The story of the presidents is the story of North American immigration itself and the transformation from newcomers to homegrown citizens. Many of our first officers worked at any job they could find, to establish a foothold in their new country. Some attended college, but many sacrificed their own advancement to launch the next generation into higher education and advanced professions.
In this gallery, we see an array of names ranging from the traditional Trygve, Anders and Marit to the more Americanized Michael, Penny and Anthony.
The stories behind the photos span the arc of brand-new immigrants to the fully integrated: At first, lodge business and documentation were in Norwegian and the membership was 100% men of Norwegian heritage. These early emigres did whatever it took to create stability and security, including buying a life insurance product to join Sons of Norway so that their descendants wouldn’t have to struggle as they had.
Over the ensuing decades, our leadership took steps to preserve culture and educate the next generations about heritage, while creating opportunities for our communities. Eventually, there were fewer native speakers of Norwegian and so the official language became English in 1942. Women were first admitted as members in 1916 and began serving as lodge and district officers. In 1998, we elected our first woman as International President and to date, have had three women serve in this role.
- 37 leaders have served in this role over 130 years
- 19 were born in Norway
- 17 received medals of honor from the King of Norway for their contributions to promoting Norwegian culture.
Many of our presidents and chairs have close ties to Norway, still today.
We were not able to find biographies available for every officer. If you have information to suggest, please email [email protected]