Swedish Order of Vasa

[JBjork45]

My grandfather, David K Bjork, was awarded the Swedish Order of Vasa post WWII. I got to see it once. I'm looking for information - the date and the reason specifically. I think it was for work done prior to the war. Thanks - JBjork

[JohanH]

Hello!

 

Do you know which class of the order he received? Do you have any idea when he received it? 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s?

 

Was he a Swedish citizen or a foreigner? If a foreigner, from where?

 

With a little more information there should be quite easy (but time-consuming) to find the date. The scrolls are handwritten and sometimes not so easy to read.

 

I don't think it will be possible to find out exactly why he received it. Possibly there might be a newspaper article, but it's not likely.

 

 

If you try to give more information I can try to find him. 

 

[JohanH]

Found him!

 

David Knuth Bjork (Björk) was awarded the Order of Vasa, Knight cross 1st class on April 17th 1944. 

On 24/09/2021 at 21:51, JBjork45 said:

My grandfather, David K Bjork, was awarded the Swedish Order of Vasa post WWII. I got to see it once. I'm looking for information - the date and the reason specifically. I think it was for work done prior to the war. Thanks - JBjork

 

[JohanH]

I found some more information about Bjork and his life on this site: 

University of California: In Memoriam, April 1963 (cdlib.org)

 

Below is the text copied from the site. 

 

Apparently he received the order for fostering Swedish-American relations. 

 

 

 

David Knuth Bjork

1891-1962
Professor Emeritus
David Knuth Bjork was born in Stockholm, Sweden, July 19, 1891, the son of August and Jenny Godhe Bjork. He came to the United States in May 1911 and became a citizen in 1922. He attended theological seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and was ordained as minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church. After a year at Illinois Wesleyan University, he moved to California where he continued study for two years at the Pacific School of Religion while serving as minister of a Methodist church in Berkeley. Shortly thereafter he enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of California from which he received his B.A. degree in 1919 and his A.M. in 1920. His contact with Professor Herbert E. Bolton in lectures and seminars led to his appointment as a Teaching Fellow in Latin-American History, a field in which Bolton was a leading scholar. Aiming for a Ph.D. in history, Bjork chose as his dissertation topic “Alexander O'Reilly and the Spanish Occupation of Louisiana, 1769-1770,” a theme concerned with the transfer of Louisiana from France to Spain and the suppression of insurrection therein.

This was a topic that required intensive study of manuscript sources in Spanish and French archives. His selection as a Travelling Fellow by the Native Sons of the Golden West allowed him to spend a year (1922-1923) in Spanish and other European archives and to visit his birthplace, Stockholm, to lecture on historical themes. Before his return to Berkeley he had completed his dissertation, mailing the chapters back

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as they were completed. Its main results appeared in 1932 in New Spain and the Anglo-Saxon West, two volumes of historical contributions dedicated to H. E. Bolton by a group of his former students.
In 1923, Dr. Bjork was appointed Instructor in the History Department of what was then known as the University of California, Southern Branch. Over the years he rose through the ranks and in 1958, after thirty-five years of service, retired as Professor of History. March 3, 1962, he died in his campus office of a heart ailment with which he had been afflicted for several years.

Although Bjork's doctoral dissertation had been in New World History, his European background, his knowledge of European languages, and his work in church history while in theological school, especially qualified him to give instruction in European history and from the beginning of his connection with UCLA all his teaching was in the European field. At first this was in lower division courses--the only division operating in Los Angeles, but as early as 1924--the first year in which the full four-year program at UCLA was authorized by The Regents--Dr. Bjork began teaching History 121A-B, The History of the Middle Ages, which was to remain his special field until his retirement. In this course several thousand students came under his instruction and influence. He was a teacher of unusual ability, giving both understanding and inspiration to the many students who studied with him.

