Wendel History (copied
from handwritten copy by Dad)
Dec. 2, 1946
Charley Wendel our father
was born in Kornig Bergen, Germany, Sept. 13, 1829,[1]
the second son of Henry Wendel and Christena Rottenstein Wendel. At the age of 44 years in Sept. 1873, he fell
ill complaining of a severe headache. I
Charley was only seven years old and was with him all day. We had been looking for our cows that had
strayed from the pasture. Upon our
return home, father picked a little seed corn, but had to quit because of the headache. I remember he said the pain was at the
bridge of the nose and above his eyes.
He took to his bed and after a few days, passed on to his eternal
reward. Doctor said it was “brain
fever.” Medical science now makes me
believe it was sinus infection.
Our mother, Marie Rau was
born Nov. 21, 1831, in Erie Co., Pa. and died Feb. 1, 1924. She was the daughter of Christian Godlieb
and Dorothea Elizabeth Hauber Rau, their ancestry were Germans and they came
from a family of teachers. From Pa.
they came to Wabash Co. Ind. In April 1844.
My grandmother died in
giving birth to my mother, so in her infant days she was cared for by her only
sister, Barbara. She with three
brothers made up the family, later Barbara married a man, who was a tailor by
trade. She helped her husband in the
shop so it left mother alone during her childhood days. Many times mother in her loneliness, would
sit outside watching the large fleecy clouds float by, hoping in her childish
way to see her mother floating by on a cloud.
Just a childish dream. A child’s
idea of heaven.
On August 23, 1855, she married
by father Charley, they moved on a 40 acre farm 4 miles north and east of
LaGro, Ind. near the Hopewell Methodist Church. This tract was about half timber, consisting of oak, walnut, and
hard maple, Father cleared all of this timber except 5 acres.
On these 5 acres were enough
hard maple trees to furnish enough sap to make syrup and maple sugar to do us
all year and for several years after Father died.
I well remember the log
rolling days when the neighbors came to help pull these nice big logs to a
pile. With skids and ropes they put
these logs on top of each other until the pile was long and high, then they
would set them on fire which took days to burn. They weren’t worth anything on the market. Today timber like that would go a long ways
in paying for a farm.
Those were the days when men
used axes and they always kept the cutting edge very sharp. One winter morning, Father was going to cut
wood, so he brought the ax into the house to warm it before using for these
hard tempered axes would often snap and large pieces would chip if used when
cold. As soon as he brought it into the
house, a nice white frost would gather on it and Father not being in the house
and mother not watching, I picked up the ax to lick off the front and when I
did, my tongue stuck to the ax and left some of my tongue sticking to it. An act I never repeated.
Father did have a barn, smokehouse,
pump house, and logs enough to build these buildings and a four room log
house. The barn Father built had two
hay mows, one on each side of a large drive.
The straw carrier of the machine would go out through the rear door,
where the straw was always neatly stacked.
The wheat and oats bins were in the barn plus stalls for six
horses. Father had the reputation of being
the best horseman in the community and he did have five nice ones. We also had a few peafowls, beautiful birds
and always before a rain the male would fly upon the barn and crow, a sure sign
of rain.
When Father was building the
log house, logs were lying all around in the yard he asked me to bring him the
hatchet, which was very sharp. I was
careless in carrying it and hurrying. I
fell so the blade cut through the bridge of my nose. The bleeding was terrific, so our neighbor Mrs. Williams, was
called. She then pow-wowed and murmured
something and the blood at once stopped.
Wild game, deer, turkey,
squirrel, were plentiful. Wild pigeons
came by the thousand. I saw many large
limbs broken from large oak trees broken by pigeon roosts, where they had
crowded on these limbs.
We had lived, only a short time in our new log house,
when my Father died. In those days
there were no funeral directors or homes, but in every community, there were a
number of men and women who could take care of the dead. In our community, Mr.
Philip Sell, who operated a sawmill had walnut lumber on hand from which he
made my Father's coffin. He was buried from the Lutheran Church of which he was
a member. The cemetery was on the
church ground. The church known as the County Line church in Huntington
Co. The parsonage was in Wabash Co.
