11/10/2005
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Trinity Danish Lutheran Church today. |
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Trinity Lutheran Church moving on
Marilyn Dodgen
(A telephone
call from Dorothy Nielsen, former member of the Danish Trinity
Lutheran Church at 407 - 8th Street North in Humboldt, asking about
what was happening at her old church, resulted in the following
information).
The 10 stained glass windows, the 16 remaining pews and the podium
from the vacated church building were being removed and placed in a
U-Haul truck for the trip to their final destination, Omaha, NE.
Three young men from the Double-O Renovators, located in Waterloo,
NE, just outside of Omaha, had been in Humboldt since Monday, Sept.
19, and were putting the finishing touches on their project prior to
their return trip to Omaha on Wednesday. Mike Olson, Jerry Sanders
and Jim Skovsende formed their business five years ago after each of
them became tired of the "rat race" involved in their various
occupations.
Mike Olson was a dentist. Jerry was a livestock (hog and cattle)
broker and Jim was in the insurance business. Today, their wives
refer to them as professional piddlers.
However, Jerry now works part-time as a computer programmer and Jim
still does some insurance just to keep his hand in when they aren't
dismantling buildings. All of them have carpentry skills and enjoy
what they are doing.
On Monday, they started removing the stained glass windows. Each
window, still in its original frame, was placed in a separate
protective wooden crate that was made from the tongue and groove
floor planks taken out of an 1875 house on which they had previously
worked. Only one, a plain glass window, shattered when it was being
removed from the church wall.
Mike described the windows as "fragile" and said their main concern
was keeping them protected and transported safely on their trip to
Omaha. He was told that the windows and pews were to be used as a
part of a hotel renovation, but that the project was still awaiting
final approval by the city of Omaha.
One of their last jobs in the project was to cover each window
opening with Plexiglas, to seal them against inclement weather.
After making some adjustments to their load in the truck, they
locked the church door and headed for Nebraska.
Present ownership of the building involves a conglomerate that buys
up property seized for non-payment of taxes. This church building
was on the list. They apparently buy such properties all across the
United States, and in this case, are salvaging some of the contents
to be used in the hotel renovation in Omaha.
The church building has not been in use since the Abundant Life
Church congregation moved out in 2003, relocating their services in
the Hardy Methodist Church at the Humboldt County Historical Museum
complex east of Dakota City.
The Trinity (Danish) Lutheran Church congregation was
organized in 1920, with only six members. For many years they had
attended services at the Danish Lutheran Church, four miles north
and west of Rutland, which proved to be a hardship during Iowa
winters. Once they decided to form a congregation in Humboldt, they
met in the Humboldt Norwegian Lutheran Church, until they could
build their own church.
For a few years, they shared the pastor from the Rutland church, who
lived in a parsonage in Rutland. Their new building was dedicated in
1923. Information shared by Ethel (Simonsen) Palmeter, listed Peter
Anton Sorensen and his wife, Anna, as church officers in the new
church, and stated that Peter dug the basement, using a slip and a
team of horses.
This church was built with donations from the Danish Lutheran Church
in Rutland, other Danish Lutheran synod churches and local
businessmen. A Danish service was preached in the morning and a
sermon in English was preached in the evening. They often shared a
minister and parsonage with the Rutland Danish Lutheran Church.
Rev. J. P. Magnussen (1920-1924) was listed as pastor of the Danish
church in 1919, and is remembered as the instigator in the forming
of the Trinity (Danish) Lutheran Church in Humboldt. Rev.
Einer Romer (1927-1936) was the first minister to actually live in
Humboldt. While the Rev. Spener Anderson (1924-1927) was pastor, a
parsonage was purchased at 705 - 6th Avenue North in Humboldt.
The Simonsen family was well represented in that church from the
beginning. The oldest boy, Jens, and his sister, Ann, were in the
first confirmation class that also included Carrie Johnson, Andy
Andersen and Kathryn Odgaard. Other Simonsen children were Edna
(Johnson), Harry, Ida (Hansen), Ted, Ethel (Palmeter) and Betty
(Johnson).
Their first choir came about when the young organist and soloist,
Tilda Wilson (who later married and became Mrs. Merlin (Tilda)
Nelson), invited the teenagers of the congregation to her home for
supper, and after serving a delicious meal, she announced to them
that they were the new choir. The Ladies Aid furnished material for
choir robes and the younger ladies did the sewing.
