REMEMBRANCES OF CHRISTMASES PAST: Pastor Timothy Vettrus: “We moved to Colfax on Christmas Eve day in 1954.”
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — Christmas in Colfax is one of Pastor Timothy Vettrus’s earliest memories.
Reverend Vettrus is the pastor at First Lutheran Church of Arland in Clayton and lives in Prairie Farm.
His father, Reverend Ole Vettrus, was the pastor at the Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church in Colfax.
“We moved to Colfax on Christmas Eve day in 1954. We came in an old ’46 blue Studebaker. I was almost four, and I remember that the men of the church had put the furniture in the parsonage of Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church,” Pastor Vettrus said.
According to the January 6, 1955, Colfax Messenger, “Pastor Ole Vettrus, pastor of the Zoar Lutheran Church of Superior for the past six years, arrived last Friday to assume the pastorate of the Bethany Lutheran Church of Colfax. Pastor and Mrs. [Clara] Vettrus have eight children: David of Minneapolis; Donna of Superior; Richard of Fergus Falls; and Rhoda, Joel, Jerome, Timothy and Susan Jean of Colfax.”
“I had gotten a big green and white dump truck, about two feet long. They laid the area carpet on the wood floor in the living room, and as soon as they got that down, I could take my truck and go around the outside. I remember that vividly. I don’t know where that truck is right now, but we kept it through the years,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“We celebrated [Christmas] some in Superior. We came from Superior. Drove down, and they sent men up with the truck to get our furniture, and that’s how we got started in Colfax,” he said.
“It was a tradition that Bethany Brethren Lutheran had Christmas Day worship. Dad always had a Christmas Day service. That was in the old high-off-the-ground Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church,” he said.
June 4, 1958
The Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church on University Avenue in Colfax was one of the casualties of the June 4, 1958, Colfax tornado.
“That was the building that was taken during the tornado. The doors went right into the sanctuary. There was a high step right up to the church. A simple, plain little building,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“For people who have lived here that long, next year it will be 70 years since we moved to Colfax in 1954,” he noted.
“We didn’t have a television when I was that age. So I would go and visit Ruth Anderson. She lived right next to the church. She was the postmaster. Her cousin, Selmer Anderson, lived with her. He had a room upstairs. When the tornado came, we were watching ‘Wagon Train’ right after seven o’clock, and I got up. The television had gotten snowy. I got up and looked out the window, and I saw the church fold like a box,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“Then Ruth said, ‘We’ve got to go down to the cellar.’ She had a little cellar. Selmer had his foot up, it was a trap door, he had his foot up to keep the door open, and Ruth and I were down in the basement. I was seven at that time,” he recalled.
Anticipation
For Pastor Vettrus and the Vettrus family, Christmas was about anticipation.
“The oldest four in our family, there was a gap there, they were not around much. They went away to the Lutheran Brethren schools in Minnesota, a high school as well as a Bible school and seminary,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“We always waited at Christmas time for the older brothers and sisters to come home,” he said.
And there was a prime spot in the parsonage where someone could eagerly watch for arrivals.
“By the window on the west side of the parsonage living room, we had an easy chair there. When Christmas came, especially Christmas Eve, that was the place to sit if you wanted to see who was going to make the turn around the corner to our house, to see who is coming home,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“Most of the time, it was first of all my oldest brother, David, and his wife Vonda, because they were the first to be married. They soon had four children, two boys and two girls,” he said.
“That was something we always looked forward to at Christmas, for others in the family to come home. For immediate family to come home,” Pastor Vettrus said.
The parsonage is a half block west of Bethany on the corner at 715 University Avenue.
“Dad and Mom lived there for 22 years, until 1976. That was home. Those are the memories that stand out to me,” Pastor Vettrus said.
Christmas programs
The Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church before the tornado was of a different architecture than the church that exists today.
“The old church had a simple platform, one step up. There was a dark curtain behind the platform. That was the only decoration in the church,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“There were no other rooms, and there was a basement under the church. It was all pretty simple. Almost like the one-room school house,” he said.
“They always lined the extra wooden chairs along the pews. And I remember all the neighborhood people. Mayme Moen. And there were a couple of sisters who would always show up for our Christmas programs too. It gathered a lot of people,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“Usually there were different ones from the community who would add to the program. I remember Don and Glady Tandberg coming to sing. Don would play the guitar, and they would sing. The Harold Riemans. They lived northeast of town. Harold and his wife would come and bring a guitar, and they, too, would sing. Those community members always added to the Sunday school Christmas program,” he said.
Movies
The Sunday school superintendent in those days, Carl Nelson, made sure that the Christmas programs at Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church were preserved.
“Our Sunday school superintendent was Carl Nelson. Anybody who remembers Carl Nelson — he had the early movie projector. He would have his bright lights in there for a Christmas program, and he would film the whole program,” Pastor Vettrus said.
Carl Nelson filmed other events as well.
“He would go down to Eau Claire and film the ski jump there. Then when we visited Carl and Gunda on the south side of Colfax, Carl liked to reverse the film and have people go back up the sky slope. When they were eating food, the food would come out of their mouth and then go back into their mouth. Carl loved to do that,” he said.
