Otto Olson was “Mr. Lutheran”

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/03/2020 (2031 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Otto  A. Olson was born on April 25, 1920 in Comstock, Wisc. He studied at the Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis and Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. During his student years at Gustavus Adolphus, his decision to become a pastor was reinforced by nine months as a supply pastor for a parish in Frederic, Wisc.

In 1944, Otto married Theda Benson and they went on to raise four sons. In 1945, he was ordained and his first church was Immanuel Lutheran in New Westminster, B.C. In 1951, Otto became a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon. In 1954, he added the presidency of the Canada Conference of the Augustana Lutheran Church to his responsibilities.

In 1962, Otto was elected the first president of the Central Canada Synod, which was created in a merger of various Lutheran synods. Its office was located at Portage Avenue and Mount Royal Road, so the Olsons moved to Westwood in 1963, where they became members of St. Stephen’s Lutheran before becoming charter members of  Messiah Lutheran Church. In 1965, Otto and  Assiniboia Mayor John Bellows officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony for Messiah’s Rouge Road church. Theda became Messiah’s organist.

As president of the Central Canada Synod, Otto traveled around the synod and the world. He attended meetings, filled in for vacationing pastors, attended church anniversaries and listened to people’s concerns. He was an early advocate of smoking bans in public buildings and, during one meeting of the Church of America, Otto wore a mask to protest the room’s tobacco smoke.
Otto died on April 26, 1976 while attending a church meeting in Glace Bay, N.S. His funeral was attended by an overflow crowd at First Lutheran Church.

The Otto Olson Memorial Library at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon contains 45,000 volumes.

In a memorial book called Faithfully Yours, Robert Marshall, president of the Lutheran Church of America, referred to Otto as “Mr. Lutheran in Canada.”

Fred Morris is a community correspondent for St. James. Reach him at fredmorris@hotmail.com