Father's death left mother with five dependent
children. Jacob Henry Wendel having
died when very young, Mary Christena born Apr. 29, 1857, died Feb. 23, 192?[2]. She had married Peter Speicher and to this
union four children were born. All have
passed on at this writing Dec. 2, 1946 but Reuben Speicher of Francesville, Ind. Amilia
Catharine Wendel Jenkins was born Oct. 2, 1863 and died Apr. 21, 190?[3]. She was buried in Wabash Cemetery. One daughter May Jenkins, still living
today. Dec. 2, 1946.
Charles & Anna Wendel - 50th Wedding Aniversary 1943 [15]
Charles D. Wendel
was born in LaGro Twp. LaGro, Ind.
Sept. 9, 1866 and is at present writing this bit of family history. l married Anna E. Koenig, April 30, 1893. Seven children were born to this union, Elmer
Charles Wendel, born Dec. 1?[4],
1894, in Des Moines, Ia. He married Louella
Stark of Story City, Ia. and today is living in Nevada, Ia. Paul Henry Wendel was born Nov. 2, 1896 at
Decatur, Ind. He weighed only 2 ½
pounds at birth, with no nurse or incubator to care for him. He married Edna Montgomery of Nevada, Ia. They are the parents of one son, Gary
Charles and now live in DesMoines, Ia.
Dwight Daniel Wendel was born Mar. 31, 1899 on a farm
in Plymouth County, Ia. The address being LeMars, Ia. He also was a 2 ½ pound
baby, with no doctor. My wife’s mother
and I cared for mother and baby. Today
such tiny babies are cared for in the hospital, Dwight married Luella Collins
of Galveston, Tex. They have no children
but Louella had a son Monroe, by her first marriage. At present, they live near
Washington, D.C.
Lois Marie Wendel was born June 24, 1901 in the
parsonage 4 miles north of Prescott, Ia.
She weighed 8 pounds, again no doctor present. I went to get Mrs. Allen to help with the
delivery but when I returned Lois was born.
Lois married Merle Dickinson of Colo, Ia. A son, Wendel Francis was born but died in birth. Patricia Ann was born Mar. 9, 1925 and was married
to Bernice B. Bowers of Colo and they are presently living in Ames, where be is
attending college.
George Moody Wendel was born Jan. 12, 1905 at
Audubon. Ia. weight 7 pounds. He married
Margaret Houghtelling of Des Moines and they are now living in Iowa Falls,
Ia. They have no children.
Helen Elizabeth Wendel was born in Audubon, Ia. April
24, 1907, weight 6 pounds. She married Golden
O. Thompson, of Colo, Ia. Two little twin
boys were born to them but died in infancy in 1934, Joseph Charles and Daniel
Joseph. Their other children are
Wendel, born Apr. 15, 1936, JoAnn, June 3, 1937 and Karen, Aug. 22, 1938, and
Mary Oct. 11, 19 [5], They
all live in LeMars, Ia.
Ruth Viola Wendel born Sept. 11, 1909 at Mt. Zion
church parsonage in Viola Center, Ia.
She married Elmer Mussig from Gladbrook, Ia. They have two children Marshal Frank, born Dec. 13, 1938 and Margery
Ruth, born Nov. 5, 1944.
I will now return to the days after my father's
death. Mother after good advice and her
unusually good judgement, had a sale, which brought enough to pay the debt on
the farm, 60 acres. My uncle, Jake Shinkel,
farmed the land. Mother had bad luck with the few hogs she had, all but three
died from cholera, the three that lived, lost all of their hair but otherwise
were healthy. Mother bought a very
large, old sow; she had 15 pigs, I think most of them lived.
After a few years, my oldest sister Christena married
Peter O. Speicher.[6] They lived with us and Peter did the farming. Then six years after Father’s death, mother
married Godlieb Amacher on Nov. 25, 1879.