“Carl was the superintendent. Gunda was at his side all of the time. She was a wonderful cook. She was from the Dahl family. Those are good memories from way back. And it continued on with the beautiful new church that was built after the tornado in ’58,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“I remember that Colfax Lutheran always had a Christmas Eve service, and sometimes we would go with someone else,” he said.
“It was a late night service, and we never had that. We always had Christmas Day worship. I think sometimes my older brothers and sisters would go there, and I think they were even asked to sing at Colfax Lutheran way back. All of my family is musically inclined,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“We always had good Christmas programs at school, too. I was in band. I wasn’t in choir. But that was part of the fun of the season to do some of those musical events,” he said.
New church
After the tornado in 1958, there was a flurry of activity, of rebuilding, trying to bring back what had been lost in Colfax.
In her column in the Colfax Messenger, co-owner of the newspaper, Helen Reed, would document those efforts in “Winding Up the Yarn.”
During the fall of 1958, Helen wrote about the fact that young children in Colfax had lost one of their sources of income — raking leaves to clean up lawns. Because so many trees had been destroyed by the tornado, there were no leaves to rake.
Among that flurry of rebuilding was the Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church.
“David Sundby was the main contractor, a local carpenter. I don’t remember who else helped him. I think he pretty much designed the church, the two stairwells in the front corner and the back corner so there was easy access,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“The only thing in hindsight is if they would have put it all on one level. It was up there on cement blocks, and it was well constructed. It went up pretty fast in 1959,” he said.
“I remember the plywood sign that was up after the tornado saying that Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church would rebuild. That was up while the construction was going on. It was going to be a little bit bigger, and it was great to see it going up,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“We had a sister church in Eau Claire, Bethesda Brethren Lutheran Church, and I know there were a lot of people who came to celebrate [the new church],” he said.
Historical significance
Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church in Colfax is of particular historical significance.
“Bethany was one of the five original churches in the Church of the Lutheran Brethren, and it is the only one left of the five original churches,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“There were three Lutheran Brethren Churches in Wisconsin. One was in Superior. One was in Colfax. And there was one in Milwaukee. One was in, I think, Kenyon, Minnesota, and I’m not sure where the fifth one was,” he said.
“Dad served Colfax, and earlier, he had served Superior. Today there is only Colfax, Bethany Lutheran Brethren, of the original five. The Lutheran Brethren has grown to 140 churches today,” Pastor Vettrus said.
New location
Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church was not always on University Avenue in Colfax.
“The old Bethany Church was about a mile out where you turn the corner south, another road that meets County N, the first road, and that was the corner where the original church was, which I understand, afterwards, when the church was built in town, the original church was moved up toward Bloomer,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“Bethany was started in the late 1890s. One of the founders was a lay pastor, J.J. Peterson, he had children, and they were part of that early congregation,” he said.
“My dad was born in 1902, and Mom was born in 1907, so they go back to the early part of the Lutheran Brethren. Dad grew up in North Dakota, so he pretty much spans the history of the Lutheran Brethren, which started in Milwaukee in 1900,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“I am the youngest living of our family. There are eight of us children. I think I feel the most connected to Colfax because of being around all this time,” he said.
“I still like going to the Grapevine Senior Center to eat with people who are older than me who have known me my whole life,” Pastor Vettrus said.
The Nelsons
“Carl and Gunda Nelson never had any of their own children, but they adopted a nephew and a niece. One daughter married and moved to Iowa. I remember them. They would come up and visit Carl and Gunda,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“And then Warren Nelson moved to Chicago. He did have all of the films [from the Bethany Christmas programs.] But I have no idea what happened to them,” he said.
“My brother had many years of slides of his many travels around the world, too. Someone has to have the equipment and the interest and the space to keep them,” Pastor Vettrus noted.
“Carl had all of those movies of the Christmas programs. They moved to Lehigh Acres in Florida in the early ’60s. It all went down with them, and I don’t know if [the movies] survived,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“Warren Nelson has since passed away. His widow lived in Chicago, but she was not connected to Wisconsin. There might be some of the Dahl family or Nelson the family who might know of those kind of things today,” he said.
“Carl Nelson died in Lehigh Acres, Florida, and is buried there. I remember when Gunda moved back up here and was in the nursing home,” Pastor Vettrus said.
“Gunda was a consummate cook. She liked to have company, and she made wonderful food. The strawberry shortcake always had real cream on it. That was how Gunda cooked,” he said.
“When she came back — my dad had always gone down to Florida to visit them — when she came back her memory wasn’t perfect. I visited a number of times. I would see Gunda and remind her that Dad was not living anymore, and I would remind her of who I was, and this is typically Gunda, she would say ‘for crying in the soup’ when I told her who I was,” he recalled.
“We always had nice conversations. And she had fond memories of my folks. She was able to live out her days here. I remember Gunda’s funeral at the funeral home in the old funeral home downtown. Her son, Warren, was here. That was the last time I saw him,” Pastor Vettrus said.
The “old funeral home downtown” is the present day location of A Little Slice of Italy.
If anyone has any information about where those movies might be of the Christmas programs at Bethany Brethren Lutheran Church in the 1950s, contact the Colfax Messenger at 715-962-3535.
Old movies can be converted to current technologies, and the Bethany Christmas programs would be a rare find to add to the history of Colfax.