Bjorkquist, David C.

From generation to generation (Spring/Summer 2013)

In a recent letter from my nephew Mark Nelson, he described an experience that he had nine years ago. At that time he was working as an accountant for a firm in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. On his way to work he encountered a young woman who was living under a bridge. Michelle, the 18-year-old under the bridge, was a runaway and addicted to meth. Unfortunately, there were many others like her, homeless and suffering with a variety of personal and social problems. Mark realized the distress of these young people and was moved to leave his job and to initiate a ministry for youth, which today is called “Freedom for Youth Ministries.”

A Pastor’s Wife: Her Son’s Tribute (Spring/Summer 2018)

My mother was born on July 10, 1905 in the log house on the farm homesteaded by her father, Gust Augustson. She was named Anna Marie after her mother Sophie’s sister. Her father had come to Minnesota a few years earlier from a rented farm near Edinburg, North Dakota to establish a claim to farmland south of Warroad, which is located on Lake of the Woods bordering Canada. Both her mother’s and father’s families emigrated from Sweden to the Red River Valley in eastern North Dakota and had lived and married there. Her three brothers, Gottfrid, Reuel, and Ansgar, and sister Ellen were born in North Dakota before moving to the new farm.