Elizabeth, Clara, and I went with mother to her new home near Bremen, Ind. I lived there about a year and then went to
live with my sister and husband, Mr. and. Mrs. Peter Speicher near LaG Ind. A few years later, Amacher sold his place and
bought one near the Hopewell Church, 3 miles from LaGro. After a few years, they sold their farm and
bought near Urbana, Ind. then later they quit farming and moved to Urbana,
where they lived until my stepfather died. From then on, my mother made her
home with my
youngest sister Mrs. G. O. Miller.
I will now ramble about for a bit, in our family
life. Skipping many things of interest, while referring only to the ones my
memory recalls. Those were the days, when we lived much as we believe God
intended for us to live. We had much time to be neighborly. We were not
interested in fashion, in getting rich or going places to spend money, for we
didn’t have any to spend. We went to Wabash our county seat, about twice a year
to buy what groceries and other things we
could not get at LaGro. We needed shoes and clothes that LaGro could not supply. It was 10 miles to Wabash and required a day
made by wagon, we took a little hay and a few ears of corn for the horses and a
home packed lunch for the ones making the trip, for there was no money to buy a
lunch.
Evenings, during the winter, were spent with neighbors,
visiting, piecing quilts, knitting socks, and mittens out of homespun yarn, sewing
carpet rags and eating roasted sweet corn, eating apples, making taffy out of
cane sorghum or maple syrup, cracking hickory nuts, etc.
We lived 5 miles east of the Hopewell School and Methodist
church which was located in the corner of a large cemetery. This was on the Stratton farm, the home of Gene
Stratton Porter. I very well remember her as a chubby girl with black hair and
eyes. She was always delighted in fixing other girl’s hair. I knew all the characters in “Laddy Boy” her
brother Leander, who was drowned in the Wabash river one summer afternoon, when
he was 18 years old. This Laddy Boy story
was a true story in fiction, l was present at the “Fox Chase", remember the
butting sheep buck and fished in the same deep place in the creek, where she
caught her big one.
One night, we children were alone. Mother and Pete
and wife had gone to a protracted meeting.
We children were not courageous staying alone, so were easily frightened. Imagine our fright when all of a sudden our
house, the yard and everything around got as bright as day, we heard a hissing
sound then a heavy thud and all was dark again. Needless to say, it seemed like ages before the folks returned and
were we glad to see them. Since there
were no radios, telephones or daily papers, it was about a week before we
learned that a meteor had fallen, about three miles east of us. It looked like a large chunk of melted, iron,
and rock.
One afternoon, mother went to LaGro, with my uncle Jake. Mother gave us strict orders to stay home
but for some reason, we became frightened and had a good excuse to go to uncle Jake's
house, a quarter of a mile away. There
were 8 cousins in the Shinkel family and we were having the time of our lives playing
which made the clock count time very fast and before we realized, the folks were
home. We hit the dust for home but that
did not prevent us from getting our promised switching. I stood it pretty well
but Elizabeth says she can still feel the sting of the switch.
Later on I got a spanking that I really felt. Our
neighbor Bill Collons, had a lot of ducks. One day, after a rain, the ducks got
into the water on our side of the road. Well it was fun for the ducks to puddle
in the water and it was fun for me to club them. I killed three and covered
them up nicely but l didn’t know that Bill had seen me. I had just reached home
when Bill came and was showing mother the ducks. I wasn't hungry that night, so
didn't want any supper but as darkness came, I had to come in, then mother took
me up to neighbor Bill’s, where I had to apologise (sic), beg pardon and offer
to pay for the ducks. Oh, boy was that
ever a good lesson and a spanking I’ll never forget.
Father was cutting logs for a new house and logs were
scattered all over the yard. He asked me
to bring him a hatchet. I was only five
years of age but I had been taught to obey and I was quick to act but I hadn't been
instructed in carrying a sharp tool, so I was not as careful, as I should have
been. I was trying to step over the logs and in doing so, fell on the sharp
blade, cutting the bridge of my nose. The
bleeding would not stop, so one of my sister’s ran to our neighbor Mrs.
Williams. She came right over powwowed
a little and mumbled something not understandable and the bleeding stopped.
