1832–1903
Carolina Sandell, Lina Sandell

Introduction

Born: Oc­to­ber 3, 1832, in the rec­to­ry at Frö­deryd, Små­land, Swe­den.

Died: Ju­ly 27, 1903, Stock­holm, Swe­den.

Buried: Sol­na Kyr­ko­gård, Sol­na, Swe­den. On her tomb­stone is a line from one of her hymns: Tryg­gare kan ing­en va­ra (No one could be saf­er).

portrait

Biography

Lina was the daugh­ter of Jo­nas San­dell, pas­tor of the Lu­ther­an church in Fröd­eryd parish (dio­cese of Väx­jö), and wife of Stock­holm mer­chant and tem­per­ance ac­ti­vist Carl Os­car Berg (mar­ried 1867).

At age 26, she ac­com­pan­ied her fa­ther on a boat trip across Lake Vät­tern to Gö­te­borg, dur­ing which he fell ov­er­board and drowned be­fore her eyes. The tra­ge­dy pro­found­ly af­fect­ed Li­na, and re­port­ed­ly in­spired her to write hymns.

Known as the Fan­ny Cros­by of Swe­den, she wrote 650 hymns. Ma­ny she signed with the in­i­tials L. S.

From 1866–1902, she ed­it­ed Kors­blom­man, Christ­lig Kal­en­der, the child­ren’s pub­li­ca­tion Korn åt Små Fåg­lar, and un­til 1891 Barn­ens Tid­ning.

Works

Sources

Lyrics