Published in Pilot-Tribune, April 25, 1977

SERVICES FOR REV. PAUL NYHOLM WERE HELD MONDAY

Services for Reverend Paul C. Nyholm were held on Monday, April 25th at the First Lutheran Church in Blair. Rev. Nyholm passed away on April 21 at the Douglas County Medical Center.

Officiating at the services were Rev. C. C. Madsen and Rev. Robert Schaff. Music was provided by the Dana College Choir, under the direction of Paul Neve. Campbell Mortuary was in charge of arrangements with burial in the Blair Cemetery.

Pallbearers were Rev. F. W. Fhomsen, Arnold Nielsen, A. J. Snowbeck, Homer Nielsen, Norman Bansen and Richard Jorgensen.

Professor Paul C. Nyholm died April 21, 1977 in Omaha, Nebraska. Born in Hjorring, Denmark, he studied at the Metropolitan College of Copenhagen and held a degree in theology from the University of Copenhagen and the Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago.

He was a parish pastor in Iowa, Nebraska, and Alberta, and president of the Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute for three years in the 1930s. Twice Dr. Nyholm was a delegate to the World Council of Churches, Amsterdam in 1948. Evanston in 1954.

His long and distinguished teaching career began in 1922 when he arrived from Denmark and was appointed to teach Danish and Greek at Dana College, Blair, Nebraska; later he was a member of the faculty of Grand View Seminary, Des Moines. From 1935 to 1955, he was Professor of Church History at Trinity Seminary, Blair. In 1956 Trinity moved to Dubuque, Iowa to share the campus with Wartburg Seminary. Nyholm had already spent a year at Wartburg as a Visiting professor and continued teaching at borh seminaries until their merger and after that until his retirement in 1966. He was named Professsor Emeritus at both Wartbug Seminary and Dana College. From 1966 – 1970 he was associate pastor at the Lutheran Church of the Master in Omaha. With his wife he retired to Blair in 1970.

Dr. Nyholm edited four Danish-American periodicals and until his recent illness wrote for both the Danish and the Danish-American press. In 1953, when most people were pessimistic about its future, he took hold of Dansk Almanak, made it bilingual, broadened its appeal, changed its name to Dansk Nytaar - - Danish New Year - - and increased the circulation of the annual in a spectacular manner during the nine years he was its editor.

In 1941 Professor Nyholm established the Dana Chapter of The American-Scandinavian Foundation, an organization that is still active, and was its president for eight years.

The work for which he was most widely acclaimed was his book, The Americanization of the Danish Lutheran Church in America, hailed as both cultural history and church history.

International honors came to Dr. Nyholm: He was included in Kraks Bla Bog, the Danish Who’s Who. His work in promoting an understanding of Denmark and his devotion to cultural and religious activities were recognized by King Christian X who awarded him the Liberation Medal and by King Frederik IX who named him Knight of the Order of Dannebrog.

His wife Ingfrid, to whom he was married in 1927, died late in 1976. He is survived by two sons, Paul of Omaha and Gunnar of Yutan; a daughter, Ellen Staack of Belleview, Nebraska; nine grandchildren; three brothers and a sister, Jens of Santa Barbara, California; Johannes, Axel and Anna of Copenhagen, Denmark.

(typed as printed in the newspaper. Some variations may occur.)