Olsen, Ole Andres (1845–1915)

Ole A. Olsen. Photo courtesy of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Archives. Olsen, Ole Andres (1845–1915) GILBERT M. VALENTINE Gilbert M. Valentine, Ph.D. has served internationally in teaching and senior administrative roles in Adventist higher education in Europe, Asia, the South Pacific and North America. He has written extensively in Adventist studies and has authored several books, including biographies ofW. W. Prescott (2005) and J. N. Andrews (2019). The Prophet and the Presidents (2011) explored the political influence of Ellen White. He has also written for the Ellen G. White Encyclopedia (2013). A Norwegian-born American, Ole Andres Olsen served the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a minister and senior administrator for forty-four years, becoming one of the most experienced international leaders of the movement’s second generation. He was elected as president of the General Conference at the age of forty-three and served four terms (1888–1897), providing diplomatic, spiritually sensitive, forward-thinking leadership through a difficult period of doctrinal conflict, deep financial depression, and rapid expansion that exposed the inadequacies of the denomination’s organizational structure. Early Life and Education (1845–1867) Ole Olsen was born on July 28, 1845 in a farming community in the parish of Bjelland in the county of Vest-Agder, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) northwest of Kristiansande on the southern coast of Norway. He was the eldest son of Andrew Olsen (1816–1908) and Berthe Olsen (1823–1879).1 His parents and his grandparents, Susannah and Holvard Olsen, were Lutherans who had become discontented with the formalism of their state church and had found spiritual help in an encounter with Quakers from England who had settled in southern Norway. The encounter gave rise to trouble in their relationship to local pastors and with the state church. When Ole Olsen was three years of age an itinerant Swedish lay pastor by the name of Nyland visited the Olsen home and introduced the idea that if the family was interested in living consistently with the teachings of Scripture they should be worshiping on the seventh day of the week. This challenge further disturbed the community, although the families did not begin practicing Sabbath observance at this time. In March 1850, when Ole was four years of age, his parents, grandparents, and four other extended families from their community, motivated by a desire for greater religious freedom and economic advancement, migrated to the United States. The Olsen clan initially settled among the 2,600-strong Koshkonong Norwegian immigrant community near the town of Oakland, Wisconsin, about sixty miles due west of Milwaukee. Shortly afterwards, Andrew and Berthe purchased a 240-acre farm. In their first years of settlement the Olsen family was visited by a Methodist circuit preacher, and they joined the Methodist-Episcopal church in nearby Cambridge. In 1854, when Ole was nine years of age, his extended family encountered a Swedish neighbor, Gustaf Mellberg, who had become a Seventh-day Adventist, and the Sabbath teaching again gained their interest. With the agreement of their local Methodist pastor, they continued to participate in their local congregation but now as “Seventh-day” Methodists. In 1858, after Adventist evangelist Waterman Phelps persuaded them of the inadequacy of infant baptism, the families decided to be baptized and join the Advent movement. In December 1858 Ole Olsen, now thirteen, was baptized and joined his parents’ new church. Worship services were held in the Olsen home or in the neighborhood schoolhouse. After considerable internal community debate, reflecting similar discussions in Battle Creek, the Sabbath-keepers decided, in 1861, to formally organize themselves as a Seventh-day Adventist church. Ole Olsen, along with his parents, were charter members. In 1864 the congregation of about thirty-five erected a meetinghouse on a plot of land made available on the Andrew Olsen farm. 2 Andrew and Berthe Olsen3 were more interested in how to raise their children to be committed to the Christian faith than in pursing wealth. Farm life was therefore framed by regular morning and evening family devotional periods in the home, with exhortations on good character and a special emphasis on opening and closing Sabbath worships.4 Ole Olsen and three of his younger brothers became Adventist ministers, and one of his sisters, Anna, married a minister, and they labored as missionaries in South Africa.5 Andrew D. Olsen (1855–1890) became president of the Dakota Conference (1885–1886) and then the Minnesota Conference (1887–1888). Overwork in coordinating the General Conference of 1888, held in Minneapolis and thus in his conference territory, weakened his immune system, and he died of consumption in 1890.6 Brothers Martin M. Olsen (1855–1940) and Edward G. Olsen (1856–1931) both accepted appointments to work in Denmark and Norway for extended