(The saga of Montana homesteading by Dietrich and Kathrina Olfert continues . . .)
The first summer we had Sunday School in brother David Olfert’s barn. He had come to build it and then returned the first summer. It was new and had not been used. We had little nail kegs, and they were just about the height of a seat. Then we had boards and planks and what-have-you to put on top. If they were very rough we put blankets over them, and we had some lovely seats. We had no pulpit, so the speaker led without one. The homesteaders took turns leading the services. Services were all in High German, and Low German was spoken at home. When my brother came to Montana, then we had to get out of the barn. So then we went to Anna Ratzlaff’s empty shack. She had left, and the building was about sixteen by twenty. About forty or fifty people met there. After this the schoolhouse was built, and we met there. We called it the Koslowsky School. That’s where we had church services then.
It didn’t take long before they started to have meetings about building a church. Well, where will we build a church? Boy, then the problem came up. Now I’m sorry that I didn’t volunteer to let the church come onto our corner. That’s where lots of them wanted to have the church. Well, I didn’t know what to think about having the church so close by. So they finally took it one mile east from our place. Then we started digging the basement. I remember how everyone took part. It was a great time. Then when we had the basement done, we built the church and shingled it. Whoopee! I’ll not forget, Jake Pankratz was our boss carpenter. He was the one that told us what to do, and then we built it.
We got a stove—just a big round stove that we put in wood and coal to heat the church building. Around the stove in winter it was burning hot, and close to the windows it was freezing cold. Later we got a furnace. Oh, that was delicious. Jake Thiessen volunteered to be the janitor, and he would fire it up early Sunday morning. He would go to the church and start the fire in the furnace, and by the time we came about 10:00 it was almost warm. But most often the benches were still ice cold. We all stood around the furnace and talked. We had a good time.
I taught Sunday School for many years, starting in Minnesota and then in Montana. In Lustre I was elected Sunday School teacher when I was only thirty. The class had such bright children as Luella Koslowsky, Ruth Thomas, Marie Koslowsky, Tabea Born, Kate Born and many others. I think there were ten or twelve girls in that class. Then even the grade school teachers came into that class (because it was in English and the other adult classes were in German), and I stood there as a young man and didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t hardly speak, and I had to teach that class. Well, that went on a number of years, and then I’ll tell you what happened. We had revival meetings and, lo and behold, the whole class, all the girls that were in that class were saved. What a blessing that was.
When we were immersed and joined the Lustre Mennonite Brethren Church in 1924, Elvin was small and Mrs. C. K. Dick held him in her arms, standing in the crowd beside the water till we were through. Both of us sang in the choir, and Mr. C. K. Dick directed us. Elsie and Elvin both sat with us in front and sometimes fell asleep. Now we had been baptized in the church at home in Minnesota, but we were not immersed. In those years anyone that wanted to join the Mennonite Brethren Church had to be immersed. That was final. So when the day came that all the girls in my Sunday School class wanted to be baptized, we decided that we would go first.
We were baptized on our faith and conviction years ago, when we were youngsters. I think I was baptized in Mountain Lake in 1910 and Kathrina in 1910 or 11. So we were baptized in that way in the church in the water the way it was customary in Minnesota then, but now we were going to join the Mennonite Brethren church in Montana. We would take this stand and do the same thing as all those girls in Sunday School would do. Aaron Dick and John F. Thiessen both went into the water first. Jack Schmidt’s were baptized first, then Pete Teichroew’s, then we were baptized (September, 1924), then the whole group of girls came one after another. (Also some boys: Paul Koslowsky was one of them). So Aaron Dick and John F. Thiessen baptized all those souls. I don’t know how many that day. I thought somewhere around twenty or thirty were baptized that Sunday. It was a beautiful, marvelous day.
Kathrina taught Sunday School one year when it seemed there was no one for the young mothers with children. She was so bashful that she did not enjoy teaching. Kathrina was on the quilting committee in Ladies’ Aid for many years. Then later in Wolf Point we were members of the Gospel Fellowship Church, and she was a member of the food committee.
