By Bretta Grabau
Fillmore County
Historical Society
Martin was born to Hans and Turine Johnson in 1876. Hans changed his name to Johnson when arriving in America from Norway, where his surname had been Bergen. Some of his children used the Johnson name and some used Bergen. Martin used both names. He lived in Harmony for a time under the Johnson name during his early years. Taking a fancy to designing, Martin enrolled in the International Correspondence School, one of the first of its kind, to take the mechanical courses, improving his technical drawing skills, all under the Johnson name.
This correspondence school, now also called Penn Foster Career School, was only 12 years old by the time Martin enrolled in the course. Thomas J. Foster, publisher of the Colliery Engineer and Metal Miner Journal founded the school to assist rather uneducated miners about safety skills they had not learned from apprenticeship, according to the International Correspondence Schools of Scranton collection at the University of Scranton Archives. The school was a novelty, employing the option of students enrolling in and being mailed their courses and the ability to pay for the courses on an installment plan. The first class of the school enrolled 500 miners, but within eight years, over 190,000 had received their education. Between 1900-1910, more than 100,000 new students per year enrolled in the courses. Enrollment exploded over the next decades, reaching four million alumni in 1930. After the first few years, the school grew big enough to add on courses for history, literature, architecture, and mechanical and electrical engineering. Martin was among one of the first classes to take mechanical engineering.
Following his graduation, Martin took a position in Tacoma, Wash., in a shipyard as a draftsman, putting his new degree from the famed International Correspondence School to work. Eventually he moved back to the Harmony area and married Louise Nelson. Possibly around that time he began to identify as Martin Bergen, with some of his children following his example. Martin returned to the farm in Harmony and continued to run it until 1923 before moving to Decorah, Iowa. There Martin worked at Luther College as a janitor in charge of the gym for 19 years, and played the part of a fix-it-all maintenance man, replacing broken windows and fixing chairs.
But aside from his work, he dabbled in a new hobby around the turn of the century – repairing violins. Then during his tenure at Luther, he decided to do more than repair them. He began designing and hand-crafting violins, once again putting his technical drawing and design skills to good use. According to a news article about him, “After 1936 if he couldn’t repair a violin, he could make you a new one. He started making violins in that year and made 11.” By the time of his death, not including the violins he repaired, Martin crafted over 100 violins and 18 violas. One of the sets he created is on display at the Fillmore County Historical Society in Fountain.
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