Bonnots Mill; Fall Supper Time Is Here!

It’s that time again—when all the local parishes are having their fall suppers. To find out what’s when, you can either look at the gigantic Coke Building sign on Jefferson Street and the Expressway, or you can look at the schedule on the Catholic Missourian’s website.



Sunday was Bonnots Mill. St. Louis of France parish always gets the award (in my opinion) for most scenic parish hall space. It’s up on a bluff overlooking the Osage River, with only oaks and ash trees between you and the deep blue sky. (For more pictures of this, see one of my earlier posts about Bonnots Mill.)



We got there in midafternoon, so we missed the lunchtime and dinnertime rushes. It was ham cooked with pineapple, and German pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, sauerkraut, coleslaw, homemade pickled beets and bread-and-butter pickles, applesauce, a platter of sliced yellow and red heirloom tomatoes, and homemade bread.

Plus, as always, your choice of desserts from the glorious dessert table.



The “country market” had a nice selection of bake sale items, canned salsa and preserves, as well as some great-looking garden-fresh vegetables, including sweet corn, some beautiful eggplants, and tremendous, puckery, deep pinkish-red heirloom tomatoes and yellow tomatoes. (Oh, we will miss them in January!)



Someone at the parish has created a bunch of nice postcards of the St. Louis of France church (with its distinctive “Star of David” on the steeple) and of the town of Bonnots Mill—several of the postcards were reprints of historic photos—and all these were for sale. (Ten cents a piece!)

Our m.o. is to go for a walk after the picnic—it helps after such a great meal! So we drove to the town of Bonnots Mill (as opposed to hiking straight down the side of the bluff between parish hall and church). Sue likes to take pictures of antique buildings and the railway. (And so do I—but I don’t do nearly as well as her!)



There’s some really cool stuff in Bonnots Mill. Here’s the historic Dauphine Hotel, which opened for business in 1875. Now it’s a bed and breakfast. (Oh, and that’s the post office, to the right.)



While we were walking around, a fellow in a pickup stopped and told Sue that the church was open this afternoon, if we wanted to go up there and take pictures of the inside.

Oh, boy! We love seeing the interiors of these churches, and we’d never seen the inside of this one before. What a treat!



But even more of a treat: There were people inside! We met a friendly lady named Jeanne Knollmeyer, who chatted with us about the history of the church. Much of our discussion revolved around music, since the church had a guest organist that day, a talented fellow from Clinton, Missouri, named Sam. (Is it Sam Lucas? I can’t recall his last name, but the Internet reveals that a fellow with that name is the organist at the Clinton United Methodist Church.) Anyway—he was up in the choir loft playing, beautifully, the church’s hundred-year-old organ.



It sounded great—the acoustics in the church are superior, and the organ had a nice sound and seemed perfectly in tune. Beautiful music, the first time we’d been in that beautiful, historic church. What a treat!



Next Sunday (Sept. 22) is Frankenstein—Our Lady Help of Christians parish is having its supper. This is a special year for them, as the church is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. It’s definitely going to be a party there this year! And they always have such good homemade whole-hog sausage . . .

Meet the Baxes!

Hey, folks, today was the annual Fall Supper at St. Joseph Catholic Church, in Westphalia, Missouri!

And it was a beautiful fall day—sunshine, blue skies, a nice breeze, comfortable dry air.

The food, of course, was incredibly delicious: Tender, flavorful German pot roast, homemade whole-hog sausage, kraut with beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green beans, apple sauce. Bread (you want to sop up all the good juices!), and, of course, your choice of dessert.

I always skip the cakes and brownies and go for a slice of fruit pie—whatever looks homemade and seasonal. Today my choice was blackberry/raspberry pie. Dad selected gooseberry pie!

Gosh, darn it, I forgot to take pictures of the food! I keep forgetting to do that at these church suppers. But you know how it is—as soon as you sit down, the platters and bowls of food start circuiting the table, and then your plate is full, and before you know it, you’re all done. Lickin’ your chops!

Today’s supper was special, however! Remember that newlywed couple my dad happened to photograph on October 17, 1964, as they departed through the church gates riding on the back of a manure wagon? And four days after I posted the picture, the couple had been identified: It was Elmer and Rita Bax!

Well, I met them in person today!

It was really fun to connect with them and their family, and yes, they’re all delightful, cordial, wonderful people. And yes, Rita was slicing pies when I met her! And this afternoon, Elmer was the Bingo caller!

They’re a good lookin’ couple, aren’t they!




