Ushering at the Church

One of the features of the Gowrie congregation, and I suppose of other Swedish Lutheran congregations of the area at the time was the annual meeting or “stemma” (sp?) as it was originally called. In the earlier days of the congregation and indeed during my early childhood (say during the 1920s maybe extending into the early 1930s) this was an all-day affair with some sort of meal prepared by the women of the church and served at noon. I’d guess that there was some late afternoon refreshments.

It was held sometime in the early part of the year, when farm work was light and the rural members could attend without it interfering with their livelihood. At the morning and afternoon sessions there were reports of the various church boards and groups — these may have been coalesced into the report prepared and presented bu the minister. There were also the election of church officials such as deasons and trustees, and discussion of the church finances.

My impressions is that all aspects of church functions, even rather minor details, were looked at with careful attention. For example, I think that the ushers for the Sunday morning services were elected at the annual meeting. These would include the younger members of the congregation, often directly after confirmation. I think it was in this way that I came to serve several years as usher during my high school years. Diffident as I was, my ushering was mostly limited to handing out the bulletins and helping take up the collection — I seldom helped anyone find a seat. Actually most members of the congregation knew pretty well where they were used to sitting and wanted to sit and regarded the services of an usher as unwanted and superfluous. There were a couple of ushers of amore gregarious and extrovert-ish nature who took care of this part of the ushering duties (as for visitors, etc.).

Although quite a few of the ushers were quite young like I was, some had been on the ushering staff for a number of years and had come to regard their participation in a more “worldly-wise” attitude than I did for example.Two ushers that I remember fell definitely into this category — Russell Franzeen and Rupert Sandgren. Both were farmers (Russell may have just been working on his father’s farm). A third (also a farmer) in the group may have been one Leroy Nelson.

These three after the service had begun and the handing out of the bulletins completed, and the doors to the sanctuary closed, would repair to the furnace room in the basement of the church for a surreptitious cigarette or two. The instructions for the ushers were that after the service had begun they should seat themselves at the rear of the church (bringing in the chairs from the social room at the rear of the sanctuary). I guess the minister noticed the absence of these three members of the ushering crew and it was brought to their attention that they were supposed to comply with the rules — how effectivelythe admonition was in correcting the situation I don’t recall.

My cousin, Floyd Strand, was one of the ushers. A genial wise-cracking extrovert, he had an eye for the pecadillos of the congregation and he was amused by one Ross Plotner. Ross was not a Lutheran originally but he had joined the church when he married a Lutheran woman. Ross liked liquor but was inhibited by family pressure. It was Lutheran practice to serve actual wine at Communion so Ross was eager to participate. Floyd laughed when Ross would come running in near the end of the service to get his little bit of wine — not more than a thimbleful. Ross seldom came to the Sunday morning services as a rule.

Although for several years I functioned as an usher, later one along with Harold Lundblad, I served as sort of the financial secretary for the Sunday school. This function may have been in the hour preceding the morning worship so would not have interfered with my position as usher. Harold and I would take the little offering envelopes, go to the kitchen in the basement of the church, open the envelopes, count the money. At that time, sometime in the mid-’30s there were still occasional Indian head pennies in circulation and Harold and I used to vie for finding these. This was the source of most of the Indian head pennies I have (recompensed the offering naturally).

Harold was a stocky, agreeable fellow who went into farming as a career. Whenever we have met over the years he has recalled our money-counting chore and we have reminisced about the Indian head pennies. As I type away right now (May 2005) I recall that he died some time ago.