetery in St. James, Minnesota. The names of both Hans and C.G.V. Cormontan appear in the cemetery records with no plot designation, indicating burial in an unmarked grave.
47 The date for Hans’s death is based on the records in the ministerial book at First Lutheran Church in St. James and a brief obituary in the April 19,1913 edition of the St. James Plaindealer. There is no death certificate on record for him at the Watonwan County Court House. C.G.V.’s date of death is based on his death certificate.
48 Records for the Aase Haugen Home from the Decorah, Iowa,
Genealogy Library.
49 “A Historical Sketch of the Aase Haugen Home: Decorah, Iowa (25th Anniversary, 1940),” (Decorah: The Norwegian Lutheran Church of America, 1940). Schmidt’s year of retirement is recorded in his obituary in the Decorah Journal from August, 1946.
50 A 2011 interview with Barb Schmidt Nelson, granddaughter of Mollie Helgerson Schmidt.
51 These dates are confirmed by records kept at the Winneshiek County, Iowa, Court House. Eivinda Cormontan’s date of death is further corroborated by her obituary in the November 13, 1924 edition of the Decorah Republican
52 Michelsen.
53 Hartvig Henriksen.
54 From an email sent to the author on March 28, 2013. Dr. Cai is a Professor Emerita from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, who specializes in the musicology of Germany and Scandinavia. The musicians she has written on include Fanny Mendelsson Hensel and Clara Schumann.
55 Hartvig Henriksen.
56 Hugo Leichtentrit, Musical Form, (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1951).
57 Eugene Gates, “The Woman Composer Question: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives,” The Kapralova Society Journal, Volume 4, Issue 2, 2006, 6.
58 Based on interviews from 2011-2013 with Barb Schmidt Nelson and documents supplied by her. Barb proofread “The Schmidt Women” for accuracy.
Gravestone of Theodora Cormontan at the Aase Haugen Cemetery, Decorah, Iowa. Notice that her last name is spelled incorrectly, and the date of her birth is listed as 1842, when she was actually born in 1840.
courtesy of Barb and Roger Nelson.
About the Authors
Michael Jorgensen is a Professor of Music at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, where he has taught voice and other music-related subjects since 1991. Bonnie Jorgensen, Michael’s wife and collaborator, is a professional pianist. More information regarding Theodora Cormontan may be found on their website: JorgensenNotes.com.
Photo
“Remembrance of the Wedding-day”
Though Theodora Cormontan’s performance at a wedding is only documented once,1 she doubtlessly contributed her musical talents to many such events in her role as a church musician. Almost certainly, former music students who were about to become brides requested her services. For one special pupil, Clyda Kjorlaug Skartvedt, Theodora Cormontan composed a piano piece titled “In the Twilight” and dedicated it to her as a wedding gift, a “Remembrance of the Wedding-day.”2
Clyda Kjorlaug was born on October 13, 1891, in Madelia, Minnesota, the daughter of Christopher and Emma (Torsen) Kjorlaug. She began her musical studies with Theodora sometime after Cormontan’s arrival to town in early 1899. The program from Clyda’s 1910 Madelia High School graduation recorded that she sang “‘The Swing Song’ in a “female quartette” of graduates.3 The June 10, 1910, edition of the Madelia Times-Messenger noted that a member of the class of 1904 wrote a poem honoring each of the fifteen graduates of the class of 1910. The poem included “C for Clyda and Charlotte/Both musically inclined/And in some conservatory/Their names we’ll hope to find.”4
There is no evidence that Clyda pursued a musical degree, but she did travel to Minneapolis in 1912 to study business at St. Margaret’s Academy.5 This move also allowed her to be closer to her future husband, Peter Marcus Skartvedt, who was completing a Masters of Science degree at the University of Minnesota.6 Skartvedt was born on March 2, 1886 ,in Canton, South Dakota, the son of Gudmund and Lisa Brandon Skartvedt. After graduating from St. Olaf College in 1906, he met Clyda in Madelia, where he taught science. The couple married in Minneapolis on August 8, 1913 and, after two years in Washington state, they moved to St. Peter, Minnesota, where Peter accepted the position of head of the chemistry department at Gustavus Adolphus College. The couple joined the Swedish (now First) Lutheran Church of St. Peter and celebrated the birth of a daughter, Muriel, on January 22, 1916.