The church grew and flourished over the next 40 years, and in the
late 1950s, the congregation met with members of the First Lutheran
(Norwegian) Church, located at the corner of Sumner Avenue and 3rd
St. South and voted to merge their two churches, all of them needing
more room for worship.
First Lutheran had already gone through a merger back in 1928, when
the 14 families from the Corinth Township Lutheran Church, located
seven miles south and west of Humboldt, joined with the Humboldt
First Lutheran congregation.
In 1896, Lutherans out in Corinth Township purchased a church
building from the Weaver Methodist congregation for $1,000. The
property it sat on was donated by Owen Stensland. In 1898, Erick
Sampson donated an acre of land for the Corinth Cemetery, which was
located three and one half miles west of Hwy. 169 and is still in
use. By 1901, their congregation numbered 100 members. Sermons were
in Norwegian until 1923. The merger with the church in Humboldt took
place five years later.
A paper written by longtime member, Lydia Wogen, told of her father,
Rev. L.E. Kleppe, preaching one service in town in the morning and a
second one out at the Corinth Church that afternoon. He bought a
horse named Queen Maude, and a single buggy, for the trip out to
Corinth church. Lydia's sister, 11-year-old Ellen, rode out with him
and accompanied the song service on an old reed pump organ.
Having already heard the same sermon that morning, she often dozed
off and had to be awakened to accompany the last hymn following the
sermon. Sometimes the whole family of six crowded into the buggy and
went along for the afternoon sermon.
Dale and Bonnie Olson, who farm west of the former church property,
said that when Dale was seven years old, he remembers riding into
town with his grandfather, Knute Olson, who had helped dismantle the
old church. They made several trips in his Model-T truck, with
lumber that was then stored until 10 years later, when extensive
remodeling and enlarging of the church building in town took place.
The new floors and trim were constructed from the lumber from the
Corinth church.
A quote in the late 1950s from a church publication, "The Voice,"
noted that there were three services being held at the First
Lutheran Church, with people lined up outside the back door waiting
for the next service. They entered the back door and left by the
front door, making room for the next service attendees to fill the
sanctuary.
Cars lined the surrounding streets for hours on Sunday morning, not
having set-aside parking for the church members. Building a new,
larger church would eliminate having to stand out in the cold and
inclement weather.
On Nov. 17, 1963, the cornerstone was laid for the new Our Saviour's
Lutheran Church, by Pastor L.C. Jensen, assisted by Pastor John Beem.
Baptized membership as of Sept. 13, 1964, the date of the
dedication, was 1,724, and a confirmed membership of 1,146.
The Church Council members at the time of the dedication were: Jean
Kleve, president; Jens Simonsen, vice president; Russell Sime,
secretary; Vernon Stensland, treasurer; Wilbur Curran, Maurice
Thompson, Elmer Hellickson, Jr., Carl Day, Helmer Hovland, Dr. D.C.
Whittlesey, Wallace Blakestad, John Klit, Andrew Christensen, Ted
Simonsen, Ernest Sime, Henry Lenning, Orville Knudson, and Earl
Erickson.
The First Lutheran Church building (built in 1897) sat vacant until
1965, when Harlow and Jolene Sievers purchased the property and
turned the Sunday School building on the south side of the property,
into the Sievers Funeral Home and their residence. The Sunday School
building had been built in 1951, by the Lutheran congregation to
accommodate their Sunday School classes, a fireside room and the
pastor's office. The church building was torn down by Don Grell of
Fort Dodge, in January of 1965, to make room for parking in front of
the funeral home.
The Sunday School tables and chairs, dishes and utensils from the
kitchen and several other items, including a special picture that
they had framed and hung at the new church, became part of the new
church furnishings, according to longtime member, Nathalie Schulze.
The bell from the belfry was also moved to the new church and hangs
in the bell tower to the southwest side of the church complex.
The Sievers sold the building to Merlyn Pollock in 1972 and plans
were made to renovate the building, turning the former Sunday School
rooms into offices. Rodney Amlie purchased the building in early
1973, and for almost 30 years rented office spaces to businesses. In
2001, the building underwent another renovation and the offices
above ground level became modern apartments.
