Farmers Weekly Review

By Nick Reiher

Shortly after Tammy and I met in April 1987, she lured me into attending church with her on the promise we would go to Hardee’s afterward.

I hadn’t been to church much since I graduated from Catholic grade school in Chicago. Tammy is a Lutheran from southern Minnesota. She attended pretty much every Sunday, including after moving to Ottawa.

If Tammy weren’t enough to get me to go to church, a Lutheran church, well, I liked Hardee’s a lot.

About that time, she told me if she ever got married, not only would she remain Lutheran, but she would be wed in her home church, South Blue Earth Lutheran Church in far south central Minnesota.

As I made more trips with Tammy to Minnesota, I got a chance to attend services at the church, a few miles west of town. The pure definition of a country church. Nothing else around, and the first thing you often see is the tall steeple.

When you park, you see the cemetery so old, at least one Civil War-era soldier is buried there.

From the relatively newer lobby, you can go down steps to the fellowship hall, and beyond that to the dark corridor leading to the men’s room. Although the hall contained the old boilers, I liked to call it the Hall of Dead Pastors. There weren’t any, of course, but I liked the sound of it.

Go up the steps in the lobby, and you enter into a sanctuary where your eyes immediately lock onto a painting of Christ rising above an altar surrounded by white railings, where each group of communicants received a blessing before the next came on up.

Light poured in through tall stained glass windows depicting the life of Christ. One was dedicated to Tammy’s Grampa Olson, and another to her Gramma Olson.

On the left side of the aisle was Tammy’s family’s pew: fourth row from the front. Other families had their pews, too.

After meeting Tammy’s siblings when they ranged from late-teens to mid-20s, I cannot possibly imagine the stress it took to get those kids ready – dressed in their Sunday best – each Sunday morning. We have only two, and THAT was a challenge back in the day.

After six months of careful consideration in the fall of 1987, I asked Tammy to marry me. And, lucky for me, she said yes. Yes, we did plan to get married in her little home church, but …

Oddly, something must have stuck from 12 years of Catholic education, other than a tic when a nun approached. I said I’d like to see if it were possible to have a Lutheran-Catholic wedding, sanctioned by both churches.

It was, and we both jumped through all the halos to make it happen. Oscar Stene, pastor of South Blue Earth then, and the Rev. Rich Yanos, a friend whom I had known since I was 4, co-officiated. They both got along great, and the ceremony was memorable.

So was the wedding lunch, catered in the brightly decorated fellowship hall by Tammy’s Aunt Margaret and Uncle Lloyd. With handmade mints on the tables, of course.

There have been many visits to that church during the past 36 years, including for the marriage of Tammy’s youngest sister, Lori Dee, and her husband, Mark, punctuated by memories of our young son, Andy, bopping sister, Jillian, with the ringbearer pillow on the trek toward the altar.

But we all have expiration dates, and that includes 153-year-old churches. South Blue Earth’s congregation, like many in all areas, dwindled as people aged, and kids moved away from the area, seeking more job opportunities – and maybe other religious opportunities, or not — elsewhere.

The four of us traveled up to Minnesota for South Blue Earth’s final service on October 27. We needed the fourth pew on the left, plus a couple others now.

It was a nice service, a chance to connect with some people we hadn’t seen in a long time. And it was good to hear that it wasn’t the final bell for South Blue Earth Lutheran Church.

The church’s Cemetery Association is going to keep it going for receptions and other appropriate events until the county historical society gets permission from the state to take it over for the same.

I hope we get a chance to attend some of those events, preferably happy ones, like our niece, Morgan, getting married there a couple years ago. She’s proud that if there had to be a final wedding there, it was hers.

And those of us from the family who were married there took a nice picture in front of the old church.

Good times. Great memories.

Nick Reiher is editor of Farmers Weekly Review.