Editor Ager a Norwegian advocate

Waldemar Ripley

     Anyone wishing three-dimensional picture of Eau Claire at the turn of the century, a view that goes beyond the photographer's street scenes of "Sawdust City" and the historian's prose paragraphs, should read the novel "Christ Before Pilate" by Weldemar Ager.
     The book was published in 1910 by the Fremad Publishing Company located in the Laycock Building on Barstow Street, location of the printing shop and office of Ager, editor of the Norwegian-language weekly newspaper "Reform."

Mirror of period

     A well-writen work of fiction becomes a mirror in which we see everyday life of a specific period reflected in events, characters, attitudes and conversations.
     The novel describes especially the social side of church life among Norwegian immigrants. Yet the characters are so well drawn from life as to embrace universality. Many of them could be found in any congregation.
      Some of the protagonists live on Garfield Avenue, and the pstor of the largest congregation takes his meditative walks presumably about Dells Pond and Mt. Simon.

Haunted by famous painting

     He is haunted by the picture hanging in his study, Muncazy's famous painting, "Christ Before Pilate." Among people in the congregation and society characterized by selfishness, cowardice, pride and prejudice, gossip and slander, Pastor Welde habitually asks himself, am I for Christ or am I, as Pilate, washing my hands?
     As Henrik Ibsen chose "a man of the cloth" as hero in his first great drama "Brand," so Ager chose a Lutheran pastor in his first successful novel.
     The Rev. Conrad Wather Welde seeks to act as a genuine and true minister of Christ, both in word and deed, with the consequence he is misunderstood and gradually disliked on every side.
     Christ is again rejected, crucified. The congregation got rid of their minister who died a seeming failure. The story is a slashingly serious satire on conflict between the spiritual and material worlds.

Knew human nature

     Ager wrote from personal experience and keen perception of human nature. he walked the streets of Eau Claire committed to idealistic causes.
     First he believed in total abstinence from liquor and energetically organized temperance societies, wrote short stories on evils of alcohol, and edited "a Norwegian weekly devoted to Temperance, Church and General News."
     Ever independent, if he had any political affiliation it was with the Prohibition Party.

Preserve ancestral traditions

     Second, he promoted firm conviction the immigrant should keep alive his native language and ancestral traditions. He resisted the "melting pot" theory made famous By Israel Zangwill's play by that name.
     The theory proposed the foreign-born should shed their wardrobe of "the old country," traditional eating habits on festive occassions, above all their foreign speeck, and become Americanized, melted and molded into a new man, a bona-fide American.
     Long before it became a phrase in our language Ager resisted total assimilation and beat the drum for "cultural pluralism" in which the immigrant would not deny his past, but contribute the best of his heritage to enrich the culture of American society. But as prophet, Ager suffered much misunderstanding, especially during the anti-foreign hysteria of World War I.

Promote immigrant literature

     Third, Ager promoted immigrant literature, sought to encourage creative writing among Norweign immigrants and himself wrote eight collections of short stories and dix novels. Again the idealist faced discouragement becasue the immigrant was too busy making a fortune int he new land to read books of poetry, short stories and novels.
     This was the serious side of Ager, the sober life of high purpose. But there was always the humorous side. Disappointments of the idealist ware made bearable by not taking himself too seriously and indulging in whimsy and wit, gentle satire and irony.

Always use light touch

     Whether speaking or writing editorials with his pencil, he did so with a light touch and inexpressive poker face.
     For example: In the fall of 1934 on a lecture tour in Norway he came to Fredrikstad, where he was born March 23, 1869. Writing "The Evening Telegram" at Eau Claire he said: "I was really born here. In a little house on a small hill situated well in what is now the business center. But the hiss is gone and so is the house. In one of our courts I should not be able to prove that I was born at all.
     "Any third or fourth class district attorney could prove that the hill I claim as my birthplace does not exist. And according to judicial procedure, he would be right, and I consequently wrong. But as I could not truthfully name another place the conclusion would be that I do not exist. And no one could, in the eyes of the law, prove that I do exist.
     "The thought was a distrubing one. So I compromised by remembering that I, as a Norwegian American scribe, had only managed 'barely' to exist. The difference between existing and barely existing is not worth making a fuss about, so I dropped this matter and shall not consider this matter anymore." Then he added, "While I was (or presumed) to be born in the city I was not brought up there, but across the river in a small mill town, Gressvik."

