Part IX

There was only one schoolhouse in Westerheim Township, in SE ½ SE ¼ Section 11. Because of difficulty for people living east of the Yellow Medicine River this school was moved to SW ¼ SE ¼ Sec. 2 and another school was built south of the river, SW ¼ NE ¼ Sec. 14. School was held a half a year in the north and the other half of the year in the south and this schedule was discontinued until consolidation with Minneota 30 years ago. The Yellow Medicine River had cut the school district roughly in half.

As time went on Pastor Guttormsson had more difficulty in making home visitations and church attendance dwindled at both Westerheim and St. Paul’s. It seemed that merger of the congregations was inevitable, and the time came when the majority of our church members felt that we should close and join St. Paul’s. This was most difficult for me because I loved Westerheim so very much. I remember my father’s saying that as long as it was the will of the majority, I should accept it, but I really did not get over it until a November day in 1965 when Pastor Guttormsson had a stroke and died.

As I think back over the years I spent in Westerheim and the years I was connected with the Westerheim congregation, I think of all the wonderful things that I could say about experiences I had. One thing that stands out above all else is that no one was ever questioned about qualifications for the use of the church facilities. The church was always open, and if someone needed a final resting place there were no barriers to use of the Westerheim cemetery.”

The following excerpt was written by Haldur G. (Jimmie) Johnson, another member of the committee:

“My father, Arngrimur Johnson, and my mother (Johanna Johnson) got to the USA from Iceland in 1876. They first spent a month on a sailing ship bound for England and then took a steamer to the USA. Their destination was Gunnlauger Petersson’s homestead near Nordland (the name of Minneota at that time). When they got as far as St. Paul, my dad was broke, and he worked for a month there on a sewer project. He then bought a ticket to St. Peter, not knowing for sure where Nordland was. At St. Peter he was broke again but, with the help of John Lind, later governor of Minnesota, he got money for a ticket to Nordland on the Winona and St. Peter Railroad.

Upon his arrival here, he was disappointed. All desirable land had been taken up either by homesteaders or squatters. There was 80 acres south of Riverside farm which was open for filing, but my father wanted 160 acres. He and my mother spent the first winter in a dugout on the vacant 80 acres and in the spring homesteaded in Lincoln County, 1/1/2 miles northeast of where Ivanhoe now is. The filing fee for a homestead was $5.00 and my father and another Icelander walked to Redwood Falls in the wintertime to the land office.

G.S. Sigurdson (Jim) had a homestead next to dad’s quarter, and dad later bought it. I was born in our homestead home in 1882. In 1900, this farm was sold and we bought the homestead of my mother’s brother, Einar Johnson, which was halfway between Minneota and the present site of Ivanhoe, about 8 miles in a direct line. We moved in the fall of 1902, and that is the first I knew anything about St. Paul’s Church. However there had been and was a congregation in Lincoln County and they were meeting in a building that the Icelandic Literary Society had built in the early 1880’s. They held services in that building until they built a church in about 1903, where we see it today. This Icelandic literary building was a mile south and 3/4 of a mile west of the present church location in the Limestone Township. We had first lived in Royal Township, west of Limestone, and then in the northwest part of Limestone. The early Lincoln County church just met and didn’t have any expenses to speak of except hiring the minister. They likely paid something for the use of the building. The same minister served Lincoln County, Minneota, Westerheim and Marshall. Many of the services were in Icelandic.

(Continued next week)

Sources: “Ninety Years at St. Paul’s,” Committee Members, J.A. Josefson, Cecil Hofteig and Haldur G. (Jimmie) Johnson of Icelander Lutheran Church, Minneota, MN., October 1977.