Arnold was born on May 18, 1900 in Minneapolis, MN. His grandfather immigrated to Minnesota from Valdres, Norway and homesteaded in the Dennison area. His father, Nils, taught Norwegian and Romance languages at St. Olaf College after earning his PhD from the University of Minnesota (fun fact: Nils helped Ole Rolvaag with translating Giants in the Earth into English).
Arnold was the second of three sons born to Nils and Inez Flaten. It sounds like he was a bright, sensitive and active kid. He was on the St. Olaf football team and held the Minnesota State Championship in Tennis (posthumously he was inducted into St. Olaf’s Athletic Hall of Fame). He also became known for his drawings and posters announcing college events while he was a student at St. Olaf. One summer during college he started reading the Bible diligently. Later, during the school year, his dad asked him what he was going to do after graduating. Arnold replied, “I’m going to the seminary.” His dad nodded and said, “I thought so.” And, the way Arnold told it, that was the first and last conversation they had concerning his career.
One thing he was very clear about: his marriage to Evelyn had been a good, a very good, thing in his life.
When I was a kid, we entertained ourselves during one of our long roadtrips by putting together all of Grandfather’s titles: The Reverend Doctor Sculptor Professor Pastor Mister Arnold Flaten.
I was 18 and in my first semester at St. Olaf College in 1975, enjoying the opportunities to visit my grandparents regularly. It had been a beautiful fall, full of bike rides, trips to the farmer’s market, tree climbing. In November Arnold and Evelyn asked me to drive them to the Mayo Clinic for a meeting with Arnold’s doctor. I didn’t understand why they asked me to drive, but of course I agreed. It turned out that they had suspected they would get bad news and they did. They heard that his cancer had spread and there really wasn’t anything else that could be done—I hadn’t known he had cancer. That first month was an especially difficult time for them, the family and the few friends they let know he was ill.