Unforgettable citizen

     From the mill town of Gressvik in Norway to the mill town of Eau Claire in Wisconsin lies an untold story of an immigrant in a nation of immigrants whose tireless eneregy spent in idealistic causes made him one of the unforgettable first citizens of Eau Claire.
     In the half-century of Norwegian immigrant writing, from the novel "Gunnar" by Hjalmer Hjorth Boyesen in 1874 to O.E. Rolvagg's Norwegian publication of "Giants In The Earth" in 1924, it remained for an immigrant to Eau Claire to be the first immigrant writer to be published in Norway. That occurred in 1911 with publication of "Kristus For Pilatus" by H. Aschenhoug in Kristiania under the title "Present Conrad Walther Welde." Subsequently the English translation came out in Minneapolis in 1924 as "Christ Before Pilate."
     Ager entered school at Frssvik at age four and a half. But in 1882 at age 13 he left school. From then he was self-educated, a voracious reader with an amazing memory.

Father preceded family

     As so often with immigrants, the father preceded the family to America. The family followed in 1885, and at age 16 Ager arrived in Chicago with his mother, brother and sister. He became a printer's apprentice at the Norwegian publication "Norden."
     He joined a temperance society and early became its secretary and then editor of "Templarbladed."
     In 1892 he came to Eau Claire as a printer witht he "Reform." As a young bachelor he rented one room for sleeping and writing in the home of Herman Olson, 621 Fulton Street. The late Gerhart "Gib" Olson remembered Ager well, having himself learned at age 14 to hand-set type at the "Reform."
     After work the two hiked below Shawtown where they fished for shiners off a raft in the Chippewa River.
     In 1894 Ager's father, Martinius, died and his mother, Mathea, came to Eau Claire to keep house for Waldemar in an apartment in the house on the northeast corner of Fulton Street and Sixth Avenue.

Organized temperance society

     Young Ager had with his usual initiative organized a temperance society called "Excelsior." Many a discouraged immigrant turned to the saloon for solace and Ager sought an alternative solution for his countrymen, another source of socializing in which young people encouraged on another in the practice of total abstinence. The society also provided a place for programs and socials and friendships which somethimes blossomed into marriage.
     Here Ager met Gurolle Blestern who had come to Eau Claire as a child from Tromso, Norway. In 1896 Ager became co-editjor and business manager of "Reform" and in 1899 he and Gurolle were married. They first lived at 630 Lake Street, but eventually, after Ager became editor of the "Reform" in 1903, moved to 429 Chestnut Street which became their permanent home and where they raised nine children.
     The house today is "The Red Carpet," a gift shop of the women's auxiliary of Luther Hospital.

Breakthrough as author

     In 1910 Ager made his breakthrough as the author with "Kristus For Pilatus," and that year became a member of the Eau Claire Library Board, on which he remained for 33 years. In 1914 he and librarian Laura Olson became responsible for the Wisconsin Exhibit at the Centennial Exposition in Kristiania (now Oslo) marking the centennial of Norway's constitution.
     In 1923, in respect for Ager's ceaseless activity as writer and lecturer, convern for preserving Norwegian heritage, and his work in the temperace movement among immigrants, he was honored by the Norwegian government with the decoration of a Knight of St. Olaf.
     In 1929, as author of short stories and novels depicting the immigrant experience, he became an honorary doctor of literature at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., and in 1934 was invited by Nordamms Forbundet in Oslo to give 40 lectures in Norway about Norwegian America.
     In 1939 Norway again honored him, this time iwth the Medal of St. Olav.

Newspaper dies with him

     Waldemar Ager died Aug. 1, 1941. The "Reform" died six weeks later. Ager ws the "Reform" and the "Reform" was Ager.
     A few years later appreciative friends, associates and countrymen erected a monument to his memory at his grave in Lake View Cemetery. It reads:
Ager Waldemar T.
Lit. D 1869-1941
"Editjor, author, lecturer,
publisher of the "Reform",
A distinguished interpreter
of Norwegian heritage and
cultural traditions."

-- Clarence Kilde

Extracted from the Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976
Used with permission.