Swedish radio show signs off in Rockford

http://www.rrstar.com/carousel/x401387193/Swedish-radio-show-Temple-Toner-to-sign-off-next-month Rockford Register Star

Swedish radio show 'Temple Toner' to sign off next month
By Corina Curry
RRSTAR.COM
Posted May 14, 2011 @ 11:25 PM
Last update May 14, 2011 @ 11:46 PM

ROCKFORD — Seventy-five years of broadcasting a half-hour of worship and music in Swedish on Sunday mornings is ending.

The Salvation Army Rockford Temple Corps is pulling the plug on “Temple Toner,” a radio program that has long served as a lifeline and a comforting reminder of home to scores of the city’s Swedish immigrants.

“It’s run its course,” said Salvation Army Maj. Randy Hellstrom. “In some ways it’s sad. But in some ways, it’s time. The show served its purpose. It had a really good 75 years. There are just fewer and fewer people out there who speak the language.”

“Temple Toner” airs at 8 a.m. Sundays on WNTA (1330 AM). The last show will be June 26.

Hellstrom said there’s no way to know just how many people are listening, but he’s sure the number has dropped dramatically in recent years as the older, Swedish-speaking population of the city shrinks.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2005-09 estimates, there are 295,803 people living in Winnebago County, 27,536, or 9.3 percent, of whom claim Swedish ancestry.

“So many of our listeners are no longer with us,” said Marita Sjogren, the show’s host for the past 15 years. “We used to get a lot of feedback but not any more. ... Every now and then, we’ll hear from someone. But it’s a lot of work for such a small number of people.”

Connecting old and newSjogren, 66, was born in Sweden. She’s one of few people, she believes, from her generation who came to Rockford as a child and still speaks fluent Swedish. For 13 years before her, her mother hosted the weekly radio broadcast. Sjogren took the reins when her mother died. Back then, plenty of people tuned in on Sunday mornings, she said, to hear sounds from the old country.

For more than seven decades, dozens of voices and technicians have helped produce the show. Salvation Army Brigadier Gunnar Erickson, who died last fall at 101, gave the show’s devotional reading every week for almost 40 years. Dale Runberg, a radio equipment operator, helped record the show for more than 30 years.

Sjogren said she knew the end had come when Erickson died, and there was no one to take his place. For the past six months, the show has been about 95 percent Swedish. Hellstrom gives the devotional in English.

The idea for the radio show sprang from Rockford’s deep and much-celebrated Scandinavian roots. Thousands immigrated here to work in the city’s booming manufacturing industry starting in 1852.

“It started as a way to connect to the Swedish immigrants,” Hellstrom said. “It was a way to help them mesh their new lives with their old lives.”

‘No longer the case’The broadcast started in the basement of the Salvation Army Temple Corps Church on Rockford Avenue. Back in the day, the church had a Swedish-language service that provided much of the show’s audio, but that ended in the 1970s.

Today, Sjogren records the show in front of a computer at the home of her good friend Bob Slack. With his skills, dozens of CDs featuring Swedish language music and an archive of recordings — some going back 40 years — Slack and Sjogren can crank out about a dozen shows in a couple of hours.

Sjogren greets the listeners, makes a series of announcements and reads from the Bible. Slack then takes those recordings and combines them with songs and the devotional message.

The duo recorded the broadcast’s final four shows a couple of weeks ago. They put the recordings on a disc and high-fived, Sjogren said.

“It’s time,” she said. “It’s a passing. There’s always a sadness when things end.”

Hellstrom said the church may look into a different kind of radio ministry. “Perhaps there’s an audience out there for a Spanish broadcast. We did the show in Swedish because it was the most common second language of people in Rockford back in the days. That’s no longer the case.”