MEMORIES OF GERMANTOWN CHURCH

1886

MEMORIES OF GERMANTOWN CHURCH

Ca 1932 – 1947

 

Germantown Presbyterian Church, in my memory, consisted of four buildings across the road from my Dad’s alfalfa field, the old barn, the church hall, the manse (we called it “the preacher’s house”), and the church building itself. The least important was the barn, because in my earliest memory there were extremely few occasions upon which teams of horses waited in the barn for the church service to conclude. They would then transport their owners back home over the mud or snow-drifted roads that made Model T or Model A progress impossible. Its primary use was to serve as garage for an old Overland car which had been used to drive Rev. Siekman’s older children to high school, some four miles distant. I never saw it outside the barn; what happened to it in the end, I do not know.

            The Hall was a different story, as it was used heavily in the warmer months. There were two women’s organizations in the church: the “Ladies Aid Society” and the “Willing Workers.” They were meant to be of similar membership, but it turned out that the Ladies Aid was composed of older women, some of them old enough perhaps to have been involved in the founding of the church. The Willing Workers were the younger, more active women who in modern times might be official members of the church governing boards. Then, of course it was unthinkable that a woman could be an Elder, Deacon, or even a Trustee.

            Both of the organizations were heavily involved in financing special projects for the church, and this was done by having sales of fancy sewing and embroidery, hooked rugs and quilts, plus other art works at least twice a year. These sales were tremendously popular evening events; the hall would be jammed with people; there would be lots of goodies available at a low price; and of course, a grand opportunity to talk and gossip. The articles for sale were auctioned off, Benny Plucker, a relative of ours, was always on hand to be the auctioneer. As far as I know, no one would have attempted to take his place. The sale would start at about 7:00 pm and continue until everything was sold, perhaps as late as 10:30 or 11:00 pm. There would always be a horde of little kids on hand, the younger ones inside creating havoc with lots of crying, the older ones outside playing some game on the lawn between the hall and the church.

            The Mission Feasts, one or two per year, were to raise money for missions and to support young men (not women) who were studying for the ministry. There would be a morning service with money offerings, a noon meal in the Hall, more preaching and offerings in the afternoon and supper in the hall. This supper interfered a bit with afternoon “chores,” so there was not quite the crowd. I believe there was another evening session of preaching and money offerings. Visiting pastors did all this preaching. Probably some people attended every session, and I suspect they were plenty glad to take off their “Sunday” clothes at the end. 

            Sunday School picnics and Vacation Bible Schools also used the Hall for meals. We kids learned very soon who had made the jello salad with marshmallows, the various kinds of meat loaves and casseroles, and the potato salad. This may be where I gained my masterful connoisseurship of potato salad. 

            Since the church building itself had a very small unfinished basement, it meant that all the usual things that take place in church basements took place in the Hall. In my opinion this was a much better location, being above ground with lots of windows, plenty of room for chairs, tables, whatever was needed. 

            The church building was in the traditional shape, a rectangle with a steeple over the west entrance door. The bell could be rung, or tolled for funerals by pulling on one of two ropes that hung down in the church vestibule. The bell was rung very vigorously for five full minutes every Saturday night at six o’clock. This was so farmers who had no radios or telephones could get the right time so they could get to church next morning. Most of the farmers could estimate within ten or fifteen minutes of the correct time by watching the sun, but evidently Rev. Siekmann liked this rather old-world custom and didn’t mind the considerable exertion it took for five minutes of ringing. 

            The preparations for the Sunday School picnic, usually in the early summer, started early in the day. Other churches had their picnics in a city park, but Germantown had it in the acre or so of space formed as a quadrangle: the church to the north, the manse to the south, the Hall to the east, the fence (and the road) to the west. One reason for an early start was that ice had to be brought from a store to keep the lemonade cold. Ice was also necessary for the pop (not soda-pop) stand. Ice cream was brought in the big insulated four-gallon cans and placed near the manse porch steps along with the pop. This was sold, whereas the lemonade was free, and it was dispensed from the back steps of the church. Of course the women of the church had to be on hand to bring in and arrange the countless dishes of potato salad, casseroles, pies, cakes, jello and other salads, making as big a deal as possible. Almost all of the men of the church would stay home on the farm until about 11:00, but not much real work was accomplished, I suspect. After all, they would have to save time to clean up a bit, as you couldn’t appear all covered with dust and grease. 

