Ruskjer, Soren A. (1889-1961)

Soren Ruskjer, minister, home missionary leader, and conference administrator, served as president of the Western Canadian and Southern union conferences in North America.

Heritage and Training

Soren was born at Barnesville, Minnesota, on January 8, 1889, to Anders and Jensine Peterson Ruskjer. His parents emigrated from Denmark to America in 1887 and were naturalized as citizens of the United States in 1902. On their farm they raised six children, Soren being the eldest. His younger siblings were Mette Kertine (b.1890), Petrina (b. 1893), Mary Amanda (b. 1896), Jens Christian (b. 1900) and Harry Albert (b. 1908).¹

Soon after Soren’s birth the Ruskjer family moved to Henning, central Minnesota, and later to Bemidji towards the north of the state. Soren attended schools at both locales. He advanced to Maplewood Academy, then located near Maple Plain, Minnesota, finishing in 1909. In his second year at academy, 1907, Soren was baptized in nearby Lake Independence by Elder Albert Kuehl. During his teenage years he gained some experience in carpentry, auto mechanics and forestry work.²

In 1909 Ruskjer began evangelistic work in the Minnesota Conference. As assistant minister at Staples the following year, he gave Bible studies to Hulda Sophia Lundeen (1891-1978), a young woman of Swedish heritage. They married in 1912 and would have three children: Merle (b. 1913), Donovan (b. 1915) and Violet (b. 1919).³

Home Missionary Leader

Ruskjer established a church at the rural community of Blackberry, near his hometown of Bemidji.⁴ In 1914 he was ordained by Milton C. Wilcox, George W. Wells and R. A. Underwood.⁵

In 1915 Ruskjer was appointed Home Missionary secretary for the Northern Union Conference with headquarters in Minneapolis. His territory extended over Iowa, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota. Many Scandinavian immigrants had settled in the region, prompting the establishment of the Danish-Norwegian Seminary at Hutchinson, Minnesota, in 1911 (renamed Hutchinson Theological Seminary in 1919).⁶ In a number of ways, Ruskjer was therefore at home in his role.

Conference Administration

Four years later Ruskjer moved into conference administration, accepting the presidency of the South Dakota Conference in 1919. With office headquarters in Watertown, the conference included 33 churches with a total baptized membership of 1,300.⁷ Plainview Academy at Redfield also came under his responsibility. A privately-owned sanitarium at Chamberlain, operated by Seventh-day Adventists, provided a positive influence in the community.⁸

Ruskjer was elected president of the Western Canadian Union Conference in 1924. Headquartered in Lacombe, Alberta, the union covered a vast territory made up of the Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan Conferences. Its 96 churches had a total of 3,647 members.⁹ Shortly after assuming his responsibilities he had the unenviable task of chairing the committee that voted to close the Bethel Sanitarium at Bowness Park, near Calgary. It had operated for eight years but was making an annual loss of several thousand dollars.¹⁰

In 1932 Ruskjer returned to the United States, locating in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to take up new duties as president of the Southern Union Conference. He assumed the presidency just at the point when the former Southeastern Union Conference was absorbed into the Southern Union as one of several administrative cost-cutting measures in the North American Division to meet the financial crisis of the Great Depression.¹¹ It was his largest administrative responsibility, with 234 churches and a baptized membership of 12,682 in the union’s member conferences: Alabama-Mississippi, Carolina, Florida, Georgia-Cumberland, and Kentucky-Tennessee.¹²

His duties as president included chairing the boards of several institutions of denominational influence beyond the boundaries of the Southern Union: Oakwood Junior College (later Oakwood University) in Alabama, Southern Junior College (later Southern Adventist University) in Tennessee, Forest Lake Academy in Florida, and Orlando-Florida Sanitarium (later Florida Hospital, now AdventHealth Orlando), and Southern Publishing Association in Tennessee—of the denomination’s three major publishing houses in North America until merged with Review and Herald in 1980.¹³

In American society at the time Ruskjer became Southern Union president there was much political agitation for the government to repeal the 18^th Amendment of the American Constitution which prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquor. Ruskjer published an article in defense of the amendment, saying “it is impossible to have sunshine in the home and moonshine in the cellar.”¹⁴ However, a few months later the 21^st Amendment to the Constitution was passed, repealing the 18^th Amendment.