I even got to meet Rita’s sister and brother-in-law, who are visiting from Albuquerque. This is the sister who had been casually doing Internet searches on “Westphalia, Missouri” when she stumbled upon the photo of Elmer and Rita: “Hey, isn’t that—!?”

And I got to introduce them to my father, who had taken the two photos of them in 1964, when he happened to be in Westphalia with a group of graduate students, touring the historic sites in the town. Naturally, when he saw the wedding couple riding in a manure spreader (of all things), he had to take a picture.

Rita explained that it’s a tradition in Westphalia for newlyweds to think up novel ways to ride away from the church. It’s not so much a “luck” thing as it is simply fun. Lately, she said, hay wagons have been popular. And one couple, for example, rode away on a pontoon!

The Baxes have been married forty-seven years as of tomorrow. To celebrate their anniversary, and to thank them for letting me harass them publicly on the Internet, I gave them a framed version of this photo.




(Gosh, isn’t the Internet a fascinating thing?)

The Mystery Couple--Identified!

Hey, folks, the Internet has been very, very nifty this week! You know my recent post about those two old pictures from my parents’ slide collection? (Here’s the link.)

A review of the story: My dad was walking around in Westphalia with a group of graduate students, surveying the German elements of the town, and by chance they saw a newlywed couple riding out of the church’s lot, not in a limousine, but on the back of a manure wagon, pulled by a farm tractor. (If you saw such a thing, you’d take a picture, too!)

I’d never heard of this strange custom, so I posted it on my blog, figuring someone could help explain it.

I also figured that it wouldn’t be long before someone would identify the couple for me, since we knew the place and the year (Westphalia, 1964), and, judging by the trees, that it was around the middle of October.

And sure enough! You all delivered, and the couple was identified! Elmer and Rita Bax—and they’re still in Westphalia!

So naturally, it made my day when I received the following message from Rita herself:

My sister sent me an e-mail from Albuquerque, New Mexico, showing me the [blog] “Spreading Joy in Westphalia, Missouri.” Yes it is Elmer and Rita Bax.

We were married October 17, 1964. It was 90 degrees that day. I was raised on a farm. So the manure wagon and tractor was our ride from the church to the K of C hall down the street. The hall is now Hilke Millard Funeral Home.

We live in Westphalia [and] . . . I will be cutting pies at the fall supper like you said.

I laughed when I saw the pictures. I had forgotten about the ride. I passed the information to our five boys so they could enjoy it too.

Our neighbor Paul Crede was driving the tractor. I called him so he could see it. I was 18 years old when I got married. Elmer was 22.

I will be reading your Opulent Opossum in the future. We enjoyed the pictures and article. . . .

Thank you for the memories.

Elmer and Rita

Well, there’s nothing much I can add to that, except that I’m definitely going to the Westphalia fall supper so I can meet the Baxes!

(And enjoy some of that pie Rita will be slicing!)

Salem UCC Annual Ice Cream Social

“An annual ice-cream social brings friends and former members from many communities for an evening of fellowship and fun.”

—Moniteau County Missouri History, vol. 1 (1980)

Well, my friends, that statement in a county history book hardly begins to describe the scene on August 27, 2011, at a plain white church on Route K southeast of California, Missouri.




We went there with my folks and met up with cousins and my aunt and uncle, so we all arrived early in order to sit together. This meant we got to watch as carloads of people gradually arrived and each picnic table was filled. Here at this country church, we witnessed the true meaning of “gathering.” There is no “town” here, but there is definitely community.

A little about the history of the Salem United Church of Christ: the congregation was started in 1848 by a group of German immigrant families who gathered to worship even before their own homes were completely built.




They called their church the “North Moreau Evangelical Church.” As with many other German Evangelical churches in Missouri, they are now merged with the Reformed churches, the Congregational churches, and others to form the United Church of Christ (UCC).

Until 1889, the Salem Church shared its pastor with the congregation in California. By 1922, with the latter town’s growth, the shared pastor was based in California and supplied Salem, an arrangement that still exists today.

I think it’s pretty safe to conceptualize the early German Evangelical churches as being stripped-down Protestant churches for German-speaking immigrants. In other words, being Protestant, they shrugged off the trappings and hierarchies of Catholicism, but they also declined the regulations and expectations of the Lutheran Church, as well. What was left for Protestant Germans? In the American Midwest, one answer was “simple churches like this one.”




After seeing the gloriously decorated interiors of this region’s Catholic churches, the simplicity of the Salem Church is astonishing. The sanctuary is functional: There are pews, hymnals, and Bibles. There’s an altar, a pulpit, and a place for the minister to sit. The altar bears a cross, a few candles, and trays for offerings and/or communion. There’s a piano and a few other tables, decorated nicely, but not lavishly.




