The effects of two wars (World Wars I and II) are recorded in the Sandzén Archives. For example, just after the beginning of World War II, in a letter dated January 30, 1942, Birger Sandzén writes to his daughter Margaret in New York City about the war as well as his philosophical stance:

Very many thanks for your dear and wonderful letters! They are a joy to us. And you are doing exactly the right thing in developing your gift as an artist. I always considered it exceedingly important in life to find our own possibilities and to make the most of them. In a long run it is also the most practical attitude toward life.

I am worrying about or Am. educational institutions, especially the church colleges. Present critical conditions put a terrible strain on them. I am losing several talented boys in our art school, Charles Rogers, Dale Oliver, Jim Bruce, Royce Norburg and Hilding Jaderborg. Let us hope this frightful war is not going to last too long.

This critical world situation could have been avoided, if this powerful country had joined the League of Nations and taken a firm stand at the end of the first world war. There has been an appalling lack of statesmanship or even ordinary foresight. Isolationism and ignorance have been permitted to guide state affairs. The leading countries in Europe are also to blame, of course, but perhaps not quite so much. There is, however, one bright feature in all this misery. We are commencing to know the great Spanish-speaking world South of us.

Well, darling, the best thing we can do is to go ahead and paint. [. . .]

On Feb. 5th I shall be seventy-one years old. This means that I am getting old, but I do not feel old. I am ready to do quite a few things better than I have been doing them, especially painting. The only birthday present I want from my great girl is a letter.

                                                                                                  Love and all blessings!!

                                                                                                             Father

Birger Sandzén in his studio circa 1930, Gallery Archives photograph.