The Gustavus Adolphus College Archives contain correspondence from Peter Skartvedt to Dr. Paul Maurice Glasoe, professor of chemistry at St. Olaf College. Skartvedt typically included some personal notes at the end of these mostly scholarly letters. On July 21, 1918 he wrote “Baby says ‘Papa, I want a drink of H2O.’ Some chemist, I tell you. She can also say sulfuric acid, etc. Pretty soon I’ll have a real assistant.” In a letter from 1917 he portentously included “Meantime baby stays well and full of fun and as long as wife and myself can avoid the Dr. we can still grind away.”
The doctor could not be avoided. Clyda Kjorlaug Skartvedt died from diabetes on August 12, 1918 in Davenport, Iowa, where she had traveled with her mother in a desperate attempt to reverse her physical decline. Less than two weeks later Peter wrote to Glasoe “You no doubt have heard ere this of the sorrow that has come upon me and my little girl this summer by the death of my dear wife . . . Of course in her weakened condition she was unable to stand the trip [to Davenport] and died . . . after arriving there away from home and relatives and friends all but her mother. Not even baby nor I was there . . . I did not learn a thing . . . until 11:30 p.m. Sunday night [Peter was on the road traveling for the college]. I took the next train for Davenport but arrived 4 hours too late. It will take a long time, if ever, for me to reconcile myself
Clyda Kjorlaug from around 1910. Photo courtesy of Watonwan County Historical Museum (Minnesota).
to the fact that I could not even have the small privilege of being at her bedside to do what little I might to ease her last hours. I do however derive some small measure of comfort from the fact that she died in spiritual peace and content and was really glad to be taken from a life of trouble and suffering to her heavenly home above, and for her sake I am glad that it is so, altho I know we will miss her sorely . . . [daughter] Muriel will be a great comfort and incentive to me and I am very thankful that I still have her and that she is in excellent health. She will be my little papa girl more than ever now.”7
Clyda was buried in what is now Resurrection Cemetery in St. Peter. Peter continued teaching at Gustavus until he died of cancer on January 27, 1954. Their daughter, who went by Romayne as she grew up, did not become a chemist, but did become a published geologist. She died in 1990.
It is unknown if Theodora played “In the Twilight” for Clyda at the wedding in 1913, or if she mailed a copy of the work while retaining the original with its uncharacteristic erasures, cross-outs, misspelling (“Twiligt”), and smeared ink. From an historical perspective, the score documents that Cormontan continued to compose years later than her last dated manuscript of 1908 would indicate. On a more personal note, Theodora’s piano work commemorates a special pupil, friend, and bride. Just as the music from one’s own wedding can uniquely conjure treasured memories, so can Theodora Cormontan’s music uniquely bring back to life the treasures of forgotten times and forgotten people.
Endnotes
1 “Franklin,” Morton Enterprise, January 7, 1898, 8.
2 This dedication appears on page 4 of the manuscript “In the Twilight,” composed in 1913 and currently in the Cormontan manuscript collection held by Bonnie and Michael Jorgensen.
3 Madelia Times-Messenger, May 27, 1910, 1.
4 Madelia Times-Messenger, June 10, 1910, 1.
5 “St. Peter Woman Dies at Davenport, Iowa,” St. Peter Herald, August 16, 1918, 1.
6 “Final Rites for Dr. Peter Skartvedt Conducted Saturday,” St. Peter Herald, February 4, 1954, 1.
7 Gustauvs Adolphus College Archives, #263, Box 1, folder 2. Correspondence from Peter Skartvedt to Dr. Paul Maurice Glasoe at St. Olaf College. Letter dated August 23, 1918.