Ostergaard was a pi­o­neer among Dan­ish-Amer­i­can pas­tors and folk school lead­ers. He taught at the Elk­horn Folk School, Elk­horn, Io­wa, from its be­gin­ning in 1878, and helped es­tab­lish the Ash­land Folk School at Grant, Mi­chi­gan, in 1882. In 1885 he re­turned to Den­mark, where he found­ed Stov­ring Folk School in Stov­ring, Jut­land, (which still ex­ists to­day), but be­cause of his lib­er­al po­li­tic­al views a re­act­ion­a­ry gov­ern­ment re­fused him fi­nan­cial sup­port. Soon af­ter this his wife died, leav­ing him with six child­ren, and his own health im­paired. It was dur­ing these try­ing times that he wrote Den Sag er ald­rig i Ver­den tabt. In 1892, Os­ter­gaard re­turned to Amer­i­ca and, af­ter a per­i­od of sem­in­a­ry stu­dy, was or­dained a Lu­ther­an pas­tor in 1893. He served a num­ber of con­gre­ga­tions in the Amer­i­can Mid­west be­fore re­tir­ing in 1916 at Tyl­er, Min­ne­so­ta, to de­vote all his time to writ­ing. Os­ter­gaard wrote a num­ber of no­vels de­pict­ing the life among Dan­ish im­mi­grants, and wrote ma­ny songs, an an­thol­o­gy of which was pub­lished in 1912 as Songs of the Prair­ie.

Hymns

1. Den Sag er aldrig i Verden tabt
   • That Cause Can Never Be Lost Nor Stayed