To contact the Fridhem Swedish Cemetery Association, please email them at [email protected]. The association maintains burial records, cemetery map, and a history of the Fridhem Swedish Church and Cemetery among other things, and gladly helps those pursuing these records for genealogical purposes.

The Fridhem Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church was organized in about 1898 or possibly earlier. The name is of Swedish origin, is pronounced "Freed-hem" and it means, "Home of Peace." For the majority of its existence, it was in a two-point parish with the Elim Swedish Lutheran Church of Fargo and services were conducted exclusively in Swedish. The majority of church members were Swedish immigrants and residents of Oakport and Kragnes Townships, Clay County, Minn.

Sometime after the church was organized, a frame church was erected in the NE¼ of the NE¼ of Section 1 West, Oakport Township on a 295' X 295' square, two-acre lot, donated by Peter and Johanna Nelson on January 24, 1902. In recent years, the square has become a 0.74 acre rectangle as much of the original property on the west side has been subject to cultivation (land around three sides of the property is farmed).

A cemetery was organized and platted on the east side of the church property around 1902. Darwen Larson was likely the first burial in the cemetery on April 2, 1903 As he was supposedly later re-interred in nearby Oak Mound Cemetery, Agne Beckstrom is now the oldest known original burial in the cemetery and was buried in September, 1903.

Although Nils Frisk's grave marker is the oldest in the cemetery, he and Nels Peterson, who has the second oldest grave marker, were re-interred at Fridhem from Riverside Cemetery in Moorhead, on November 18, 1905. There are at least 4 unmarked graves in the cemetery, including Edwin Nelson, Clifford Frisk, Anna Frisk, Inga Jensen, and likely several others, with a current total of about 30 burials.

The continued use of the Swedish language in the church eventually caused dissension within the congregation. Consequently, several families left the church and joined the nearby Oak Mound Congregational Church, which was 1½ miles northeast of Fridhem. This church was founded by English immigrants, so the explicit use of the English language was appealing to those who left Fridhem.

Fridhem Church closed most likely in 1922, as Oak Mound and Elim Churches recorded a large influx of transfers from Fridhem that year. By the time of the church's closure, services were being held only once a month, according to a few sources.

Following the church's closing, an auction sale was held. The church barn was sawed in half and sold to Julius Anderson and Ole Erickson, both of Kragnes Township. The Anderson half was standing until about 2018. The church building was sold to Albert Swanson of Kragnes Township and moved to his farm in 1931 where it was used as a granary until 2003. It is also still standing, although all interior furnishings have been stripped, and the steeple/entry way was removed from the front of the building.

About four graves from the Fridhem Swedish Cemetery were re-interred in Oak Mound Cemetery, though none of these can be completely confirmed as it was common back then to merely move a grave marker to a new cemetery, and leave the graves undisturbed in the old cemetery. Other times, graves could not be disinterred due to complete decomposition/disappearance of any physical remains. Katie (Zimmerman) Beckstrom was the most recent burial in the cemetery in October, 1993.

Elim Lutheran Church and several neighbors (Roy Richards and his grandson, and Morris Nelson) cared for the church/cemetery property following the church's closing. On June 17, 1971, Elim Church acted as successors to the trustees of the Fridhem Church and turned over the Fridhem Church/Cemetery parcel to Morris Nelson, a great-nephew of Peter and Johanna Nelson, who had originally donated the land to the Fridhem Church.

Over the years, the cemetery has fallen into states of neglect from time to time. In 2003, the local Oak Mound 4-H Club cleaned up the cemetery on Memorial Day for their Community Pride Project for the year. The cemetery has since been cared for consistently by members of the community.

On July 8, 2020, five members of the community gathered at the North Buffalo Lutheran Church in Kragnes Township and through their mutual interest in the preservation and maintenance of the Fridhem Swedish Cemetery, they organized the "Fridhem Swedish Cemetery Association" and held an organizational meeting. The first board of trustees consisted of those five charter members, who included Alex Swanson, President; Paul Fossum, Vice President; Annette Montplaisir, Secretary; David Swanson, Treasurer; and Nancy Valenzuela, Actuary.