The winter before, Elizabeth was rocking in her small
rocker, near a hot stove. All at once
she fell forward, throwing her hand up against the stove. Her hand stuck to the stove and in pulling
it loose, she left the inside flesh of her hand on the stove, the burn was very
painful. Again Mrs. Williams was called.
She came and did the same thing, then blew on the burn and like magic the pain
was gone, Elizabeth soon fell asleep and the burn soon healed.
I don't know if this one is on mother, Clara or the
teacher. When Clara was quite young, her
teacher praised her for being a model student, especially in not exchanging
love notes with the boys. After the compliment, mother went to a little container,
and handed the teacher a handful of notes Clara had received from Alfus Ringle,
so one can never tell.
Let's turn now to things of more vital importance. I
was now 18 years old and living with my oldest sister and husband Mr. and Mrs.
Peter Speicher. We were living just an eighth
of a mile from the Hopewell Methodist church. I was the janitor. We had a stove
on either side of the church and had good wood to burn. The Rev. Lewellen, a man who weighed 290
pounds, not much of a preacher was pastor, he lived in LaGro three miles away. Besides
this appointment he served three other places, so we only had services every
two weeks, in the afternoons.
The time for the yearly protracted meeting had
arrived. You note I said protracted,
they often ran for weeks. He had a local
minister, J.W. Markey assist him. After five weeks of meetings, our pastor announced
on a Saturday night that he was leaving to fill other appointments on Sunday
and that Markley would close the meetings Sunday night, if no one came forward.
Well Sunday night 14 young people came forward and
there were several real conversions that night. The next night, l was soundly
converted and l was a changed man. No one
could ever convince me that it was only a myth or illusion. I know that something had happened and so
did the people that knew me. The meeting continued for another week during
which 72 people professed conversion, 62 united with the church.
Peter Speicher,
a man of incessant prayer, was our class leader. Led by the Spirit of God, he
was a real leader of the band of young converts. From the time the meeting closed in Dec. until March, he held
prayer meetings four and five times a week and it's almost unbelievable how these
young Christians grew in Grace and matured in the Christian life, until they
were the praying folks of the church.
During this time John Woods and I felt the call of
the Holy Spirit to enter the ministry. We both. spent a year in De Paw university,
at Greencastle, Ind. Neither of us
returned for a second year, due to a lack of early education. I had to quit school after the death of my
father, so I’ll never know how I got in a university with such a poor
educational background. It was something that placed me under a terrible
handicap all of my life. After sitting in the classes at Green Castle for a
year, never being able to make one recitation, I knew I could never be a
minister. I returned home and my stepbrother[7]
and I borrowed some money and bought a store at Rippers, Ind. and like Jonah,
felt relieved to break from the call to the ministry. While we were able to build up a good business and prosperity was
coming, here I backslid and became worldly but I never could quiet the call to
the ministry, which constantly bothered me.
After three years, I sold out my interest and
returned home, clerking in Adam Cooks store.
During the winter, Rev. J.W. Wildermouth held a meeting in the Evangelical
Church at Urbana, Ind. I was reclaimed and I renewed my covenant to preach. In 1891 I went to conference of the Evangelical
Church and was granted probation, which granted the conference the privilege of
assigning me to a charge. I refused an assignment, as I told them a friend[8]
had offered to furnish money for me to go to school, at Naperville, Ill. They still prevailed on me to take out a license
to preach, which I finally consented. Bishop Bowman presided over the conference at this time when the division
of the church was being done and men were needed. The Bishop said that the charges
in Ind. were all filled but the men not employed there would be sent to Iowa. I
asked him what he meant; and he said, "you are licensed and we have the say
now.” Thinking there was no other way,
I consented, under the condition that they place me as assistant pastor under
an experienced man. Just one week later
I received a letter from presiding elder, J.F. Yerger of the Iowa Conference
saying that I was appointed to a charge in Harlan, Ia. A friend of mine from Ind. Conference said
to me, “they are going to send you out where the wolves howl”.
Before I left for Harlan, my class leader, Adam Cook,
asked if I would preach for them on a Sunday night. I told him I would preach but asked him not to tell anyone for I
had never preached before and I didn’t want people to come. When I got there, I was invited to the
pulpit, my first time in a position like that.
