Marion Luthgren at 18

Hi Mom!

As she's wearing a light coat, it must have been on the cool side in Minneapolis on this day in May or June of 1939.  The displays in the window allow me to determine this time frame.

Mom attended the Lutheran Bible Institute from September 1938 to June 1940.  In a letter she wrote to JoAnna and me on September 24, 2002, she succinctly describes her years between high school graduation in Springfield, Massachusetts, and meeting Dad (Carl).

To answer your questions.  I graduated from high school in 1938. That summer Aunt Helen took me to Minneapolis where her brother George Randolph lived. He was a Lutheran pastor. From Minneapolis we went to Alexandria, Minnesota for a week at Mt. Carmel Bible Camp. [Now Mount Carmel Ministries, no longer affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.]  Uncle George taught at the Lutheran Bible Institute & they thought I should attend there (to tame me down, I guess!!) 

 So I went there for the 2 year course & enjoyed those 2 years away very much. Then I went home for 3 years & attended A.I.C. [American International College]  & gave up on college. Both Gen & I went to Minneapolis but when my mother had a stroke she went back home to help out. I found a job & then Pastor A. W. Knock, a teacher at LBI, asked if I'd be interested in a job in Rockford at his brother's church. E. G. Knock. I was interviewed, got the job in Feb. The following August Carl came home from Auburn on vacation & you know the rest. So I guess leaving home wasn't such a bad thing for me. The funny part, one of those 3 years I was back home, Dad was at the church in Hartford in his intern year & we never met. He was suppose to visit our Luther League but never made it.

The LBI building

Now 

and 

then

The amazing thing about today's (re)discovery is that JoAnna and I attended a wedding in Minneapolis this past weekend, and the hotel at which we stayed is just 4 blocks from the old LBI building.  I imagine that the store in the top photo is/was located in the same neighborhood.  Maybe someone at the Minneapolis Central Library reference department can help me identify the building.

Wish I would have uncovered this information a few days ago.