'The man who was Santa Claus'

They came in droves to Zion Lutheran Church in Cloquet. On this Wednesday in mid-September 1947, shops and factories closed, children eschewed school. There, at the church, flowers - some paid for by those children using coins from their piggy banks - were placed near the departed Victor Swenson.

They came from the reservation. They came from the far-flung rural areas in Carlton County and Duluth.

"The man who was Santa Claus" was dead, and the thousands of people whose lives he had touched mourned.

For nearly 50 years, children in Carlton County didn't have to merely "believe" in Santa Claus. He lived among them. Each December, beginning in 1900, Swenson would distribute candy and fruit to children along with stories, "hearty guffaws," and a kindness that brightened the season, even in Cloquet's worst days after the 1918 fire.

We came across stories about Vic Swenson in two clippings in Minneapolis newspapers after his death, the Star and the Tribune. We also found details of his life in an obituary and editorial tribute in the Pine Knot, Cloquet's newspaper.

In one story, Chub Cash, down at the filling station he ran in 1947, succinctly described Swenson's legacy in the community: "No matter how many good things you say about Vic, you can't exaggerate."

Victor E. Swenson was born on March 21, 1882, in Cannon Falls in southern Minnesota. He was the son of the Rev. C.O. Swenson, who in 1899 moved his family to Cloquet to serve the Swedish Lutheran church, today's Zion.

Vic got a job at the Northern Lumber Company store. It was there where he picked up the melange of languages the employees spoke. During the Christmas season, he would distribute candy and fruit to children of the employees in novelty pails left over from the President McKinley re-election campaign, which had a slogan of keeping Americans flush with "A full dinner pail."

As the years went on, "in spite of blizzards, lumbago and the 1918 fire," George Peterson wrote in the Star, Vic began expanding his spread of holiday joy.

He didn't look the typical part of Santa in the beginning. Peterson reported that Vic first wore a simple sheepskin coat and mask. He would take a week off from his work to entertain people with "exuberant singing, dancing, storytelling," the Star story said.

He visited the Sawyer School on the reservation and spoke Ojibwe. At Esko Corners he spoke Finnish. Kids at the Cloquet school tested his French. He also spoke the familiar Swedish and Norwegian he grew up with.

The tragedy of the 1918 fire likely burnished Vic's legendary status in the community. He made his rounds to the "tarpaper shacks," bringing a little light to a bleak existence.

The Duluth News Tribune encapsulated the mood that December by printing a letter to Santa Claus from an 8-year-old girl in Cloquet. The pitiable letter reflected the "spirit of resignation among grownups and children alike in the devastated town," the paper wrote. The girl had written her letter to Santa in care of the Associated Charities group in Duluth. "Please will you bring me some story books, and hair ribbons, a set of dishes and a bracelet and a doll bed. And if you cannot bring, it will be all right."

The newspaper wondered if "Duluthians would like to be Santa Claus to this tot who is living in one of those flimsy shacks in Cloquet."

Vic Swenson surely made his stop.

He had suffered his own tragedies before the fire. One of his three brothers died likely of influenza, in early 1918 while serving in the military. His father had died suddenly at age 62 in 1914. It was likely a similar heart failure that would later claim Vic.

But Vic kept his rounds. He would not only visit homes but also play Santa at civic club and factory parties, visit orphanages in Duluth and the rural schools. He was a member of virtually every club in the city and was an early Boy Scouts leader.

From 1918 to 1925, he was a co-owner of what was called the "White Store." He then ran a bulk oil business until his death at age 65.

In his later years, Vic would make up to 75 home visits on Christmas Eve, accompanied by his wife, Rose Kelley, and black cocker spaniel named Dixie. By the 1930s, Vic had filled out and became what some described as "a rotund fellow active as a pup" and "shaped like a small top." His transformation became complete when he went to Chicago and purchased a red velvet suit with fur trim, shiny boots, and a beard.

He liked to arrive in style, using a horse and cutter outfit, a dog sled team, and even an airplane. As his rounds became more numerous, he had to travel by automobile, and a cab company in Cloquet kept a car ready for him.

By 1947, Vic had visions of employing a real team of reindeer and groups in town set out to make it a reality until his death that fall.

Vic's story apparently appealed to the Twin Cities columnists, as Peterson wrote his piece shortly after Vic died on Sept. 12.

George Grim saved his piece for Christmas Eve and it was picked up by the Associated Press and printed in papers across the country. "This wasn't an imitation," Grim wrote. "Santa himself must surely be this happy man ... But this Christmas Cloquet misses its Santa Claus. ... Everyone remembered all the fun Vic had given them. Nobody ever thought it would end so suddenly."

Vic and Rose did not have children. There was a proposal to have a children's wing at the local hospital dedicated to him. It isn't clear if it actually happened.

The Pine Knot seems to have left the mourning of Vic to its readers. Perhaps his turn as Santa was so ubiquitous to the area that it felt it needed to tell about another side of the man.

"A stranger in town today might ask something like this," an editorial read. "Yes, I know Mr. Swenson was community Santa Claus for 47 years but aren't you overshadowing the fact that he also was a successful business man and prominent in civic affairs? ... Vic was highly respected for his civic work, but can you picture how many thousands of youngsters of a half century have watched him in wide-eyed wonder, gasped with the thrill of sitting on his knee, screamed with laughter over his songs and jokes, shouted with glee merely over his special laugh?"

"The magnificent thing Vic built had to be the work of love," the editorial continued. That can't be faked, the paper said. And he used that same skill in business and in supporting his community.

Peterson, in his column for the Star, quoted a 14-year-old girl, Winifred Davis, who was Swenson's neighbor. "Vic was always so friendly and full of fun that he really was like Santa all year round."

The writer ended his piece plainly. "Everybody in Cloquet feels he has lost his best friend."

Do you have an Old St. Vic memory?

The Pine Knot News reached out to people who may have heard of Vic Swenson or even once sat on his knee. We were unsuccessful, which isn’t surprising considering he died 71 years ago. Perhaps as you gather this Christmas week with young and old in the county, a story or two will emerge. We’d love to hear any contemporary accounts about “The Santa Claus for the Arrowhead.”