130th Weyerts Community celebrates church's anniversary

Weyerts Immanuel Lutheran Church is celebrating it 130th anniversary Sunday with a 9 a.m. service and pot luck.

The country church, located at the intersection of County Roads 139 and 46 northwest of Lodgepole, has remained in service long after the actual Wyerts community, complete with a post office and store, was founded by German immigrants.

The post office and store have long since passed, but the area continues to be known as the Weyerts Community, filled with the pride of residents past and present.

The following paragraphs relate the church and area's rich history as passed through historians - mostly recently by this updated submission from Beverly Adam, which will be included in the anniversary bulletin:

As Weyerts Immanuel Lutheran Church celebrates 130 years of Christian fellowship and ministry we remember the journey that brought worshippers together in this place. A prayer Marcia Miller wrote for Immanuel's 100th Anniversary book asks for the Holy Spirit's help so that the church community can continue to build one another up in faith while sharing God's Word, "We ask that God will lead us and guide us, but also that we will be faithful in following God's call."

The congregation began in members' homes with periodic Word of God readings and familiar hymns. School teacher Fredrich Bauer helped organize and did the task of reading. They sang favorite carols at their first Christmas worship in Rieke Bohlken's home. Pastor Carl Wiederanders occasionally traveled 150 miles from Gothenburg to perform baptisms. Pastor Alfred Fleischmann from DeWitt, Nebraska and the new congregation met in the Herman Folkerts' home on August 2, 1886 to draw up a constitution. Twenty-five voting members signed the constitution for evangelical lutherischen Immanuels Gereindezu neu Ostfriesland, Cheyenne County, Nebraska.

How did Immanuels Gereindezu neu Ostfriesland become Weyerts Immanuel? The community fifteen miles northwest of Lodgepole was begun by immigrants from Ostfriesland, Germany. Jurgen, Harm and Cornelius Weyerts built a store and post office a few miles from Immanuel's location. The plan was to name the place "New Friesland" but, when the postmaster asked Cornelius to spell the name request, the German farmer did not have literary skills, so they used the name "Weyerts." Weyerts store and post office and a dance hall all burned down on Halloween night in 1924. The community and the church retained the Weyerts name.

In Pioneer Paths Clark Fuller mentions Anna Borges memories of extreme poverty but a strong faith in God. She remembered coming at four years old to a treeless prairie where people lived in dugouts and broke sod to begin farming. On Sundays families loaded their wagons with barrels, attended church at Immanuel and continued eight miles east to Lisco Spring (Rush Creek) to refresh their water supplies. Christian Helmreich, the first pastor at Weyerts, wrote home to Germany regarding being called to his first parish. He described endless steppes, sod houses and malnourished parishioners dressed in rags. He explained to his parents that he had been called to share in the poverty and trials of the mission parish. Shortly after graduating from a seminary in Germany Pastor Helmreich preached his first sermon to Immanuel's congregation on his 21st birthday, Easter Sunday, April 10, 1887. The fledgling congregation and their pastor, who was also homesteading, survived the Blizzard of 1888 and crop failures in 1889 and 1890. In August of 1890 they mourned the losses of a young mother, Maria Paben, five month old Friedrich Windsheimer, and four month old Mathilde Fecht.

In the fall of 1890 Pastor Helmreich received a second call; this time to a congregation in Illinois. Immanuel said farewell to their first pastor. Immanuel's 125th Anniversary book lists forty-five names of full time pastors, supply pastors and lay pastors from 1886 through 2011. At the 130th Anniversary on August 7, 2016 Immanuel members will say farewell to name number forty-six. Pastor Eric Alm, who shares a ministry between Immanuel and Dalton's United Church of the Plains, will be taking a call to an Iowa congregation.

Immanuel's members built a sod church and parsonage to greet Pastor Helmreich. In 1893 the congregation built an improved sod parsonage which was expanded in 1900. A frame church building was dedicated on August 7, 1898 after Pastor Max Hugo Taras arrived. In 1903, a $555 parsonage replaced the sod home. In June of 1912 a larger church was dedicated to replace the building that the congregation had outgrown. Necessary buildings were added to church property. A concrete chicken house and frame barn were completed in 1914. A garage for the pastor's car was built in 1928. A new parsonage "modern in every way" replaced the old parsonage in 1929. A new outhouse was built in 1945. Modernizing again, Immanuel's church and parsonage were connected to electricity in 1950. Pastor E.G. Ihrig helped lay the cornerstone when the 1912 frame church was replaced by the current brick building, dedicated on August 8, 1954. A separate brick bell tower was dedicated in June of 1966.

Immanuel was still a mission congregation for the building dedication in June of 1912. In 1911 Immanuel called for a pastor. Pastor Loren Schultheiss came to them from a Bavarian seminary that prepared students for mission work in America. Two dedication services were conducted for the 1912 building. The morning service was in German and the afternoon service was in English. World War I began in 1914 and in 1918 anti-German sentiment was so strong that worship services switched from German to English even though many members did not understand the second language. During that time United States flags decorated the sanctuary for a memorial service for Tony and Henry who were sons of Christ and Anna (Hinrichs) Weyerts. The young men died five days apart fighting for the US armed forces in Europe. When WW I ended Immanuel's worship services returned to German until 1924 when English services were held on the last Sunday of the month. In 1932 German and English worship services rotated. In 1946 all worship services were held in English, but a German carol was occasionally sung for Christmas Eve services during the 1960's.

The history of Weyerts Immanuel Lutheran Church reflects the history of many congregations. A poem included in the program for the dedication service of Immanuel's 1954 church building recognizes that each congregation is part of all human history.

"What shall our prayer be?

Father, O grant that all who come to worship here

May feel Thee very close and very dear;

Make this the high resolve of every mind,

To walk with Thee. To serve mankind."

By Margaret Chaplin Anderson