News
Searching and learning the past
Scott Wagar
08/28/2012
Jim Rohn said, “Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.” This past week, 16 members from Bottineau’s First Lutheran Church spent the early evening taking a cemetery tour of some of the unforgotten churches and cemeteries of the Turtle Mountains. During the tour, the group searched out and learned a great deal about those churches and cemeteries that touched their hearts, minds and souls.
“We have coffee here every Thursday morning and a bunch of people get together. One day, I just happened to mention that it be nice to go around to all the cemeteries in the area because I have had a couple of burials in the hills and I didn’t know where the cemeteries were located. I told the group I would like to see the majority of these cemeteries,” said Pastor Desiree Uhrich of the First Lutheran Church. “Alan Pearson said that we should do that and have a picnic and church service at one the churches.”
On Wednesday, Pearson led a group of parishioners to six different churches throughout the Turtle Mountains on a cemetery tour and visited Inherred Lutheran, Manger Lutheran, Nordland Lutheran, Fish Lake Cemetery, Salem Lutheran and Vinje Norske Evangelical Lutheran.
While on the tour, the group found a history of intrigue, mysteries and heartache in the churches’ cemeteries.
“For those of us on the tour, it was really meaningful. We discovered graves from some years ago and some that were recent. Some in the group found family members’ graves and we looked at memorial sites,” Uhrich said. “As we saw the graves, stories were told and feelings were felt. It was all pretty powerful for us to see and learn this history.
“At one of the cemeteries it looked like seven children from the same family had died and we were all kind of struck by that and wondered what it would be like to loose seven children. Two of the children appeared to have died from the 1918 influenza, two looked to have died in infancy and the rest we simply do not know what happened,” Uhrich added. “At another grave site, we found a tombstone with just the word ‘Indian’. You wonder what that was, who that person was to that community. It is kind of sad and makes you curious. It would be interesting to know if somebody from that actual congregation from way back knew some of that story, because you know how stories get passed on and you do not know what is true and what is legend.”
When the group came to Salem Lutheran, they were met by Glen Rude, the keeper of the church. The parishioners had a picnic and Rude opened the church for the parishioners where Uhrich led a service and gave communion around the church’s altar.
“They had an old fashion alter, which was a semi-circle, in the church and Glen set it up for us so we could have communion,” Uhrich said. “The members knelt around the altar and we kind of had an old-fashion communion service.”
One of the members of the tour was ElRita Nelson, who found the cemetery tour be a worthy experience for her.
“I thought the tour was absolutely wonderful,” Nelson said. “I went on the tour because I wanted to know more about this area. I’ve lived here since 1974, but I wanted to know more about the ancestral part of Bottineau, and going to these cemeteries you can learn a lot about these families, family names and where they are located. You recognize so many of the names after you’ve been here as long as I have. And, as a teacher in the area, I actually saw one of my students, which brought back memories and made me sad because this person was so young.
Nelson said that she enjoyed the tour, picnic and service so much she would go again. “I hope we can do this again,” Nelson said.
Uhrich said the cemetery tour is being planned again for another time.
“We would like to do it again in another area,” Uhrich said. And, I want to encourage people to get out and see all of these beautiful, lovely, well maintained cemeteries because I just think that these cemeteries are amazing and speak to people’s value of history and value of community, which is becoming a rarity.”
Through the cemetery tour, searching and learning brought many miracles to many individuals which gave the members’ insight, respect and love for what they witness.
The cemetery tour is open to the general public and Uhrich welcomes anybody who wishes to share in the tour.