My dad (who knows much, much more about this stuff than I do) pointed out that the framed pictures of Jesus were probably not present in the early years of the church—again, out of a desire for simplicity.

And yet there is a great deal of meaning in these objects; this is a congregation that treasures its long history, and the church’s material possessions hold significance for those who know that history. For instance, the antique chandeliers in the sanctuary are the old kerosene chandeliers that have been renovated and converted to electricity. And the pews! In 1947, each family cut and donated logs that were made into the pews—a wonderful project for the congregation’s centennial in 1948.




So these aren’t “just” lights; these aren’t “just” pews. They represent history and continuity.




And as with many, many little white-painted country churches, the cemetery is right by the church, clearly visible out the windows as you sit in the pews. There are big old trees; there are tombstones with dates from the 1700s.




It’s always a fascinating and sobering thing to wander around in cemeteries like this and piece together family relationships and family tragedies.




There’s so much history here. I could go on, for instance, about how the original log church still stands right next door, was used as a German school, and now is a storage and multipurpose space for the church—but I’ll let you learn about that for yourself sometime. We need to move on to the ice cream!




Actually, it was much more than ice cream. There was enough food there to make a light dinner. They served brats and hot dogs (with all the trimmings); chicken salad sandwiches; and ham sandwiches made with locally made Burger’s ham. There were chips and sodas and ice tea, paper plates and plastic cutlery.




The trays intrigued me—they were from all over the place. They were old and mismatched, clearly donated. Some are no doubt collector’s items that would bring twenty bucks apiece on eBay. And it was really fun to eat off a tray that had originally come from Marineland of the Pacific (of all places). Sue’s tray celebrated the glorious state of North Dakota—someone decades ago must have donated a complete series of all 48 U.S. states!




You might be wondering why I’m not showing you pictures of ice cream, but it should be obvious: You just don’t sit around and photograph homemade ice cream; you eat it!

Indeed, as we went through the line, my cousin David looked askance at me as I added a few multicolored sprinkles to my ice cream: “How can you even think of putting toppings on homemade ice cream??”

He had a point. But I kind of wondered why there should be a “rule” about it. Do we need catechizing over ice cream toppings? . . . But then I was raised in a UCC church and he’s a Lutheran, and maybe that’s the difference right there! We laughed about it; variety is the spice of life!




And that’s the point of all this gathering and celebrating, isn’t it? We get together to share fellowship and fun, enjoying the fact that some of us like sprinkles or chocolate syrup on our ice cream, and some of us just came for the bratwurst with kraut.

And even if some of us are part of an extended family-and-friends network while others are new-friends-we-just-hadn’t-met-before, who have never even driven down Route K . . . we’re all welcome to share in the fun of the cakewalk.





Hey: In reading about this church, I learned that “Christmas programs have been omitted only twice—once during the Civil War, the other during the 1918 flu epidemic” (ibid.). Something tells me this church’s Christmas program would be well worth attending! Meanwhile, I think you can depend on the ice cream social taking place each year on the fourth Saturday of August! Plug it into your calendar now, so you won’t miss it next year.

A big thank-you to Uncle Richard and Aunt Carole, who knew about this event and invited us all to attend. They also gave me some pages photocopied from Moniteau County history books—to help with this post, which they correctly anticipated I might want to write!

Another thank-you to Sue, for sharing her photos with me. The good ones in this post are hers; the so-so ones are mine!

Thanks, especially, to our family members who joined us at Salem Church. You know what Grandma S. would say: “The more we get together, the happier we’ll be!”

Spreading Joy in Westphalia, Missouri

It’s a wedding tradition I had certainly never heard about, but if you search the Internet for word combinations like “manure + spreader + wedding,” you can find some information (but not much). If you have done just that, and landed on this Web page, and if you have any information, I hope you’ll post a comment or go to the Op Op Facebook page (see the link at the right) and leave a note there.

As I mentioned in my last post, we drove around south of Jeff City last weekend, and part of that was in Westphalia. While we were there, we asked a couple of locals if they knew about a tradition involving a newlywed couple exiting the church grounds not in a limo but on the back of a manure spreader.

And this couple had indeed heard of it. They said it has to do with good luck—it’s supposed to guarantee a long marriage, or something like that. (They intimated that their observations have disproven the notion, but apparently it’s a tradition that some people might still do.)

—Have you ever heard of such a thing?




The reason I asked them is that my mom has recently been scanning her old slides, and a couple of these show a bride and groom exiting the parking lot of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Westphalia, Missouri, perched side-by-side on the back of a manure spreader (thankfully it was covered with some kind of tarp!). In the picture, they are being pulled by an Allis-Chalmers D-15 tractor.

