News

Lesje Church to close doors after 115 years of serving God in the county

By Scott Wagar

07/08/2014

Editor Note: With Lesje Church in the Souris/Landa area preparing for its closing ceremony July 20, the Bottineau Courant has decided to write a historical series on the church ending with it last service later this month. This week, the Courant starts the series on the church’s origins.  

On July 20, Lesje Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church will be officially closing its doors permanently after serving the Souris-Landa area for 115 years.

In recent years, church membership has declined at Lesje and the congregation can no longer obtain a pastor. Faced with these difficulties, the parishioners had to make the decision to close its church doors.

For over a century, Lesje has been an essential part of in caring for religious desires of the county’s residents, especially those individuals of Norwegian origins who homesteaded around the Souris-Landa in the late 1800s.  

These immigrants gave the Norwegian church its name through the location they migrated from in Lesje, Norway. The majority of them first settled in Minnesota before taking homesteads in Bottineau County in Scandia Township.

With their new found home, and strong religious faith, these Norwegian pioneers started holding worship services in homes. The first recorded church service took place on in the home of Kristian (Christ - Christian) and Anne Nelson on June 22, 1899.

It was only proper that first church service take place at the Nelson home considering the Nelson family was the first to settle in Scandia Township.

The service was lead by A.J. Raftshol a seminary student, who during the service conducted the first baptism of the church for John and Mari Lermon’s son, Peter.

Through the remainder of that year, services were held in the homes of Johan Sveen and the Lermon family.

On December 1, 1899, the church officially organized in the home of Sveen where the congregation chose to name their church Lesje Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The meeting was presided over by Rev. K.O. Raftshol and 11 parishioners signed the church’s constitution. They included: Johan Sveen and family, C.O. Nelson and family, Ole Aftem and family, Karl E. Stavem, Bert O. Klockstad, Paul Norderhus, Holdor Oderlokken, Peder Sletten, Edvard Skarphol, Ole T. Sveen and Marie Sveen.

The first officers of the charter members were Rev. K.O. Raftshol, pastor and president; Johan Sveen, vice president and treasurer and Karl Stavem as secretary. Ole Aftem and Bert Klockstad were named deacons and Ole Sveen and Paul Norderhus were church trustees.

For the four and a half years, the church’s congregation continued to grow and meet in homes. Raftshol, known as a humble and faithful servant to God, served Lesje in a variety of ways. During his five years there he baptized 43 children confirmed eight, married nine couples and held four funerals.

He also started the first parochial school, which took place in the home of Ole Nordsletten in 1901. The home was a sod house, and as the students studied their religious and secular subjects in a house made up of deeply rooted prairie grass from Sandia Township, the church began talks of constructing a church to hold their services and activities.

In 1902, Ole Sveen donated the two acres of land where the church stands today. At the same time, church members started a campaign to raise the money they needed to construct the church, which was completed by 1905 when a 32 by 4o foot wooden frame church with a stone foundation was constructed.

The lumber and stones where hauled from Souris to Lesje by ox and horse teams, which was a 10 and a half mile trip one way over unforgiving trails and fields. Once the supplies were at the church site, the parishioners came together and built the church.

By 1905, Raftshol had left Lesje and Rev. O.T. Nelson served the church until 1911. Nelson was followed by Rev. O.P. Svingen who served the church from 1911 to 1912 when he left the congregation due to arthritis which left him incapable of serving the congregation.

As a search went out to find a new pastor, the Rev. Gullen from the Swedish Lutheran Church just north of Souris cared for the congregation. In January Rev. J.L. Redal came to Lesje and under his leadership the present day church was constructed.

In 1917, the parish of Lesje made the decision to construct a new church. The church hired E.A. Moline as the contractor with a building committee made up of Matt Norstegaard, John Lermon, Johan Sveen, Ole Brenden and Bert Klokstad.

Sveen was a good choice to be part of the building committee because while living in Minnesota he was a farmer, blacksmith and carpenter. In 1899, after he filed for a homestead in Scandia Township and received it, he brought his family and all his equipment for his livelihood on an immigrant train to Bottineau County. Once settled, Sveen was sought after for his trade skills and assisted in constructing a number of homes in the township while operating a blacksmith shop he opened which was in high demand.   

Lermon was also a carpenter in Minnesota before he came to Bottineau County, while Brenden, Klokstad and Norstegaard were all farmers.

All five of these men in their occupations brought insightful expertise in the construction of Lesje which showed in the completion of the church.

The architectural style of Lesje is late Gothic revival, minus the asymmetrical style often reference to the Gothic style era, along with traces of prairie vernacular wood frame style with wooden white color siding makes up the church’s design. The church, itself, stands on top of cement foundation, which is designed with a half height style with double hinge windows to allow sunlight into the basement of the church.

“It is well representative of an early 20th Century prairie church,” stated Steven Schoening who wrote the history of Lesje Church for the National Register of Historic Places. “Although, larger in size than would typically be found in a rural area.”

The church holds stained glass windows in the lancet arch design.
“The artistry and use of lines, a triple lancet design, in the large stained glass windows found on the south and east face of the structure, naturally draw the eye upward,” Schoening said.

“Symmetry of fenestration is found on the south and east faces of the church with large triple lancet stained glass windows.”

The designers of the church placed two pitched intersection rooflines with gables on the north, south and east sides of the church. The gable ends grant boxed cornice returns, which simulate triangle shape ends on the gables.

The Narthex was designed in a square section steeple with triangular pediments and an octagonal spire. Standing firmly on top of the spire is a cross. The architect also placed a triangle shape stained glass window above the door of Narthex with a flower motif.

The bell tower of the square section of the Narthex-steeple holds eight lancet, arch louvered window openings that consist of two on each side of the tower where the bells were located, along with emulate windows on the south and east sides of steeple beneath lancet widows. (Due to a lightining strike in 1978, the bell tower was damaged, the original lower windows where covered with black Plexiglas.) The original Narthex was replaced in 1986 due to age with a new square entrance.

The church’s corner stone was laid in the early part of 1918 and completed later that year.

As quickly as Lesje was constructed and its new church doors opened, the church doors almost immediately closed and left the congregation wondering what would happen next.

Writer’s Note: Next week, the Bottineau Courant will continue its history on Lesje Church as the church congregation deals with having to close it doors, to finding faith in God’s will and moving forward in their new church bringing God’s peace and love throughout the area and the world.

Sources: “Lesje Lutheran Church: 100th Anniversary” and Steven Schoening’s history of Lesje Church for the National Register of Historic Places.