Hurt and
bewildered, I must remember the Valhalla Hall as today the building is torn
down. It is so very sad that this old
building is not a restoration. My first
public appearance probably was at the Valhalla Hall, a song accompanied on the
piano by my mother. She was ten when she
gave a piano solo at the hall, with much praise.
 |
| 2008 |
The Swedish Order of Valhalla was a men’s
organization from 1884, they built the hall in 1905, it represented the architectural style of
American Renaissance. It served as an
interim venue for First Swedish Lutheran Church of Tacoma when First Lutheran’s
second building burned in November, 1924. The group sold the hall in the 1990s,
in 2008 a group associated with the Allen AME leased the building to try to
remodel it as a similar performance and activity hall. The group removed the interior: that included
removal of the original horsehair insulation, an architectural detail that had
made activities at the hall hard to insure.
The Swedish
Order of Valhalla was a men’s Masonic-type group. The Order of Runeberg, the Swedish-Finnish
Group my mother’s family could belong to, in the 1960s began to meet at the new, accessible Wild West VFW
Hall because many of their members could no longer climb the stairs to the
second floor where meetings and events were held.
 |
| 2017 |
During the
activity at MLK during the subarea plans I did enter comments about the hall
and I allowed an interview for the project, which was included among others in
a video about the history at the Tacoma MLK subarea.
The Allen
AME fell short of attaining the necessary funding for their project, as far as
I know the new project there will be a housing building that had promised to
reflect the hall. Some were uncertain
that the new project intends to reflect the appearance of the old hall. And now the hall is torn down.
 |
| Stairs 1995 |
 |
| During interior removal |
Since 2009 I have done some volunteer work at the Scandinavian Immigrant Experience Archives at Pacific Lutheran University, where the Valhalla Archives are kept, with the guidance of the archivist I was able to help advance the Valhalla Papers preservation.
On Facebook yesterday I saw it was remembrance day for the Holocaust. There was a request that we print we remember on paper and show our face with the paper. So I did so, there was a sticky note with an empty side on the notebook I had with me at the Archive at PLU - Scandinavian Immigrant Experience Archive. I made a Women's Rights sign last Saturday and carried it up to Westlake. Because I thought I might not walk as fast as everyone and was not certain about walking over three miles briskly, I joined the walk at Westlake Center and did about eight blocks or so to the Seattle Center, and not trying three miles probably made sense.
Often in the evening I hear stories on talk radio, often in the day I visit the computer labs at the library. The women's walk mattered.