I just didn’t know what to do with my hands, it seemed like I could find
no place for them and my feet seemed so extremely large and awkward. It was spring, it had rained and turned to a
heavy fog and roads were bad. I was
glad for I didn’t think anyone would come.
I went to the pulpit, which was rather broad and high, I took the pulpit
chair and by the time I was settled in it, I couldn’t see anything but the side
of the pulpit. The springs were weak
and low which made it hard for me to get out of, so I announced two hymns to be
sung, while still seated in the chair, then when I arose to read the scripture
to my surprise, I could see the church was packed and even people standing in
the rear. For some unexplained reason,
my fear was gone and I felt as easy as though I was accustomed to
preaching. I had many encouraging words
from friends, who were present. During
the following week I left for Harlan.
While on the platform, waiting for the train, my good
brother-in-law Speicher put something in my pocket. When I got on the train, I looked and found a $20 gold
piece. In Chicago, I bought quite a few
books from Revell Publishing Co. From
Chicago I was taken to the Rock Island depot, which would take me to Harlan.
I arrived in Harlan on April 18, 1891. I carried a heavy overcoat, 2 satchels, on
one of those hot, lazy days of spring.
I walked 7 miles to Harlan after being on the train all night, with only
a few short naps between stations. I
was physically exhausted, covered with perspiration and dust and with a painful
boil on my neck, I arrived at the J.W. Bittle home, where I was welcomed and
very kindly entertained.
The Bittles were elderly people, with a son living at
home, about my age. They were German people
and I could not carry on a conversation in German but I could understand it
very well. Imagine the thrill I got out
of hearing them talking to me in German.
I preached as much as possible and received $90
salary for the year. The last six
months of the year, I was nicely housed with the H.H. Luccke family. After one year at Harlan, I was sent to
Kingsley.
Kingsley was the best paying field in the
Conference. I arrived there on April
15, 1892 and went at once to the home of Rev. J.F. Yerger where I was
entertained until I could buy furniture and furnish the parsonage, where I
would be setting up housekeeping, awaiting the arrival of my sister, who was
coming to live with me. She remained
with me until fall, when because of failing health she returned to Ind. I lived alone in the parsonage but spent
most of my time with the people. Here I
had many interesting experiences. I
served the Beulah appointment, 8 miles south of Kingsley, where we had a
prosperous society and a packed house to evenings and a fine audience on Sunday
morning. Morning Star was 11 miles east
of Kingsley, where we had wonderful spiritual people.
During the second year at Kingsley, I married Anna E.
Koenig, a member of the Stanton Church, eight miles south of Le Mars, Ia. This was in the year 1893. In 1894, we were appointed to North Des
Moines. Here we served one year. I had an evangelist by the name of Thorn,
assist in a meeting. As a result we
took in twenty seven very fine and promising young people. They carried on a young people’s prayer
meeting and all were active in the church.
This was a wonderful year, for the small church. Mr. and Mrs. E.G. Eaton were among the
finest Christian people, we ever had, as church workers. They later opened up a mission in
India. Mrs. Eaton is still active in
the Mission work. Her husband passed
away to his reward, a few years ago.
The presiding elder, J.F. Yerger, contacted a strong
minister of the Methodist Church, who wanted work for the summer, so I was
moved to make a place for the BIG MAN.
During the summer, he disrupted everything we had done, scattering the
young people, then left in the middle of the summer. The church never prospered after that set back.
We were appointed to Maxwell, Ia. A very discouraging
move for us. The parsonage, was an old tumble
down house in the country, the rent was $5.00 a month our furniture was moved
25 miles by wagon, much was broken, bolts were lost out of the stove, furniture
rubbed again other things until it was almost useless. At Conference I had pledged to pay $25.00 to
Missions. We had to buy a team of
horses, harness and buggy. I was
promised a salary of $120.00 which was set up against, $60.00 rent $25.00
Missions, $60.00 team, $35.00 buggy, $25.00 harness a total of $205.00, left us
$85.00 in the red. After this year my
mother asked that we be transferred back to the Ind. Conference. We did and were appointed to the Decatur
charge, which was the county seat of Decatur county. Here we found a very fine people, but they needed a new church
and the parsonage was old and full of bed bugs. We had never had any bed bugs before and it was hard for us to
believe that there could be so many.