By 1933 when UCLA began graduate instruction, Dr. Bjork had so thoroughly established himself in the field of medieval history that he was called upon to introduce a seminar in that subject. He had prepared for this by helping the University Library build its holdings in Hanseatic and Northern European medieval history. At the same time he had made a careful selection of printed sources and monographs for his private library and had acquired a large collection

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of microfilm from archives in Brussels, Luebeck, Tallin, Riga, Danzig, and other towns in Northern Europe. In 1938, as Travelling Fellow for the Commission for Relief in Belgium, Educational Foundation, he visited the archives of Belgium, northern Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and the East Baltic States and significantly supplemented these microfilm copies of essential sources.
Dr. Bjork's published writings were not extensive, but his influence has stretched far and will continue to be felt for many years as his students carry on in colleges and universities across the country. As a result of his work with Professor Bolton he published not only the contribution in New Spain and the Anglo-Saxon West mentioned above, but also two articles in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review and one in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly. As a group they threw much-needed light on the problems connected with the transfer of Louisiana from French to Spanish rule.

After turning his attention to the history of Northern Europe during the medieval period, Dr. Bjork published in Speculum “The Peace of Stralsund, 1370,” and “Piracy in the Baltic: 1375-1398,” “Hansa Towns and Flanders, 1358-1393”--a paper read at the Eighth International Congress of Historical Sciences at Zurich--and “Three Hansa Towns and Archives” in Volume IX of the Pacific Historical Review. More and more, as the years passed, Professor Bjork focused his attention, and that of his graduate students, upon the history of the Hanseatic League. At the time of his death he was a leading authority on the history of this important league and was actively at work on a history of it. In recognition of his scholarship in this field Dr. Bjork was elected a member of the Council of the Mediaeval Academy of America in 1939 and its Vice-President in 1954. Besides being a faithful member of the Mediaeval Academy, he kept up his membership in the American Historical Association; Hansische Geschichtsverein; The Society for the Advancement

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of Scandinavian Studies; and the historical societies of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
In addition to directing the work of fourteen Ph.D. candidates, Dr. Bjork served on nearly one hundred doctoral committees. He was active in all departmental concerns, serving as Chairman of the Committee for the Guidance of Graduate Students and as Chairman of the Department, 1939-45--years that included the difficult war period with its military and civilian programs and its trimester schedules. He also served as a member of the Graduate Council during the early years of graduate work at UCLA.

Dr. Bjork never shirked responsibilities or labors and gave generously of himself wherever he could be of assistance. The Men's Faculty Club, his fraternity, the Alumni Association, numerous student organizations, the Southern California History Guild, and the UCLA Chapter of Pi Gamma Mu are some of the groups he served. This quality led President Sproul at the time of Dr. Bjork's retirement to point to “the selfless devotion” he had given to “the causes of the University” and to his “championing of the University on all occasions.”

Outside the department one of Dr. Bjork's most important areas of activity was athletics. He never lost the keen interest in sports that he developed as a youth in Sweden and was ever ready to counsel and assist students who participated in athletics. Soon after joining the UCLA faculty, he took the lead in establishing the Circle C Society for lettermen in minor sports and later became the faculty sponsor of the Varsity Club. He established and endowed that club's annual award to one of its members for outstanding sportsmanship, scholarship, and service to the University--the award now officially designated “The David K. Bjork Varsity Club Honor Award Medal.” From 1947 to 1953 he served as the faculty member representing UCLA in the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. In this latter capacity,

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as in his years as chairman of his department, he demonstrated a broad understanding of the problems of individuals and institutions--an understanding that marked him as an able administrator.
David Knuth Bjork was an active member of the Scandinavian Community of Southern California. For twenty-four years he was a member of the Swedish Club of Los Angeles. He was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Scandinavian Foundation and served as its President in the 1949-50 year. In 1944, in recognition of his service in fostering Swedish-American relations, he was decorated as Knight of the Royal Order of Vasa by the King of Sweden.

In Berkeley on November 6, 1918, David Bjork was married to Mary Dorothea Miller. In the charming home that they established many distinguished scholars from this country and from abroad enjoyed their generous hospitality.

David Knuth Bjork will be gratefully remembered by colleagues, students, and friends as an inspiring and informing lecturer and by members of his seminar for his skill in helping them find and evaluate existing medieval sources. He is survived by his wife; their son, David Miller Bjork, who is the Director of the American School in Bogotá, Colombia; and three grandchildren.

 

Brainerd Dyer Vern O. Knudsen Waldemar Westergaard