Olof Olsson (31 March 1841 – 12 May 1900) was a prominent Swedish-American Lutheran clergyman who served in several churches in the American Midwest. He was also the third president of Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, serving from 1891 to 1899. Biography Sweden Olof Olsson was born in Karlskoga, Värmland, Sweden. He was the son of Olof and Britta Olsson. Olsson attended the Fjellstedt School in Stockholm. He was educated at the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala, and was graduated at the latter in 1861, after spending a year (1859–1860) in the Missionary Institute at Leipzig. He also studied in the theological department of the University of Uppsala, where he graduated in 1863. He was ordained on 15 December 1863, to the ministry of the Church of Sweden and at once assumed the duties of pastor, serving in that capacity in Karlstad, Sweden, until 1868. United States In 1869, Olsson accepted a position as pastor in Lindsborg, Kansas. He emigrated from Sweden with his wife and daughter, his parents, his brother Carl, and 250 others. On 19 August 1869, Olsson founded the Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church. He led the congregation from 1869 until 1876. During this time, he also served two terms in the Kansas Legislature as the representative from McPherson County. He left the Bethany Church when he was called to serve as professor of theology in the theological seminary of the Swedish Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. Olsson taught at Augustana from 1877 until 1888. In 1891, Olsson left a congregation at Woodhull, Illinois, to return to Augustana College as president. In 1893, he received an honorary doctorate at Uppsala University. Olsson died of stomach cancer in 1900 in Rock Island, Illinois. He was buried in the family plot in Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois. Works He edited Nytt och Gammalt, a newspaper, at Lindsborg, Kansas, in 1873, and Luther-Kalender, an annual (Rock Island, Illinois, 1883). He published in Swedish At the Cross (Rock Island, Illinois), which was reprinted in Sweden; Greetings from Afar, being Recollections of Travels in England and Germany (1880; also translated into Norwegian and published in Norway); and The Christian Hope, Words of Consolation in Suffering and Sorrow (Chicago, 1887). He also helped edit Korsbaneret, the annual church year book as well as the first hymnal of the Augustana Synod published in the English language. Family Olsson married Anna Lisa Jonsdotter on