Oscar C. Eliason (January 6, 1902 – March 1, 1985) was a Swedish American clergyman, who served as a pastor and evangelist in the Assemblies of God, and was a prolific poet and composer, who composed over 50 hymns and gospel songs, including A Name I Highly Treasure and the popular Got Any Rivers?, which influenced another song, God Specializes, commonly regarded as one of the foundational songs of the traditional gospel genre.Glenn Gohr, Got Any Rivers: The Story of an Inspirational Song. Assemblies of God Heritage 16:4 (Winter 1996/1997):9, http://ifphc.org/pdf//Heritage/1996_04.pdf
Background Oscar Carl Eliason was born in Nössemark, Dalsland, Sweden,Glenn Gohr, "Got Any Rivers: The Story of an Inspirational Song". Assemblies of God Heritage 16:4 (Winter 1996/1997):9, http://ifphc.org/pdf//Heritage/1996_04.pdf the oldest son of John and Alma Johnson Eliasson, and the brother of Esther Hildegard Eliason Anderson (1899–1966),Ancestry.com. Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002; "Esther Hildegard Anderson", http://trees.ancestry.com.au/tree/13354126/person/-83169634; http://www.cookmn.com/JAAA-about,files,Past.htm Paul Pater Eliason (born about 1906 in Sweden; died of tuberculosis in 1929 in Minneapolis, Minnesota).Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002 and Earl F. Eliason (born about 1908 in Minnesota). Eliason migrated to the US with his mother, sister and younger brother, Paul, departing Christiania, Norway on 3 July 1908 as a passenger on the Scandinavian American Line's C.F. Tietgen,Ancestry.com. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 1908; Microfilm serial: T715; Microfilm roll: T715_1120; Line: 24; Page Number: 195. arriving on 14 July 1908 at Ellis Island, before traveling to Minnesota to join his father, who had migrated in 1906, where he homesteaded a property on Johnson Road, Cook, Minnesota,Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census Census Place: Township 62, St Louis, Minnesota; Roll T625_860; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 187; Image: 944. a lumber town located 95 miles north of Duluth, Minnesota,Marie Rohde, "Commander & Servant", The Milwaukee Journal (1 July 1990):7. The Eliason family became members of the Swedish Baptist Church in Cook, Minnesota, which had been established on land donated by the Olson family in 1907."Chronology: Cook", http://www.cookmn.com/L-History.htm . The church is now renamed First Baptist Church. Eliason attended the local one room schoolhouse, where he also learned to speak English,Ingrid Schlueter, "Remembering Grandpa" (July 15, 2007), http://ingridschlueter.wordpress.com/2007/07/15/remembering-grandpa/ although with an accent that hinted at his Swedish birth. Eliason and his other family members became naturalized US citizens in 1915.
Career Eliason attended the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School in Minneapolis, and graduated in 1929.Oscar C. Eliason, "Got Any Rivers? (The song with a miraculous story)", http://vcyamerica.org/got-any-rivers Soon after Eliason and his brother Paul were diagnosed with tuberculosis, which resulted in their hospitalization at the Glen Lake Sanatorium in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Glenn Gohr, "Got Any Rivers: The Story of an Insprational Song". Assemblies of God Heritage 16:4 (Winter 1996/1997):9, http://ifphc.org/pdf//Heritage/1996_04.pdf ; Marie Rohde, "Commander & Servant", The Milwaukee Journal (1 July 1990):8. After the death of Paul on 16 June 1929, and the collapse of Eliason's right lung,Glenn Gohr, "Got Any Rivers: The Story of an Inspirational Song". Assemblies of God Heritage 16:4 (Winter 1996/1997):9, http://ifphc.org/pdf//Heritage/1996_04.pdf Eliason was "very depressed and discouraged". After reading accounts of healing in the Pentecostal Evangel, Eliason requested prayer. Eliason credits his healing from tuberculosis to the prayers of a visiting Presbyterian minister.Marie Rohde, "Commander & Servant", The Milwaukee Journal (1 July 1990):8. In 1964 Eliason recalled his healing:
During the summer of 1929, after graduating from the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School in Minneapolis, I went through some severe testings. My brother passed away, and I, also, became seriously ill and was not expecting to live. During the time that I was attending Northwestern, I had learned to know a Presbyterian minister,- C.K. Ingersol who had great faith in God, especially in praying for the sick. Although the pastor of the First Baptist Church, Dr. W.B. Riley, felt that he, himself, was not gifted along the line of praying for the sick, he knew that prayer for the sick, also, was the duty of the church, and has been neglected down through these last centuries. Therefore, he had asked brother Ingersol to conduct these services every Sunday afternoon in room 118, - one of the Sunday School rooms at the church, and many were the answers to prayer in that room. I had also been reading a paper about answered prayers in many places, and on my sickbed I felt led to send word to brother Ingersol to come and pray for me. The result was that I was healed of tuberculosis.
After his healing, Eliason served as an evangelist and itinerant preacher in the Iron Range area of Minnesota. On 3 October 1936 Eliason married Norma Olson (born about 1911). Among their children were Rev. Victor Carl Eliason (born 14 May 1936 in Fort Dodge, Iowa), a conservative Christian television evangelist,Marie Rohde, "Commander & Servant", The Milwaukee Journal (1 July 1990):6ff. and another son, Verner Paul Eliason (born January 10, 1942, at their home in Cook, Minnesota).
