Biography Briefs: The ELS of 1918 March–April

We continue with a series of biographies of the pastors who attended the reorganization convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in 1918. There is evidence for the presence of at least thirteen pastors along with two hundred guests at this convention.
In 1918, Holden Olsen was living in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was the pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church. He was one of only four men who boldly testified against the merger of the three Norwegian Lutheran church bodies during the final session of the Norwegian Synod in 1917. In 1925, he became the president of Bethany Ladies’ College in Mankato, Minnesota, and his presence there was important to the synod’s acquisition of the school in 1927. He married Guida Winden. He died in 1931.
In 1918, John A. Moldstad was the pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Chicago, Illinois, where he served his entire ministry. One year earlier, he preached the sermon when the minority of the Norwegian Synod gathered at Fairview Lutheran Church. He was the synod’s vice president, 1917–22, and for six years also was the editor of the synod’s Norwegian language newspaper, the Evangelisk Luthersk Tidende. He represented the synod on the Board for Colored Missions of the Lutheran Synodical Conference, 1922–45. After the synod acquired Bethany Lutheran College, he became a member of the Board of Regents and for many years was its chairman. He married Ethelyn Holverson. He died in 1946.