Mr. Olaf Oberg

While I was at Plymouth Spiritualist Church looking through the cupboards for some papers I found a small, and very old, framed note that read “In loving memory of Mr. Olof Oberg who made it possible for us to have Plymouth Spiritualist Church” the name had sounded familiar (hard to forget a name like that) so I went to researching some of the records.

Olaf Oberg was a founding member of Plymouth Spiritualist Church. He was one of the first trustees, and I’ve also found his signature on the legal paperwork that was involved in the purchase of the original church building.

The 1910 Federal census states that in that year Mr. Oberg was 73 years old. He was married to a woman named Harriet, who was 67 at the time. His place of birth was in Sweden, and he immigrated to the united states in 1866 when he was 29 years old.

An early directory called Dan’s Blue Book: Rochester 1904 lists his place of residence at 543 Mt. Hope ave, which is also the same address listed in the 1910 census.

He and his wife Harriet are buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

While I was happy that I could find anything at all about this man, something seemed to be missing. I wanted to know more about that note and why he specifically was so important to Plymouth.

After more research, I finally found my answer in a Democrat and Chronicle article from October 19, 1909 which describes an account of a celebration that took place at the original Plymouth building, presided over by Rev. Austin, where all of the members celebrated the fact that their mortgage for the church had finally been paid off, and the congregation owned their own church.

The article goes on to state: “on account of his liberality in contributing to the expenses of the church, the trustees presented to the church an oil portrait of Olaf Oberg which will be hung in the church.”

It seems that Mr. Oberg cared so much for Plymouth and Spiritualism that he contributed enough of his time and money into the church to the point where the congregation wanted to entrust that everyone would remember his dedication.

We no longer have the oil portrait in our church, and we’re no longer in the same building, but it seems that the spirits wanted that modest little note to be kept safe all these years, from building to building for a reason.

So thank you Mr. Oberg, for making sure there would always be a home for Spiritualism in Rochester.