Scandinavian Dances at the Valhalla Hall During World War Two

This poem refers to the U.S.O. for African-American Servicemen and Women.  (Please click to see a photo of the building in 1945.)  And It refers to the Valhalla Hall, where Scandinavian Americans could attend Scandinavian dances.



Valhalla Hall, 2008 - the brick building
shown.is from about 1926,
it was demolished to build the new health center



Commerce Street, 2012

APRIL 1923 – LINNEA GORD’S RECITAL PROGRAM




She kept a scrapbook.  Pasted in

Is a program from a piano recital

At The American Legion Assembly Room.
 

Not The American Legion Hall,

Built in 1930 across from the park.

Photos at the library show the Assembly Room

Interior, the ceiling and window structure

The same as a 1922 news photograph

Of the American Legion Assembly Room. 
 

Other library photos are of African-American

Service men and women at their own

USO Club at 713-715 Commerce, 

the American Legion Assembly Room. 

On the recital program they have taken

The opportunity to make her seem

More sophisticated and professional

By adding to her last name, an e.

Linnea Gorde performed A La Bien Aimee. 

In the 1930s she performed

As a dance band piano player at

The Valhalla Hall.  Her second accordion player,

Claus Anderson, on May 29, 1942,

Promised a PA demonstration at the next

Meeting night of the Swedish Order of Valhalla.

He was a member of the committee

To replace the PA.  The job went to Bark’s

Electric.  The Scandinavian soldiers

Could go the the Valhalla Hall for dances.

Her first accordion player and her drummer,

Her brothers, were in Alaska and The Pacific. 

At the dining room window was a basket

Of white rocks my grandma found

On the beach on the island.

There was a small wooden Chinese man

Who pulled a rickshaw.  Through

The lace window curtain was the

Steep front yard.  In the living room was

The piano, where she had rehearsed

A La Bien Aimee by Shutt in 1923.