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Rotary Came to Norway

Rasmus Falck wrote the history of Rotary Club in Norway celebrating its 90th anniversary.

Rotary has more than 300 clubs and 12.000 members in Norway. It was the Norwegian-American Iowa senator Olaf M. Oleson from Fort Dodge Rotary Club, who brought the movement to Norway. He participated in the Rotary International Convention in Edinburgh in 1921, the first to be held in Europe. After the Convention he visited Norway where he brought up the idea to start a Rotary Club with friends and nephew Ola Five, at the time a captain in the Kings Guard. Ola followed up and on 13 October, the first meeting with nine members took place and the club was organized. This was the first Rotary meeting held in Scandinavia. Later they applied for membership in Rotary International. The application arrived in Chicago 17 of May.

At the charter banquet in Kristiania, later that same year, past president and Rotary International architect C. Klumpf from the Cleveland Rotary Club handed over the charter on the first of June the first in Scandinavia. 

Olaf M. Oleson was one of Fort Dodge’s best known benefactors. He died in 1944. He was a native of Norway, who immigrated to the United States in 1870. He operated Oleson Drug Co., and with his wife, Julie Haskell Oleson, contributed to local parks, hospitals, colleges, musical organizations and individuals. In 1928 Senator Olaf M. Oleson was awarded the Order of St. Olav. The last time he visited the club was in 1937.

When the capital of Norway changed name from Kristiania to Oslo in 1925 the club followed. Actually that year my grandfather, a member since 1924, had the idea of using the occasion to do some international branding. A special publication about the club and the city was distributed to all existing Rotary Clubs at that time.

The presidential bell and club was a gift from the Minneapolis Rotary Club in 1925.The explorer Roald Amundsen became an honorary member in 1926. Also King Olav V and King Harald V have been honorary members. Crownprince Haakon has followed up this tradition and is an honorary member today. Rotary’s founder Paul P. Harris visited the club in 1932. During the WWII the club was forced to go under ground.

Today Oslo Rotary Club, with its 220 members, is the largest in Scandinavia. This year is the 90^th year. The charter date will be marked with a conference in the recently restored banquet hall at the University of Oslo. Rumours say that a gift will be presented to the 200-year-old university. The President of the club this Rotary year is Roar Gudding. He is a director at The  Veterinary Institute, and did research at Iowa State University and is familiar with the city of Fort Dodge.

Myself I had the pleasure of meeting with Carl Johnson, president of the Fort Dodge Rotary Club on a visit to Iowa in1996. Then I extended an invitation to all members to visit us. They are welcome to this very day. We have our luncheon meeting on Thursday’s at the Grand Hotel.

TAGS: Rotary, Rasmus Falck, Oslo, USA, Oleson

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