After their marriage Eliason and his wife, Norma, started and co-pastored an Assembly of God church in Huron, South Dakota, and another in Virginia, Minnesota, that affiliated with the Assembly of God denomination in January 1940. Later the Eliasons pastored an Assembly of God church at Fort Dodge, Iowa, before traveling as itinerant music evangelists. When his health forced him to abandon this ministry, Eliason worked as a piano tuner.
Eliason died on 1 March 1985 in Cook, Minnesota.Ancestry.com. Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002; Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index. Citation: Number: 477-34-8426; Issue State: Minnesota;Issue Date: 1951.
Hymns While still a student at the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School, Eliason began to write Gospel songs, a practice he continued until old age at the old upright piano in his living room. Eliason was a prolific hymn writer, but his two best-known compositions were Got Any Rivers and A Name I Highly Treasure, which have been included in several hymnals and song books. Other hymns include Soon Jesus Will Come (1958), Wonderful Place of Prayer(1960); "I Fancied I Was in Heaven (1961); "O Why Will Ye Die?" (1961); "Waters of Peace"; "Make My Heart Into a Heaven" (1961); God's Truth Still Marches On, published in Singspiration 11 (1962);"God's Truth Still Marches On", http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/SE1962/d5 and "Good-bye" (1967). Eliason also translated Egon Zandelin's song "Just Believe" from Swedish to English in 1965.
"Got Any Rivers" (1931) One of Eliason's best-known compositions is the song "Got Any Rivers", which is also known commonly as "God Satisfies". The chorus was based on part of a poem by Berton Braley called originally "At Your Service: The Panama Gang",Berton Braley, "At Your Service: The Panama Gang". For words, see http://www.bertonbraley.com/at_your_service__the_panama_gang.htm that was published as early as 1912,Railway Employees Magazine 7 (1912):57; Berton Braley, "At Your Service", Moderator-Topics 33 (1912):775. One source indicates that it first appeared in Collier's Weekly on 31 May 1913. See http://www.bertonbraley.com/at_your_service__the_panama_gang.htm; "At Your Service", Poverty Bay Herald, XXXX, Issue 13144, (2 August 1913):10. and later as "Ready!".Berton Braley, "Ready!", in Songs of the Workaday World (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1915):41. It became "a song that built the Panama Canal, an enthusiastic song that workmen sang everywhere with vim and punch",Frank H. Cheley, "What Are You Enthusiastic About?", Boys' Life (April 1924):22. Braley's poem was widely disseminated and was published in 1914's A Course in Citizenship,Ella Lyman Cabot, et al., A Course in Citizenship (Houghton Mifflin, 1914):244. a textbook used in the first year in hundreds of American elementary schools.William G. Carr, Education for World-Citizenship (Stanford University Press, 1928):24. In 1925 the chorus was included as "Song of the Panama Builders" in Lettie Burd Cowman's popular Christian devotional classic Streams in the Desert.L.B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert, ed. James Reimann (1925; Zondervan, 2006):57. (Entry for February 13). During the Great Depression, a triumphalistic anthropocentric version of the song, with the example of the Panama Canal miners cited, was being sung by the delegates at the PCUSA Assembly in 1931: "We specialize on the wholly impossible/ Doing things that no one can do"."Minutes", PCUS 1931:237, cited in Milton J. Coalter, John M. Mulder, and Louis Weeks, The Diversity of Discipleship: Presbyterians and Twentieth-Century Christian Witness(Westminster Knox, 1991):114.
In Spring 1931, "as he was getting better he saw an adv[ertisement] in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by a construction company that used the slogan".Victor Eliason, (20 July 2008), http://www.namethathymn.com/hymn-lyrics-detective-forum/index.php?a=vtopic&t=876 While acknowledging his indebtedness to the original song, Eliason believed that "only God can say that!" Eliason recalled:
The words of the chorus of this song, although slightly different, originally was a slogan, used by the Construction Company which dug the Panama Canal. The word "God" was not there, but the word "we" was in its place. ... After the healing took place, I felt led to make a slight change in the slogan and write music for it, making it into a gospel chorus. This I did, and it seemed that it was God's plan. I introduced it in North Minneapolis, and in a short while, the chorus was sung all over the English speaking world. So far, it had no verses.
The first two lines of Eliason's chorus were identical to lines in the second stanza of Braley's original. While in Braley's poem the next two lines were: "We make a specialty of the wholly impossible/ Doing things "nobody ever could do'", Eliason changed them to: "God specializes in things tho't impossible;/ He does the things others cannot do."See James R. Adair, Saints Alive (Ayer, 1970):158. Eliason first performed Got Any Rivers at a home in North Minneapolis in Summer 1931.Glenn Gohr, "Got Any Rivers: The Story of an Insprational Song". Assemblies of God Heritage 16:4 (Winter 1996/1997):10, http://ifphc.org/pdf//Heritage/1996_04.pdf Two women who performed as the Harmony Twins soon began to sing the song and helped spread it as they traveled from church to church.