Birgit Ridderstedt was a Swedish-American folk singer and cultural ambassador who appeared at festivals and on television in the 1950s and early 1960s with material she produced herself.
Background
Born in Ludvika, Sweden, a daughter of Stefan Anderson and Ragnhild Fredrika Sandberg, she immigrated with her husband C. Erik Ridderstedt and their two small sons Stefan and Lars-Erik to the United States in 1950, settling in Chicago and later in Batavia, Illinois.
Career
Ridderstedt was a cultural personality who gave presentations of Scandinavian music and folklore on Window To The World and World's Greatest Newspaper television in Chicago in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her television appearances on public service and eventually for commercial channels in Chicago added to her notoriety in the Chicago media market. On Polka Go-Round she also had young children singing Swedish songs and highschool youths doing folk dancing.
When after 12 years Ridderstedt left Illinois, a total of 45 young people had been with her on some ten television programs about such Scandinavian celebrations as Midsummer, Lucy Day and Passion Plays.
She had also performed four times with her groups in the annual Swedish Days festivities of Geneva, Illinois, and often had appeared with orations and songs for various organizations. Thus organizing entertainment for festivals and parades especially popular with Scandinavian-Americans in the Fox Valley (Illinois), Ridderstedt also opened her own gift shop.
She worked to establish a previously unusual cooperation between any talented residents she could find of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish extraction. Ridderstedt returned to Sweden in 1962 with her family, but was also active in western Florida in the 1970s with her folk song programs.
The Ridderstedt couple lived in the Stockholm suburb of Täby when retired.
He died in 1982. Their family grave is found in Stora Tuna Churchyard. Birgit Ridderstedt was the mother of Swedish-American writer and entertainment director, Jacob Truedson Demitz.