Lillenas, Haldor

Born: No­vem­ber 19, 1885, Stord Is­land (near Ber­gen), Nor­way. Died: Au­gust 18, 1959, As­pen, Co­lo­ra­do. Buried: Flor­al Hills Cem­e­te­ry, Kan­sas Ci­ty, Mis­so­uri.

Pseudonyms-- Vir­gin­ia Rose Gold­en Laverne Gray Richard Hainsworth Rev. H. N. Lines Robert Whitmore Ferne Winters

Lillenas em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca as a child; his fam­i­ly set­tled first in South Da­ko­ta, then moved to Or­e­gon in 1889. He at­tend­ed Deets Pa­ci­fic Bi­ble Coll­ege in Los An­ge­les, Cal­i­for­nia (later re­named to Pa­sa­de­na Coll­ege); stu­died mu­sic at the Sie­gel-My­ers School of Mu­sic in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois; and re­ceived an hon­or­ary Doc­tor of Mu­sic de­gree from Ol­i­vet Na­za­rene Coll­ege. His first pas­tor­ate was in Lom­poc, Cal­i­for­nia, in 1910; he lat­er pas­tored in Redlands, Cal­i­for­nia, and In­dianapolis, In­diana. In 1924, he found­ed the Lil­le­nas Mu­sic Com­pa­ny (bought by the Na­za­rene Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny in 1930), and worked as an ed­it­or there un­til his re­tire­ment in 1950. Haldor mar­ried Ber­tha Mae Wil­son, a song­writ­er like him­self. He and Ber­tha were el­ders in the Church of the Na­za­rene. Hal­dor tra­veled as an evan­gel­ist, then pas­tored sev­er­al church­es, 1914-1924. In his life­time, he wrote some 4,000 hymns, and sup­plied songs for ma­ny evan­gel­ists. His works in­clude: Special Sac­red Songs, 1919 New Sac­red Songs Strains of Love Special Sac­red Songs No. 2

Sources: Hustad, p. 273 Schwanz, pp. 69-76

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