With the help of one of the members, we papered the house, and doped the
bugs with a spray and we were soon cleaned up.
Work there just held it’s own. During
the second year, at revival time, I was taken down with catarrh[9]
pneumonia and had to stop preaching for two years. We spent the summer at Urbana, Ind. And the inter with my wife’s
parents, south of Le Mars.[10] After that my wife’s brother Chris and I
farmed one of the Koenig farms, four miles south of Le Mars, which we farmed
for more than a year. I was appointed
by the Iowa Conference to serve the Prescott, Ia. charge, where we had three
charges, over some very hilly country in Adams county.
The people on all three appointments, were very
discouraged and had told the presiding elder not to send them a preacher, so
they were quite surprised at our coming.
Our first meeting was at Mt. Edna, where we had six members. Two of them never came to church. We had a six week meeting, with thirty
converts, the membership numbers rose to forty.
At Mt. Pisgah, we had a good revival and added a nice
group to the congregation. At Mt. Zion,
where we lived, we had some converts, not many joined the church but we had a
nice increase in attendance.
I took on another preaching place, with a membership
14. So my Sunday days work, was a drive
of 30 miles and three sermons. After
four years in Prescott, we were appointed to Audubon, Ia. Here we had a small church and a small congregation,
but a very spiritual people, in the majority.
Here our salary had increased to the enormous sum of $500.00 The church had chairs, hooked together for
seating. We put in pews, repapered,
painted and put in a furnace and bought a new organ. We had a number of conversions and a nice addition of new
members.
I helped Mr. Conner work the Canada land deal a
little, enough so that we paid for a quarter section of land in Alberta. It never made us any money but neither did
we lose any. We had many weddings and
funerals and made many staunch friends in town and community.
During my pastorate, George Cramer, was converted and
entered the ministry, he is still on the job.
After five years, we were sent to Viola Center, Audubon county. This was a very hard move, 12 miles out in
the country. We faced some very
difficult problems but we overcame most of them by God’s Grace and help, which
he provided. I shall not enter into details
however the work built up in many ways during our two years there. In spite of the protest of the congregation,
we asked to be moved as we needed better school privileges for our older
children.
We were then appointed to the pastorate in Dumont,
Ia., a German congregation, They had a solid German service in the morning and a
very little English service in the evening.
Here I had many interesting experiences in turning the society from the
German to the English, but it took place without any trouble at all. Here we had a very good pastorate, with
these fine people. Again after three
years in Dumont we asked to be moved so that our older children might have a
four year High School education. This
time we were sent to Story City in 1914.
Rev. L.J. ? Smay had served Story City for three
years. He had just about (sic) the
membership as a result of a revival in which Rev. H.C. Schluter was the
evangelist. The transfer of two classes
gave additional opportunities to the Story City charge. He also encouraged the building of a new
church and had around $8,000.00 already pledged. The blue prints and contractor had already been provided for, but
the society had demanded a change in pastors, so a change was made. We were given the privilege of finishing the
work, which was so well begun.
The church was built in the summer of 1914. We lacked only seven of doubling the
membership during my pastorate there.
The five years spent in Story City were among the finest of our many
years in church work.[11]
During the first two years, we served Zenorsville, a
church four miles west of Gilbert, where they consented to raise enough money
to make it a special mission and have it’s own pastor.
In the spring of 1919, we were appointed to Van
Horne, Ia. There we had a fine church
and modern parsonage. We had seven
years of especially fine fellowship.
During our pastorate, the Methodist Church closed and all but one family
worshipped with us and united with us.
During the sixth year, we had a most unusual experience, the church
needed repair, all buildings needed paint.