            Uncle Folkert Poppens always handled the free lemonade stand. It was mixed up in a big stone crock, perhaps five or six gallons, the lemon squeezing had to be done by hand, and it was a major project. I have no idea how many lemons it took, or how much sugar, but it was delicious and you could have as much as you wanted. 

            The pop and ice cream stand was not free, but five cents for a bottle (not a can) of Coca Cola or a bottle of Orange Crush, or Nehi Grape pop was not all that expensive. I believe there were two flavors of ice cream, vanilla and chocolate. There may have been strawberry or cherry-nut, but certainly not both. “Fenn’s That Good Ice Cream” cones and dishes available, five cents. 

            The younger children played in the quadrangle all afternoon. There were some organized races and games, but I suspect that most did as I did – just run around. The younger men of the church would, after the monster lunch had settled a bit, go out to the preacher’s pasture, a fenced in area to the east of the Hall and the manse. Rev. Siekmann kept a couple of cows there; it was perhaps about five acres in area and flat enough to have a serious softball game. I played a few times when I got old enough and big enough, but I was never much of a ball-player. One of the reasons for this was because I was scared of the ball. I had seen the broken nose of Art Plucker, who had let a line drive slip right through his out-stretched hands. The ball got him right on the beak. The older men could pitch horse-shoes, some went home and back to the farm work. Most stayed, I think taking the afternoon off until chores time. Those cows had to be milked, and the eggs had to be gathered before the clumsy hens broke too many eggs. 

            The picnic was once a year, but Sunday School met every Sunday in the church sanctuary – obviously, because there was only one big room in the building. There was a kind of ritual to entering the church on the Sunday morning prior to the start. Since our house was only a quarter of a mile from the church, my sister and I were expected to walk there most Sundays of the year. The lucky ones who arrived by car never went inside until the last moment. That meant that we two walkers had no place to go but into the church, which could be a lonely, cold place. Only Uncle Enno, the Sunday School superintendent, a few teachers, and the pastor, Herr Siekmann. He was a formidable person indeed, with his super-loud voice and heavy German accent. Finally, Dots and I caught on to the fact that the car-sitters-until-the-last-moment would allow us to join them in their cars. Then we could wait, too. But soon the bell would ring, and we all had to troop inside. 

            With no separate rooms, all the classes met in the sanctuary; the younger boys on the left, the girls on the right. There were two aisles making three seating sections. The center section was for the Bible Class, the high school age people. The girls sat in the first couple of rows, the boys behind them. Rev. Siekmann taught this class in his usual super-loud voice. Somehow the other teachers had to deal with all the racket. So we kids sat in the side pews, read our Sunday School “papers,” recited the Bible verses we should have memorized and did the usual squirming and wriggling. 

            Cousin Alvin Plucker was in my class, and he and I were pleased, as all boys are, when our voices began to lower. We would brag to each other how we could hit G below middle C; later it would be E flat, and finally a whole octave below C. What bliss! Now we could begin to sing in parts, especially as by this time we would have been promoted to the Bible Class. Many of the DeVries girls were singing alto parts by this time, and Dan DeVries was beginning to add the tenor to that. Now and then bass was heard (Eddie DeVries) and part singing became so popular that sometimes it was hard to hear if anyone was left singing the despised soprano part. We had wonderful part singing in the Sunday School in those days, “Constantly Abiding,” “Wonderful Grace of Jesus,” “Victory Through Grace,” “A Wonderful Saviour is Jesus My Lord” and many others. Our favorites were the ones that had prominent and interesting bass and tenor parts. 