The lower level now has two business offices, a laundry room for
apartment tenets, a piano studio, where Amlie teaches his students,
and some storage areas. There is an elevator and a door security
system.
The Danish Lutheran facility, however, had a lot of use in the 45
years that followed its closing as a church. The Humboldt High
School and the Junior High School were sharing the building on North
Taft Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues North, plus some classrooms
were being held in Old Stoney.
According to retired Principal Del Cram, they had 700 students and
no place to put all of them. A new high school was being
constructed, and the year before it was ready for occupancy, the
school rented the church building for the 1963/64 school year and
held their Business Education classes, with teachers Dick Furst and
Bob Pearson and Paul Christensen's Biology classes there.
The business classes were held in the sanctuary and the biology
classes in the basement. Bob Pearson, who lives in Fort Dodge, said
that the first day of class, he borrowed a choir robe and came out
on the platform near the podium and announced that he would lead
them in prayer. It took a few minutes for the students to realize
that it was a joke.
He also remembered that the girls wore their hair stacked high on
their heads and sprayed into place, and one girl arrived after
walking the two blocks from the school, with a bird deposit on top
of her hairdo. Her hair was so stiff she hadn't noticed. Desks and
typewriters on stands filled the south side of the room where the
pews had been removed (these were taken to the new church and
installed in the chapel there).
In November of 1964, Ted and Jo Simonsen, longtime members of that
church, rented the church and lived there until March of '65, while
their new house was being completed. She remembered that a blizzard
that March slowed everything down, including their move out of the
church.
Next came the newly organized Head Start Day Care program. Al and
Lib Hadar had purchased the church property and made it available in
March of 1967, for this pilot project, organized by Marilyn Fisher
and assisted by certified teachers Joyce Duea and Kay Heiter.
Aides were Sharon Larson, Colleen Abens, Joleen Johnson, and
Jeanette Christianson. Leona Gjerstad was hired as their cook.
Jeanette Christianson became the cook in 1972, and continued cooking
for Head Start until her retirement in 1995.
After two years at Trinity Church, the Head Start traded
locations with the Seventh Day Adventist congregation, who needed
more room than their small church at 9 2nd Street South allowed.
Their church building had been built by the Seventh Day Adventists
back in 1909. Their congregation organized in April of 1907 and met
for services in the GAR Hall, with 15 charter members. They also met
later in a Baptist Church and sometimes in a Non-Sectarian church in
Dakota City, before building on 2nd Street South. In later years,
the local church had 20 adult members and their children.
The Iowa-Missouri Conference of Seventh Day Adventists purchased the
property on 8th Street North in the late 1960s, and over the next
few years, the local church members undertook a major renovation.
Two large supporting rods were attached to the outer north and south
walls and a new hip-roof ceiling, with flat top and beveled sides
was created.
The beautiful chandeliers were made by hand in the garage of Dr.
Dennis Dahl at Pocahontas by himself and his wife, Jeanette's,
foster father. Their pastor, David Dick, did stained glass repairs
to some of the windows damaged by vandals. Screens were installed on
the outside to prevent such damage from happening again.
For three years, multi-grade school classes were taught by Jeanette.
The Dahls were also directors of the youth group, the Pathfinder
Club. At Halloween time, instead of going trick or treating for
candy, they collected canned goods for later distribution in food
boxes.
In 1992, church members combined their congregation and established
the present Seventh Day Adventist church in Fort Dodge.
Local realtor, Kevin Skow, purchased the property, which included
the corner lot to the north of the church, and built a new house
there. The Abundant Life congregation rented the church building in
late 1993 and held services there until 2003, when they moved to the
Hardy Methodist Church on the museum grounds.
Skow had sold the church property to Randy Donahue for rental
property in 1999, and he had become the landlord to the Abundant
Life Church. He seems to have been the last owner of the property
before it was sold for back taxes.
Rev. Gary Goetsch, pastor of Abundant Life Church, said that the
roof was leaking quite badly and water was running down the inside
of the south wall, causing a growth of mold upstairs and downstairs
which prompted their move.
The building has been vacated since 2003. Former Danish Lutheran
members were saddened to see their stained glass windows taken away,
but were glad to know that they will be used to beautify another
building as they have beautified their former church. Those who were
married there, baptized there, had family members buried from there,
and were longtime members there will treasure the 40 years that
their little church was their special place of worship.
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