Oscar C. Eliason

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.

Oscar Carl Eliason was born in Nössemark, Dalsland, Sweden, the oldest son of John and Alma Johnson Eliasson, and the brother of Esther Hildegard Eliason Anderson (1899–1966), Paul Pater Eliason (born about 1906 in Sweden; died of tuberculosis in 1929 in Minneapolis, Minnesota). and Earl F. Eliason (born about 1908 in Minnesota). Eliason migrated to the USA with his mother, sister and younger brother, Paul, departing Christiana, Norway on 3 July 1908 as a passenger on the Scandinavian American Line's C.F. Tietgen, 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, a lumber town located 95 miles north of Duluth, Minnesota, 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. Eliason attended the local one room schoolhouse, where he also learned to speak English, although with an accent that hinted at his Swedish birth. Eliason and his other family members became naturalized US citizens in 1915.

Eliason attended the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School in Minneapolis, and graduated in 1929. Soon after Eliason and his brother Paul were diagnosed with tuberculosis, which resulted in their hospitalization at the Glen Lake Sanatorium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After the death of Paul on 16 June 1929, and the collapse of Eliason's right lung, 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. In 1964 Eliason recalled his healing:

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