Seehuus, Knut 1859 – 1953
SEEHUUS, STUB, VEDELER
Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 4/29/2015 at 13:46:43
REV. KNUT SEEHUUS.
The record of the work of Rev. Knut Seehuus as minister of the Norwegian Lutheran church at Locust and Big Canoe is the record of a life great in its simplicity, high in its ideals and important and varied in its accomplishments in the cause of Christianity. For over twenty-seven years he has lived in Winneshiek county, aiding the work of religious expansion by beneficial and far-reaching activity in its cause and by the example of an honorable and upright life well and worthily lived.
He was born near Molde, Norway, on the 3d of May, 1859, and is a son of Christopher B. and Margaret Seehuus, also natives of that country, who crossed the Atlantic in the year 1872 and settled in Chicago. The father died in that city in 1875 and the mother now makes her home with the subject of this review. For a number of years she was a practicing midwife in Chicago and was one of the prominent Norwegian settlers in the city, her biography finding a leading place in a volume entitled "Prominent Scandinavians of Illinois."
In this family were two children: Rev. Knut, of this review; and Dr. O. M., who practiced in Highlandville, this county, from 1893 to 1902, building during that time a hospital in that city. In the latter year he removed to North Dakota and thence to Baronett, Wisconsin, where he is now in the active practice of his profession.
In the acquirement of an education Knut Seehuus attended Latin school in Norway, but after settling in Chicago was obliged to lay aside his books, the family being at that time very poor. With the intention of aiding them he learned the Morse system of telegraphy and worked for three years thereafter in a telegraph office. In the fall of 1875 he entered the Luther College at Decorah, Iowa, completing the prescribed course in 1881, after which he went to Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, completing a three years' course in theology in 1884. After he was graduated he was ordained to the ministry of the Norwegian Lutheran church at Chicago and entered upon his duties as immigrant missionary and assistant pastor in New York city.
After two years and a half he came to Iowa and here in the fall of 1886 married Miss Elizabeth C. H. Stub, a daughter of Rev. H. A. Stub, a pioneer Norwegian clergyman of America. Mr. Seehuus became assistant to his father-in-law and pastor of the German congregation at Locust and he did such vital and far-reaching work that in 1893, when Mr. Stub went to Norway, he was chosen his successor as pastor of Big Canoe and Highland congregations. He has served these churches ably and well since that time and has steadily extended the field of his activities, founding in 1904 the congregation at Mabel, Minnesota, and building a church there in the following year. He is now serving that church and has also under his jurisdiction three Norwegian congregations and one German, he being the only Norwegian clergyman in America to preach steadily in three languages, English, Norwegian and German. The cause of religion in this section of Iowa finds in him an earnest, sincere and able advocate, a man zealous and apostolic in his work of spreading the religious doctrines in which he believes and in promoting that general religion of good will and honorable dealings. His doctrines find worthy exemplification in his life which, being upright, honorable and straightforward in all its relations, has brought him widespread honor and esteem with the people among whom he has so long lived and labored. He was in 1912 chosen secretary of the board of directors of the Lutheran Publishing House at Decorah. He is a member of the Missionary Commission for the Iowa district of the Norwegian synod and assistant to the president of that district, and he stands high in the councils of the church he has served so ably for more than a quarter of a century.
Mr. Seehuus' first wife passed away in 1887, leaving one son, Olaf, who died two years later in Chicago. In 1893 Mr. Seehuus was again married, his second wife being in her maidenhood Miss Helga C. Vedeler, of one of the most prominent families in Bergen, Norway, and at that time preceptress at the Lutheran normal school at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Their only son is George K, born in 1903.
A resident of Winneshiek county for twenty-seven years, Mr. Seehuus has seen the period of its greatest growth, and his work in the interests of religion has been a vital factor in directing the course of its development. He has indeed done a splendid work here among the people of his faith and he has their love in large measure, while he enjoys the respect of people of all denominations. He is a man of scholarly attainments, most earnest and consecrated in all his activities, and he is ever watchful of the interests of his people among whom he has accomplished a great and lasting work in the cause of Christianity.
Source: History of Winneshiek County, Iowa Vol. II Chicago the S. J. Clark Publishing Company 1913
Big Canoe Burial Records
Winneshiek Biographies maintained by Bruce Kuennen.
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