The trustees wanted the work done but no one wanted to do the soliciting. They appointed me to get the money. They let the contracts and I called for
volunteer gifts. Without any
soliciting, $2800.00 came in, enough to pay all bills plus a gift of $100.00 to
me and $140.00 left in the repair fund.
Against our better judgement and protest, we were
given a second appointment to Audubon, with Viola Center to supply. They said the reason was because of the many
friends we had made at both places. We
were crushed and never recovered from this terrible blunder. Both places were terribly run down. Many of our former friends were gone, those
who were left were disgruntled. The
church was in an awful condition, the paper was smoked until it was really
black, plastering was off in places, with loose ends of paper hanging down,
other places were spotted from rain leaking through. The floor was not only dusty but very dirty the pulpit carpet was
simply black from dirt and smoke. The
piano was out of tune and yet there were people who would jump up and say, “I
am saved, sanctified, cleaned up and ready to go to Heaven.”
The barn needed repair, during my first pastorate, 20
years before and was really unfit to put a car in. The doors were hanging on one hinge and flopping about and hanging
down. The basement or hole under the
church, where a furnace was put in 20 years before, was now entirely burned out
and beyond repair, so it had to be replaced.
An accumulation of two years of musty cobs, plus old musty carpet and
clothing, which had been used in a play, was cast in this catch all. No where in the basement could you touch
anything, without getting dirty. We
carried out dirt and rubbish almost two days before we could put anything in.
The steps leading to the front entrance, were not
uniform. One step might be 13 inches
and the next one 10 inches. The
spouting was so arranged that all of the water coming from one half the roof
fell in the center of the platform just in front of the main entrance. If you went out during a rain, you had to
pass right under all of this water.
On Sunday, I had to preach at Viola Center, 12 miles
out, at 9:30 A.M. and I had 30 minutes, to drive back to Audubon, for a 11:00
o’clock service, over roads, which were not graveled and had 14 turns on the
way. They soon had a man for that place
and I put in all of my time trying to repair Audubon.
I spoke about repairs and improvements, but the board
of trustees, were not in favor of doing anything. I preached sermons, intending to arouse their interest to bring
some action. At last I preached a
sermon which brought fruit, for then one of the officers swung over and began
to talk improvement. Work was begun and
plans were made, but to tell you of all the trouble which came up, would fill
the pages of a book, so I’ll not get into that. Suffice it to say that we asked to be moved, at the end of the
year.
At Conference, we were moved to Harlan, where we
served our first appointment. It was a
very small congregation, but I think the most talented and finest Christian
people we had ever worked with. There
were so few members and so many much larger churches, that it was hard to get
people to come to a small church, with both church and parsonage, in need of
repair. Yet the dear people said that
if we would stay, they would make the repairs.
After three years, we were moved to Radcliffe, Ia.,
where we had a nice pastorate for five years, nothing of importance took place
here[12]
this being one of the most limited of fields.
From this field we were sent to Green Mountain, a
small country church, north east of Green Mountain. A very nice, modern parsonage and a very well kept church. Rev. Russell had served this church well for
eleven years and it was difficult for these people to get used to a new pastor,
so it was hard to get into their confidence.
However we started in well but the winter set in real
early and we had two of the most severe winters we had ever encountered in over
forty years, because of ice and snowdrifts, we were unable to hold services for
seven weeks. After the severe winters,
it was difficult to get going as in former days. After a pastorate of three years and because I had reached the
age of retirement, we retired and move to Story City where we had bought our
first home. Thus ended forty six years
of my ministry.
[Note from Lois written at
end of manuscript: Dear family: I read
two copies[13] that Dad
had written, put them together as several pages were gone from one copy[14]
The other contained some things that were lost, but not as compete as the
other. I learned a lot about Dad that I
never knew so hope it will do something for you.
Now that we have all this to
go on I feel that each one of us should write the things that we remember in
our growing up years and I’ll be glad to put them together for future members
of the family to enjoy. So each one
send their memories to me and when this comes back, I’ll get to work on
it. Thanks. Lois
Just send this around as we
do the family letter. When Mary was out
to Elmer’s one time she asked him to tell things he remembered and he did and
she taped it so maybe we can add those things to the family history.]