periods in pastoral ministry, conference administration, and in education. They returned in later life to minister again among the Scandinavian immigrant communities in the United States. Another brother, Albert J. Olsen (1857–1931), served in the church’s publishing work in the southern United States as a colporteur director.7 Ole Olsen benefited from the local elementary schools around Oakland, but his secondary schooling was more limited. During the winter of 1864 he attended the Milton Academy connected with the Seventh Day Baptists in Milton, about twenty miles from his home. He returned again in the winter of 1869, by which time the institution had become a college with its own state charter. Olsen’s parents were anxious that their children not be negatively influenced by their schooling, and the Seventh Day Baptist school in Milton had a good reputation for piety. For the most part, however, education was not a priority for Ole. He enjoyed dairy farming and at twenty-one rented a property to start farming on his own. Marriage and Early Ministry (1868–1887) In 1868 Olsen married Jennie Nelson (1843–1920), a fellow Norwegian émigré from a neighboring Adventist church. By this time he had also saved enough to purchase his own farm. Jennie Nelson, the eldest daughter of a family of twelve, had migrated at the age of eighteen from her home at Sogndal on the west coast of Norway to Whitewater in southern Wisconsin. Her older brother and other relatives had preceded her. Two years after her arrival in America she attended Adventist evangelistic meetings and was baptized by Isaac Sanborn, whereupon she became acquainted with the Norwegian community in Oakland and the Olsen family.8 At the time of his marriage Ole Olsen was venturing into lay preaching at his local church. The experience encouraged him to further develop his speaking gift, and in mid-1869, after the birth of the couple’s first child, they joined Sanborn in his summer evangelistic tent meetings not far from their home. The following year they did the same with another Wisconsin evangelist, David Downer. In 1871, at the age of twenty-six, Olsen was given a license to preach. He found success with his own first independent evangelistic campaign, following which he made a commitment to enter full-time ministry and sold his farm. Two years later the denomination ordained him at the age of twenty-eight. Despite having only twelve months’ experience in full-time evangelistic work, Olsen was invited in 1873 to become the president of the Wisconsin Conference, which included eight Danish/Norwegian congregations. His language skills and nationality were a distinct advantage, and because the presidency was largely a part-time job, it gave him opportunity for continuing his evangelistic labor. After a two-year term at church administration Olsen felt the need of further education, and in 1876 he took a year out for English language and rhetorical studies under Goodloe Harper Bell at Battle Creek College (recently opened with a largely secondary-level curriculum). On his return to Wisconsin, Olsen served a further four years as president before being invited to take the same role in several adjacent conferences: Dakota (1880–1882), Minnesota (1882–1884), and Iowa (1885). During these years of early ministry, four children were added to the Olsen family, only two of whom survived into adulthood. Alfred (1869–1960), the firstborn, became a physician and gave many years to sanitarium work in England and in North America. Nathan died in infancy, and ten-year-old son Clarence succumbed to a childhood disease when the family was in Europe.9 Mahlon (1873–1952) became a teacher of English, earned a PhD degree in 1909, and became a prominent Adventist educator. During these early years, Olsen’s wife, Jennie, called upon to endure privation and long absences by her husband because of his work, suffered an episode of sunstroke followed by a nervous breakdown, from which she never fully recovered. In spite of poor health for much of her life, she was treasured for the care she continued to give her family.10 Olsen enjoyed much evangelistic success among the Scandinavian immigrant communities and established many new congregations. During the 1880s he also became increasingly prominent in general gatherings of the church. He was elected to the General Conference Executive Committee in 1884 and served as chairman of three important standing committees at the 1885 General Conference Session.11 In late 1885 Olsen was requested to go to Europe to assist in the rapidly developing work in Scandinavia. He arrived in early 1886 and spent the next three years there. Fellow Scandinavians John and Anna Matteson, commencing in 1877, had built church membership from zero to about 700 in the eight years of their pioneering leadership. Managing complex new institutions like a publishing house and pastoring independent-minded urban church members required abilities beyond those Matteson had in his skill set.

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