Norwegian-American Entertainers
The Olson Sisters were versatile performers, adept at both singing and comedy. They usually worked with a piano accompanist and presented a program of vocal works, piano solos, and comic monologues. Eleonora, a contralto, was the primary vocalist, and Ethel, a soprano, joined her for duets. Their musical repertoire ranged from recital pieces and folk songs to parlor songs and gospel hymns.
Ironically, the sisters' fame rested less on their serious musical ability than on their original Norwegian dialect stories. "Isn't it funny vit people here in America," says the woman in Mabel’s Wedding, "dey don't talk Norvegian and dey don't talk English."
Eleonora and Ethel, whose parents were from Norway, portrayed the immigrant's difficulty in adapting to American life. Their story At The Movies touches on homesickness for the Old Country while The Baseball Game recounts a Norwegian woman's misadventures with the national pastime. The humor in the stories rings true because the Olson Sisters knew their subject firsthand — whether it be a meeting of the ladies' aid, a piano lesson, or a scene witnessed on a train. In The Old Sogning Woman Eleonora used the dialect of her mother's birthplace. Ethel, a native of the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago, set her monologue The New Bookcase in a store on Milwaukee Avenue, one of the area's busiest commercial streets, while mentioning the locally published Skandinaven.
A magazine article from 1924 relates how Ethel drew upon an incident in real life for her sketch A Norwegian Woman At The Telephone: "One day as a little girl Ethel visited an ice cream parlor. While there her attention was attracted to a woman who had been called to the telephone for the first time in her life. This experience occasioned considerable fright, and a very humorous conversation ensued. A couple of weeks later Ethel was performing before a large gathering in Orchestra Hall; being called upon for an encore, she gave the story."
The same article says of Eleonora: "It is somewhat surprising that Eleonora Olson, who speaks so many different dialects of Norway, was born in Chicago and has never been abroad. Norwegians say that her enunciation and articulation are just the same as a native's.
While on tour the Olson Sisters appeared in small town opera houses, civic halls, churches, and college auditoriums. In the summer, when warm weather made these facilities unusable, they performed in the big brown tents of the traveling Chautauqua. Eleonora and Ethel were perennial favorites with the Chautauqua's rural audiences; in 1915, for instance, they were booked for the entire summer season on the circuit.
An article from that same year in Sanger-Hilsen comments on their popularity: "Among the many troupes that visit us out here in the West, Eleonora Olson's takes a leading place. While the others cease operation after one or two seasons, these three ladies return invariably year after year, and one new city after the other is added to their tour. And this is as it should be; for they bring with them much joie de vivre." The article praises the musical talent of the sisters and their accompanist, and of Ethel it says: "Her Norwegian dialect stories can make even the most stiff-necked pessimist crumple with laughter."
The Olson Sisters had many important friends. Among them were the painter Herbjørn Gausta, U.S. Senator Henrik Shipstead and his wife and such leading families of the church as the Preuses, the Stubs, and the Korens. Their friend Annette Yde Lake was the mother of actress Ann Sothern. After a performance on the road Eleonora and Ethel were often the overnight guests of prominent local citizens.
During their peak touring years the Olson Sisters, who then lived in Chicago, had a home away from home at Mrs. Dikka Koren's boarding house in Minneapolis. Other notable Norwegian-Americans also stayed there such as J. A. O. Preus, who was a future governor of Minnesota, and Herbjørn Gausta. Agnes Preus, Mrs. Koren's niece, recalls that the boarders were a convivial group: "At the dinner table there were stories all the time. I can remember it was hard to eat a meal because we spent so much time laughing."
Read more about this topic: Eleonora And Ethel Olson