Hospital Administration

In the January 1, 1936 edition of the Southern Tidings, William H. Branson, General Conference Vice President for North America, informed church members that “conditions recently made necessary the resignation of Elder S.A. Ruskjer as president of the Southern Union Conference.”¹⁵ Ruskjer remained a church member but for several years pursued a career outside of denominational employment as a hospital administrator. He served with distinction as the administrator of William Mason Memorial Hospital in Murray, Kentucky, the Riverside Hospital at Fort Anderson in Paducah, Kentucky, and finally the Waverly Hills Sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, Louisville, Kentucky. In 1961 he was named by the Kentucky Hospital Association as hospital administrator of the year. In the same year he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Health, London.¹⁶

Brief Return to Denominational Service

In July 1961, Ruskjer was appointed director of hospital administration for the Kentucky-Tennessee Conference. However, his return to denominational service was cut short when he passed away suddenly in Louisville, Kentucky, on November 22, 1961, at age 72. He was interred in Louisville Memorial Gardens and after his wife, Hulda, died at Sandy Hook, Connecticut, on June 5, 1978, she was laid to rest alongside him.¹⁷

Sources

Aulbach, Lucas. “Waverly Hills Sanitorium.” Louisville Courier Journal. Accessed July 26, 2022. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2022/04/13/louisville-waverly-hills-sanitorium-urban-legend-history/9501082002/.

Branson, William H. “Recent Changes.” Southern Tidings, January 1, 1936.

“Huldah Sofia Johannesdotter Lundeen Ruskjer.” Find A Grave. Memorial ID 190289233, June 2, 2018. Accessed July 22, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/190289233/huldah_sofia-johannesdotter-ruskjer.

Lauda, Caris H. “Soren A Ruskjer obituary.” Northern Union Outlook, February 13, 1962.

Martin, W.F. “The South Dakota Conference and Camp Meeting.” ARH, July 8, 1920.

Olsen, Ole A. “Attending Camp Meetings.” ARH, July 28, 1910.

Ruskjer, S. A. “We Cannot Be Indifferent.” ARH, July 13, 1933.

Ruskjer, Soren A. “The Alberta Camp Meeting.” ARH, August 13, 1925.

Ruskjer, Soren Andrew. Secretariat Missionary Appointee Files. RG 21, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD (GCA).

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Online Archives. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/Forms/Allitems.aspx.

“Soren A. Ruskjer.” FamilySearch. Accessed July 22, 2022. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LY9N-7ZN.

Notes

1. “Soren A. Ruskjer,” FamilySearch, accessed July 22, 2022, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LY9N-7ZN.↩

2. Soren Andrew Ruskjer Biographical Information Blank, April 1, 1934. Secretariat Files, RG 21, Record 114941, GCA.↩

3. Ibid.↩

4. Caris H. Lauda, “Soren A. Ruskjer,” Northern Union Outlook, February 13, 1962, 12.↩

5. Ruskjer Biographical Information Blank.↩

6. Ole A. Olsen, “Attending Camp Meetings,” ARH, July 28, 1910, 18.↩

7. “South Dakota Conference,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1922, 49-50.↩

8. W. F. Martin, “The South Dakota Conference and Camp Meeting, ARH, July 8, 1920, 21-22.↩

9. “Western Canadian Union Conference,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1925, 87-88.↩

10. Soren A. Ruskjer, “The Alberta Camp Meeting,” ARH, August 13, 1925, 18.↩

11. Richard W. Schwarz and Floyd Greenleaf, Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Silver Spring, MD: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Department of Education, 2000), 406.↩

12. “Southern Union Conference,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1933, 57-58.↩

13. Ibid., 61.↩

14. S. A. Ruskjer, “We Cannot Be Indifferent,” ARH, July 13, 1933, 16.↩

15. William A. Branson, “Recent Changes,” Southern Tidings, January 1, 1936, 1.↩

16. Lauda, “Soren A. Ruskjer,” obituary.↩

17. “Huldah Sofia Johannesdotter Lundeen Ruskjer,” Find A Grave, Memorial ID 190289233, June 2, 2018, accessed July 22, 2022, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/190289233/huldah_sofia-johannesdotter-ruskjer.↩