Mats Walner 

  • Born:  December 25, 1851.  Mockfjärd, Dalarna, Sweden 
  • Emigrated: 1879 Settled in Lake Lillian, Willmar, Minnesota
  • Death:   1936  Willmar, Minnesota  
Mats Walner wearing Mockfjärd folk dräkt. Photo is from Dôm for tä Amerika – Utvandring från Gagnef och Mockfjärd by E.J. & Hedlöf, published by Gagnefs Hembygdsförening​​
Mats Walner with music collector Karl Sporr and Julie Moser-Sporr 1925.  Photo is from Dôm for tä Amerika – Utvandring från Gagnef och Mockfjärd by E.J. & Hedlöf, published by Gagnefs Hembygdsförening
1905 Lake Lillian Map 
​​Mats Walner was born on Christmas Day 1851 in Mockfjärd, Dalarna, into a farming family.  for a short while he worked with sheet metal at Nyhammars bruk before returning to farm life. Mats was musically gifted and could play several instruments.   He is said to have liked violin the best, and was noted as an exceptional singer. 

In the spring of 1879, Mats, wis wife Kerstin, and their children joined a group of emigrants from Mockfjärd and headed for Willmar, Minnesota and eventually settling in the tiny Lake Lillian Township. 

Like many settlers from Dalarna, they established themselves in close-knit Swedish-speaking networks. Most of their neighbors came from Mockfjärd or nearby Gagnef, and the landscape of their new home was full of familiar language, names, and traditions.

When folk music collector Karl Sporr visited Lake Lillian in 1925–26, Mats Walner became one of his most important sources. Sporr documented at least half a dozen tunes and songs from him, many of them remembered from Mockfjärd tradition. Karl-Erik Forsslund later described Walner as a key informant, noting that he sang with an older expressive style and preserved a substantial body of Dalecarlian song material. Walner appeared as a rare figure: a farmer in Minnesota whose musical memory still belonged fully to 19th-century Dalarna.

After living in Minnesota for more than two decades, Mats Walner returned to Mockfjärd in 1905 and was quoted in Dalpilen reflecting on emigration, describing America as a place where only the “fearless and energetic worker” succeeds, while also noting that life in Sweden could seem comfortable by comparison.

In 1915, Walner returned to Sweden aboard the Norwegian steamship Bergensfjord, Walner wrote to the Wilmar Tribune describing unusually comfortable conditions for emigrant travel, including private cabins and meals served directly to passengers, which he compared to “being at a party every day.”
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He died in 1936 in Minnesota and is buried at Blomkest Baptist Cemetery.
Credit and thank to John-Francis Goodacre, archivist at Folkmusikens Hus in Dalarna for sharing this musician and source support  

This is a translated summary of the book Dôm for tä Amerika – Utvandring från Gagnef och Mockfjärd by E.J. & Hedlöf, published by Gagnefs Hembygdsförening, Willmar, Minnesota / North America (2007). The work is a collaborative publication by Dean Abrahamson, Karin Hedman-Larsson, Yvonne Hellberg, Gunnel Malm, Lars-Olof Nordesjö, Lena Nordesjö, and Nils Roos.
FUN FACTS: 
  • In 1926, Axel Lundquist, noticed a liquid seeping into his basement in 1926 that appeared to be gasoline and even burned with a clear flame. This sparked drilling activity and local speculation about oil, though it was later dismissed as not a true petroleum discovery. 
  • Lake Lillian Township was a closely interwoven cluster of immigrant farms, many of them Swedish. Census records show that my own (author of Nordic Newcomers) great-grandfather’s farm stood on a neighboring property to Mats Walner’s.
Music Links
​Here are tunes that are connected to Mockfjärd, dalarna​
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 
  • Kringellek after Mats Walner  http://www.folkwiki.se/Musik/4895