Andreas Lindblom (1889-1977) was born in Askeby as the tenth and youngest child to the reverend spouses Christian Fredrik and Anna Lindblom. Andreas Lindblom was an art historian and worked as professor at Stockholm University, and after that as governor of the Nordic Museum and Skansen.
The most detailed description we have of Askeby church is still the one written by Andreas Lindblom in 1921, for the Collection of Art Historical Inventory of Swedish Churches. The very first part in his work about churches in Östergötland addresses churches in the parish of Bankekind. In the preface, the initiators to “Swedish Churches” write that they “were fortunate to benefit from an extraordinarily interested researcher dedicated for these monuments, docent Andreas Lindblom, who grew up nearby the most remarkable of all churches in the area; Askeby.”
In Andreas Lindblom’s book, “Lille Jonathan” (Little Jonathan), first published in 1948, he describes his childhood in the safe parsonage and the exiting, old church environment and about the encounter of the different world outside. Following is the chapter about how Christmas was celebrated at the parsonage, sometime in the mid-1890s. Read below to compare with his brother Johannes