            Later, this Sunday School training was to pay off for Dad, who was able to keep an active Men’s Chorus going for many years and also made it possible to sing an occasional easy cantata for mixed choir. His first attempt at this resulted in an Easter cantata called “The Thorn-Crowned King.” Other cantatas followed at Christmases and Easters. I believe that we usually were able to recruit a cantata choir of 35 – 40 voices. 

            Then there were the Sunday School Christmas programs. We had the usual little kids come up to the front to say their “pieces.” They had all been seated in the front of the middle section with their teachers, waiting to be called. What a deal! To sit in church away from the parents! We also had the usual “dialogues” between the angels and shepherds, in bathrobe costumes of course. This was a long dull program which demanded a Pause (pronounced in German by Herr Siekmann as pow-sa) during which one could stand up and stretch while apples, oranges, animal crackers and some peanuts were passed around to everyone, not just the children. I remember one Christmas that I spent at home following a fall quarter at South Dakota State College in Brookings. I was sitting in the congregation beside my mother enjoying the visiting and the animal crackers, just the same as it had been some ten or twelve years earlier. After a few minutes Mom said to me, “Don’t talk, just listen carefully.” I did that, and Mom and I had a good laugh at the soft sound of all the good folks chomping away just like their own farm animals. 

            After the Pause and the grand finale with the angels, shepherds, wise men, Joseph and Mary and the Baby there would be the distribution of the sacks. Why or how the tradition got started I do not know, but each family, and each separate member of the family received one. These were big paper grocery sacks, and each would be filled with a large assortment of different kinds of nuts, lots of peanuts, a couple of oranges, and apple, plus a small bag of candy. This was mostly hard candy which I didn’t like, but there were also a coupe of bars, like Baby Ruth or Three Musketeers and a few Hershey kisses. These sacks of goodies were generous gifts, make no mistake about it. Many of the kids who were barely getting enough to eat at home during the Dust Bowl years were thrilled. I believe that the money to pay for them was all gathered by the Trustees who visited each of the members of the church to ask for contributions. Groceries were cheap in those days, but some of the donors must have been generous indeed. 

            The actual distribution of the sacks would consist of someone with a loud voice reading the name of the family, then the number of sacks they were to receive. The sacks would then be handed off to one of four or five young men who would deliver them to the families. These folks could then leave, or stay and visit for a while. Most stayed, I think. There were two years when I was one of the Passers of the Sacks. Proud moments, those. 

            Since in the earliest days, the morning church service was all in the German language, many of us were excused to leave, as we understood no “high” German. If it had been “low” German many more would have understood. If you were lucky as Dots and I were, it was simple to walk home. For a couple of years Stewart and Jewell Ulfers came with us and we had a good time playing while others had to sweat out the German hour or more. 

            The evening service was in English. It was probably not as well attended as the morning, but as fewer and fewer people knew the German, attendance dwindled until Rev. Siekmann resigned and moved away. Then the German was abandoned, and I believe no attempt was made to find a pastor from the German Synod of the West who could preach in that language. Of course, I could not judge how good the sermons were until English was adopted and we had to attend morning church. Now, with some of the new preachers who followed Herr Siekmann, the prayers seemed to become agonizingly long. Some, who had watches with a second hand, would surreptitiously, time them. Twelve minutes was very long but once or twice when it got to fifteen, well, that was outrageous. In those days I would have been aghast (but probably thankful) at the thought of a prayer being read out of a prayer book and thus of a defined length. 

            The hymn singing was not as good as the Sunday School singing even though the young people were mostly the same. They were probably too scattered out, and perhaps overwhelmed by the super-loud voice of Rev. Siekmann. Fact is, he “hollered” out the hymns. The German hymn singing in the morning was accompanied by a small reed organ; the Sunday School and the evening service used the piano. 

