Background
As a young pastor in Chicago he met and married Gertrude Elizabeth Carlson of Rockford, Illinois, the daughter of Swedish immigrants.
historian president theologian
As a young pastor in Chicago he met and married Gertrude Elizabeth Carlson of Rockford, Illinois, the daughter of Swedish immigrants.
Born on December 3, 1895, in Shickley, Nebraska, to Carl August and Emma Mathilda Fahlberg Bergendoff, he spent his youth in Middletown, Connecticut, graduated from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, in 1915, and earned his Master of Arts
At the University of Pennsylvania in 1916. He returned to Rock Island to complete the B. Division. degree at the Augustana Theological Seminary. Bergendoff was ordained into the ministry of the Augustana Lutheran Synod on June 12, 1921 in Chicago.
He pursued advanced study at Sweden"s Uppsala University, serving as personal secretary to Swedish Archbishop Nathan Söderblom during the Stockholm Conference on Life and Work in 1925.
He earned his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1928. Bergendoff became dean of the Augustana Theological Seminary in 1931, and was elected to succeed Gustav Andreen as president of Augustana College in 1935.
He saw the college through the difficult years of the Great Depression, through its separation from Augustana Theological Seminary in 1948, and into a long period of substantial growth and increasing prestige. In recognition for his work, Bergendoff received six honorary doctorates throughout his life, including one from Sweden"s Uppsala University.
The fine arts building at Augustana College, constructed during his presidency, was named the Bergendoff Hall of Fine Arts.