Lina Sandell

Lina Sandell (full name: Karolina Wilhelmina Sandell-Berg) (3 October 1832 – 27 July 1903) was a Swedish poet and author of gospel hymns.

Background The daughter of a Lutheran minister, Sandell grew up in the rectory at Fröderyd parish in the Diocese of Växjö in Småland, Sweden. Lina greatly loved and admired her father. Since she was a frail youngster, she generally preferred to be with him in his study rather than with comrades outdoors. At the age of 26 she accompanied her father, Jonas Sandell, on a boat trip across Lake Vättern, during which he fell overboard and drowned in her presence. Although Lina had written many hymn texts prior to this tragic experience, now more than ever poetic thoughts began to flow from her broken heart. All of her hymns reflect a tender, childlike trust in her Savior and a deep sense of his abiding presence in her life. and Blott en dag (Day by day). Some were published in the 1819 Church of Sweden hymnal, Den svenska psalmboken. She was friends with fellow hymnwriter Agatha Rosenius.

Sandell's popularity owed much to the performances of Oscar Ahnfelt, who set many of her verses to music. He played his guitar and sang her hymns throughout Scandinavia. Of him she once said, "Ahnfelt has sung my songs into the hearts of the people". The "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind also promoted Sandell's hymns by singing them in concert and financing their publication. In 1892, Sandell became ill with typhoid fever. She died in 1903 at the age of seventy and was buried at Solna Church in greater Stockholm. Berg died due to complications caused by diabetes in October that same year.

Legacy The train Y32 1404, of Krösatågen in Småland and Halland, which moves across the railway tracks between Jönköping-Växjö, Nässjö-Halmstad and Jönköping-Tranås, has been named Lina Sandell.

There is a statue of Sandell at North Park University in Chicago, Illinois.