            The entrance of the two DeVries families was predictable. First, there would be the wait, either outside or in the smallish vestibule. Then, when the big wall clock showed 7:30, first one family would come in led by the father, then all the children and the mother. Somehow they would always wind up in one of the front rows in the middle section, mother on one end of the row and father on the others. A breath or two later, the other DeVries family would repeat the process (or procession). The old tradition of the men on one side and the women on the other did not die out completely; although men appeared on the women’s side now and then, very rarely did women appear on the men’s side. 

            When it came to the Communion service in Siekmann’s time, it was a very Big Deal, in part because it came around so seldom, only once a year, I think. Only older people who were official Members of the Church were eligible to take part. The officers and senior men of the church went up to the front first to be served their bread and wine, later the women. I don’t know if this restricted Communion was on the law books of the church; I did not receive Communion there until I had graduated from high school, and officially Joined the Church. This made first Communion roughly equal to the solemnity of First Communion in the Roman Catholic Church. After Rev. Siekmann left, the church went to the much less impressive Communion in the pews. 

            Baptisms were ridiculously easy as all the parents had to do was bring the baby forward to get it sprinkled, after answering the required questions. As a kid, I was always glad that I was not a Baptist, as those kids were old enough to be embarrassed and were made to go completely under the water in a big tank right out in front of everyone. Our family got invited to attend the baptism of some neighbor kids. I was fascinated, but very glad to be a Presbyterian. 

            It was probably my senior year in high school that I took on the job of church janitor. There were the usual sweeping and dusting duties in the church building, but not in the Hall. The real challenge was getting the church warm in winter, as it was left to go cold during the week. Any midweek church activity had to be in the large manse, or some member’s house. The church furnace was a coal burner that had one directly overhead heat register. The heat would rise straight up, and then could be distributed by the several big overhead paddle fans. The trick was to get a very early start with the furnace as the temperature could be zero or below. As there was no plumbing, there was no worry about pipes freezing. 

            I would have to get to the church soon after six on Sunday mornings, get a little corn-cob and wood fire going to ignite the coal. That done, it was a kind of delicate work to control the fire (it could get hideously hot) so that the temperature would be just right for the Sunday School crowd at 9:30. If I failed, I would be sure to hear about it from all my friends, enemies, and people I didn’t even know. I cannot brag about my skill at getting and maintaining a comfortable temperature for the entire day, including the evening service. 

            The basement was mildly fascinating’ it was not fully excavated, and there was room only for the furnace and the “light plant.” This was a two-cylinder gasoline engine running a generator to charge the sixteen two-volt glass cells that took up most of the space on a table about four feet wide and eight feet long. Connected in series, this big battery of cells delivered thirty-two volts of power for the church, the Hall, and the manse. Since there were not many appliances that ran on thirty-two volts of direct current, the generator did not have to run more than once, sometimes twice a week. It was a treat to have the steady electric light in the church, as almost nobody had electricity at home. It was not until 1948 or so, that Northern States Power Company hooked up the entire area. 

            When the new church was built in the late 1940’s, the old building was moved away and became a grain storage building. My Dad pointed out the old, old nails that had been used in the floor joists. They were square as if they had been hand-forged.



            The new church, in a great many respects, was an improvement. It was bigger, it had room for over-flow crowds, it had a true finished basement, it had much better heating. It had plumbing, and the kitchen and indoor toilets that the plumbing made possible. The Hall was probably too run-down to save and I don’t know what happened to it. In any event, it was not needed, with the new church basement available. Probably most people have forgotten the inscription over the old church door that to my regret, never appeared on the door to the new church, nor on the very new sanctuary that was recently built as an addition to the “new” church.



2008

 

ICH FREUE MICH, DAS WIR WERDEN INS HAUS DER

HERRN GEHEN 

(I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord) 

            I apologize to my younger sister, Jean, that she was not mentioned in these church memories. Of course I remember that my sister was born in 1938, the day after Thanksgiving; the age difference made shared memories unlikely.