Timing has been everything for Chris Steffensen, editor of Den Danske Pioneer, the oldest Danish-American newspaper in the United States.
The Hoffman Estates resident insisted that when he received the Order of the Dannebrog from Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in January, the honor was primarily bestowed in commemoration of his paper’s 125th anniversary. Pressed further, Steffensen did take a little credit, saying he was knighted “because of what I have been doing now for 16 years. I kept the Danish paper going and kept the contact between Denmark and the United States.”
More amazing than Steffensen keeping the paper going out of the basement of his Hoffman Estates home is that he ever became editor at all.
Born in Denmark, Steffensen was educated in the retail and wholesale food business. He and his wife, Elsa, immigrated to the U.S. in 1958, while on their honeymoon.
They settled in the Chicago area, where Steffensen worked at Noon Hour Food Products in Chicago for 20 years. For three years after that, the Steffensens owned and operated a motel in Atlanta.
They had been back in the Chicago area for only two weeks when Den Danske Pioneer’s longtime editor, Hjalmar Bertelsen, died. “They needed somebody who could speak English and Danish and knew the community, so I applied for the job (of assistant editor). I started right away,” said Steffensen, who became publisher/editor in 1984.
He knew absolutely nothing about publishing a paper, but Steffensen was able to take advantage of what can only be considered a reverse internship program. Bertelsen had been bringing Danish journalism students to this country for six months at a time to help him produce the paper. In return, they learned English and the American way of life. “One of those journalism students actually trained me,” Steffensen said.
The novice editor also received assistance from the paper’s local editors throughout the United States–there are now 18–some of whom have been writing for the Pioneer for more than 30 years.
When Steffensen took the helm, the 16-page biweekly paper, which had been started in Omaha in 1872, was published in Elmwood Park. Two years later, he moved it into a large basement room of his Hoffman Estates home. That’s where all the typesetting and layouts are done. Printing, creating halftones of photographs and mailing the publication are handled by an outside printing firm.
Steffensen hasn’t been employing Danish journalism students in recent years, but he is considering starting the program again. For now, using a computer in his home office, the 66-year-old does all the typesetting for each issue. He gets some layout and proofreading assistance from his wife and their daughter Linda, also of Hoffman Estates. (His three other children–Robert, John and Elizabeth–aren’t involved with the publication.)
“If somebody has complaints, it will rest on my shoulders,” Steffensen noted, adding, “We get a lot of nice letters from people. Some people have been getting the paper 60 or 70 years.”
Den Danske Pioneer has a circulation of 3,500. Copies are sent all over this country, and a couple hundred are mailed to Denmark. The publication is written approximately half in English and half in Danish. Readers get a lively mix of items about what’s happening in Danish communities across the country, as well as the latest news from their homeland.
Recent articles from Denmark reported that the television program “Good Morning America” might be coming to that country, and that counterfeit Danish money was being printed in Scotland. There was also a tally of the number of people in Denmark who are using the Internet.
Each issue includes short news items about what’s happening in Danish cities. “People kind of like that,” Steffensen said, “because they’re always looking to see if there’s somebody from a city where they were born or came from.”
Steffensen’s activism in the Danish-American community extends beyond producing a newspaper. He has served on the board of directors of the Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, Iowa, and is active in the Danish National Committee of Chicago, Danish Brotherhood in America, Danish Old Settlers, Society for the Danish Home and Danish-American Chamber of Commerce.
Although he visits Denmark at least once a year, Steffensen’s knighthood ceremony occurred in Evanston, at the home of Danish Consul General Bent Kiilerich. In presenting the Order of the Dannebrog medal to Steffensen, Kiilerich said, “It is not easy to run (an ethnic) newspaper these days. . . . Against these odds, you have managed to keep Den Danske Pioneer very much alive and thereby contributed to the maintenance of the Danish spirit and the Danish culture.”
Steffensen’s impact extends beyond the Danish community. Thor Fjell, president of the Scandinavian American Cultural Society in Arlington Heights, praised the editor’s “diligent reporting throughout the years.” He added that Steffensen “has always been supportive of all Scandinavian activities the best way he knows how.”
Den Danske Pioneer will receive another honor this summer at the Danish Gothic Museum and Danish Press Museum in Odense, Denmark, hometown of storyteller Hans Christian Andersen.
“They asked me if I was interested in having an exhibition over there for two months, during July and August,” Steffensen said. “So I’ve been digging out a lot of material from the last 125 years.”
Steffensen brought some of the items for the exhibit to the museum during a brief visit to Denmark in early March. At that time, he gathered additional Den Danske Pioneer material from the Danish Immigrant archives. “They have a lot of papers from the beginning,” Steffensen said.
He will head back to Denmark, with Elsa and Linda, for the July 1 opening of the exhibit and will also participate in gala Fourth of July festivities.
“Since 1921, the Danes have celebrated the American Independence Day,” Steffensen related.
Steffensen displays both his sense of humor and his humbleness when describing what it meant to him to be knighted by the Queen of Denmark: “You’re proud because you got something right.”
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An annual subscription to Den Danske Pioneer is $25. For information, write to Den Danske Pioneer, 1582 Glen Lake Rd., Hoffman Estates, Ill. 60195, or phone the newspaper office at 847-882-2552.
