Chetek Lutheran
Church
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History This is a history adapted from the pamphlet released on Chetek Lutheran's centennial celebration, One Hundred Years of Blessings 1883-1983. The First Twenty-five Years Stewart's Hall, formerly at the corner of Second Street and
Morrison Avenue, was the sit for the first meeting of the Chetek Lutheran
Congregation, on January 24, 1883. Meeting there were people with names like
Olsen, Johnsen, Otterholt, Fossum, Joelson, and Jensen, Norwegians and Danes
whose families had come to this country for a new start in a still new land. In
the January 26, 1883 number, The Chetek Alert reported, "The Lutheran Norwegians
met at Stewart's Hall on Wednesday January 24, for the purpose of organizing a
church, which they did, and purchased an acre of ground of Robert Stewart in
North Chetek on which they will commence erection of their church early in the
spring." The new church numbered 154 souls.
By 1883, though, Chetek had become the logical place to establish a more permanent congregation and build a church. In 1872, the town was little more than a logging camp, but by 1875 a plat had been drawn up, and in 1882 the old Omaha Railway had come through, putting Chetek once and for all on the map. An excerpt from a letter dated January 5, 1883, that Lars Otterholt (a member of Zion) wrote to his father gives some insight into that decision:
At that meeting the congregation was organized under a
different name that Chetek Lutheran: Barron Skandinavian Evangelical Lutheran
Church. Pastor J. E. Nord, who had
The life of the congregation began in earnest with that January 24 meeting. Divine services began to be held in Chetek. On May 16, 1883, the funeral for Mathias Amundson, dead at twenty-nine years, was held. This first funeral was followed by the congregation's first baptism, that of Minda Otelia, on May 27. On July 1, Gulbrand Kornelius Berg and Bergitte Olson were married, and the first confirmation vows were made in December. Over the next ten years the congregation organized the Ladies Aid and Sunday School, and joined with the Dovre and Faaberg congregations to form the old Chetek-Dovre-Faaberg parish. (The Faaberg congregation, located east of Cameron, was dissolved in the late 1940s.) In 1903 and 1904 these three congregations built the Old Parsonage, where our assistant pastors and interns and their families have lived since 1970. |
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"Partnered with the Nangombe Parish, Malawi, Africa
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Before
this time, most of these Scandinavians had worshiped in either the Lolland
congregation, in the neighborhood northeast of town, or the Zion congregation,
to the west of Chetek. Lolland Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation ("Lolland"
was the name of an island in Denmark, from which some of the members of the
congregation had come) was organized July 7, 1872, with a membership of
fifty-eight souls. Zion-Otterholt Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation
date from January 26, 1875. It was about the same size as Lolland. Both of these
congregation met in members' homes such as the log house pictured above. Seated
in front of the house are David and Stafina Joelson, charter members of the
congregation. 
succeeded
Pastors Helsem and Hvid and the itinerant Lutheran clergyman in the
neighborhood, was elected president. (Letter-writer Otterholt described Nord as
the "serious and Christ-like man.") Despite the decision reported in The Alert
to erect a building, construction was delayed until 1884. Between 1884 and 1886
the white frame structure (pictured at right) which would serve the congregation
for the next half century was built. Donated labor held construction costs at
$700. 
"...a community of faith
empowered to know Christ and to make Christ known"