Source: "History of the Swedes in Illinois, Part III – Biographical Sketches with Portraits – Counties at Large," by Ernst W. Olson and Martin J. Engberg, printed by the Engberg-Holmberg Publishing Company, Chicago, 1908.

Transcribed by Denise McLoughlin, Tampico Area Historical Society, www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

Page 95

ANDERS OLOF BERSELL

Prof. A. O. BERSELL, deceased, occupied the chair of Greek at Augustana College from the year 1880 until his death. He was born in the village of Utmeland, Mora parish, May 19, 1853. His first instruction was received in the public school of the parish. In 1868 he took a course in a normal school, subsequently teaching for four years in his home dstricts. At nineteen he resumed his his studies and was graduated from college at Upsala in 1877. After serving as tutor for a year he returned to Upsala in order to pursue philosophical stsudies. He took the degree of Ph. Cand., after two years at the university, whereupon he became insstructor to a mission school in Stockholm conducted by "Evangelíska Fosterlandsstiftelsen." In 1880 he received two calls from America simultneously, one from Gustavus Adoplphus College at St. Peter, Minn., the other from Augustana, to become professor of Greek and German. He accepted the latter, and entered upon his duties in the fall of the same year. besides Greek and German, he taught at different times Swedish, Latin, Philosophical Propaedeitocs and religious subjects, his main subject, the Greek language and literature, eventually demanding a monopoly of his time and energy. He is the author of a Greek textbook, entitled, "Notes to Greek Grammar," also a first and second reader for the Swedish parochial  chools, besides having done much literary work in the way f editing or contributing to the newspapers Augustana, Ungdomsvãnnen, and Hemvãnnen, editing Christmas books for the young and translating juvenile stories from the Swedish and German languages. In 1894 the degree and title of Ph. D. was conferred on Prof. BERSELL by the institution he so long served. He was a devoted churchman and served as a deacon in the Swedish Lutheral church of Molkine and afterrds for many years in the Zion Church of Rock Island. He died Dec. 16, 1903, leaving a wife, Uma BERSELL, née LAGERLUND and 12 children.