Midsummer comes to Swedesburg with the raising of the majstang

By STEPH TAHTINEN

Mt. Pleasant News

SWEDESBURG ? The rain stopped just long enough on Friday night for the raising of the majstang on the Parish Hall lawn in Swedesburg for their annual Midsummer celebration.

This annual celebration is a Swedish tradition that is observed on the longest day of the year, though most celebrations take place on the weekend. During traditional celebrations, the majstang, or midsommar pole, is raised, after which participants dance around the pole to traditional folksongs.

In Swedesburg, participants escaped the downpour by heading inside to listen to a concert put on by the Scandanavian Quartet, a group of saxophonists who met at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Swedesburg celebration also traditionally honors the descendents of one of the area?s pioneer families. This year, the descendents of John and Wilhelmina Sandburg were honored, with their great-great granddaughter, Sally Cina of St. Louis, Mo., reading their story. After immigrating to the United States in 1867, John was a blacksmith and a janitor at the Swedesburg Lutheran Church before moving to a farm northwest of Swedesburg in 1913. Wilhelmina came to the United States in the early 1870s. The couple had 11 children.