How Nicolai Got His Name
By Evelyn Kennicott
(The following is excerpted from a letter from Evelyn to Agnes Hesseldahl Sharp dated March 16, 1993. Ed.)
"This is only a guess on my part, but I think I have figured out where the name 'Nicolai" came from. It seemed like a strange name for a Dane. I have probably told you about going to a camp in Tyler, MN called Danebod, held in a former Danish folk school. It is a family recreation camp and I went to it for a number of years with Nancy and Judy. I bought a songbook which we used in camp, and I was looking at it last night to find some folk songs to use for an 'Ethnic' potluck supper the church women are putting on.
In the foreword was written about Bishop Grundtvig, whose philosophy was that life was not just a veil of tears to be endured during preparation for the good life in heaven, but that God intended it to be lived joyously and to the fullest. He established the Danish Folk School movement, which educated the older young people of Denmark in good literature and music and the arts, and transformed Denmark. (The big cathedral that looked like the pipe organ was named for him.) Anyway, to get to the point, his first name was Nicolai! You mentioned once that your father (Anchor, Ed.) said Grandpa (Nicolai, Ed.) liked a good time when he was younger. It was probably the early Methodist prohibition against dancing and card playing etc. that changed him. I bet he was named after the good Bishop!"