(These people, by the way, are not friends or acquaintances of my parents; my dad just happened to be in Westphalia when this occurred and took pictures, which is exactly what anyone in their right mind would do when presented with such a spectacle!)

The manure spreader’s wheels are devoid of tires—they are just bare rims—it must have been a rough ride! Also, there are two old brooms tied upright somewhat decoratively on the front corners of the spreader. A rope swings in a U-shape, hanging at each end from one of the brooms. Dangling from this rope are two stirrups from a horse saddle.




The front end of the spreader is marked “Donated by ?” (I think that’s a question mark), and the side (funnily enough) that the groom is on is labeled “HER.” (I bet, amid all the joy and rice-throwing, the couple inadvertently sat down on the “wrong” sides.) The wheel rim that’s visible in the photos is marked “wheel of” something—I can’t see the part not facing the camera.

I’m pretty sure those are strings of Stag beer cans dragging from the back of the manure spreader. Classy!




The date of this photo is almost certainly October 1964: Anyone know who this couple is? If the luck of the “manure-spreader wedding limo” has held out, they’re getting close to their golden anniversary!

Here’s a photo we took last weekend of St. Joseph’s church in Westphalia.




It’s a very attractive, historic town, and if you haven’t been there, you should make a point of visiting it. Westphalia, you might recall, is home of the Westphalia Inn, with its delicious family-style dinners and house-made wines, and its popular Norton Room, Corkscrew Deck, murder-mystery dinners, and live music. Westphalia also has bed and breakfasts for you to relax at, plus the Westphalia Historical Society now has a museum.

And St. Joseph’s, like the other Catholic parishes in the region, has an annual summer picnic (which was August 7 this year) and fall supper. The fall supper will be on October 16 this year. And you know—not even counting the delicious sausage—that’s a perfect time of year to go for a drive in rural Missouri.

. . . Though I wouldn’t recommend seeing it from the back of a manure spreader!




NOTE: The 1964 photos in this post are property of my Mom and Dad, who gave me permission to use them, so don't you dare copy them. Be nice; ask permission first!

MYSTERY SOLVED. Read the comments below, and click here for a newer post explaining everything. And click here for more on the story!

Micro-Trip Sunday

Busy Sunday! It was yard work, and then it was a micro-trip.

Recent Yard Work

The yard’s been a fright all summer. I got behind this spring on account of my busted ankle. (And spring is a bad time to get behind.) Then we had all that rain and bad weather. (I’d like to propose a new word just for the spring of 2011: tornadoiest.)

Then it got too darn hot! And who wants to do anything outside in hundred-degree heat? Might as well ask me to do yard work in two or three feet of snow!

So with the somewhat cooler weather we’ve been getting, I’ve started banging away at the yard again. It’s sheer biomass out there—the weeds, plus all the stuff that simply needs trimming on a regular basis. I would love it if one day Jeff City had curbside pickup of yard waste, like Columbia has, but I guess that would be too much like socialism or something, so it won’t “fly” here.




Anyway, I finally got around to weeding and dressing up a few of our flowerbeds. Mulch hides a multitude of sins. This year I discovered a brand new weed: black nightshade. We had (and probably still have) it in abundance in a flowerbed along the back of our house. Durn stuff snaps off easily right at ground level—I’m sure a lot will resprout.

After reading about the plant, I’m going to tentatively blame the catbirds for its presence in our yard—apparently black nightshade produces juicy, black, edible berries. And you know how catbirds love them berries. For a while this spring, the catbirds were building a nest in the mock orange right near that flowerbed.

Ah well. Just like catbirds love them berries, we love them catbirds.

We’ll find a way to deal with the black nightshades, mulberry seedlings, wintercreeper sprouts, poison ivy starts, and all the other catbird-distributed berries that take root in our yard.


The Micro-Trip

I like that term, don’t you? I made it up just now—though I suspect others have used it, too. It’s something shorter than a “staycation,” even shorter than a “day trip.” It’s more than a single-destination trip; it’s a miniature tour, an adventure that starts at Point A and leads to several more points, including a few surprises, before returning home.

What got us out of the house, after we’d cleaned up from the work outside, was the summer picnic at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in St. Thomas, a little burg south of Jefferson City.

One of the things we like to do at church picnics is step inside the church and look around. It’s really cool to see how different congregations (and denominations, and religions) have decorated their holy spaces.






St. Thomas has a really nifty old pipe organ up in the choir loft. I think it’s being repaired or renovated, as there were pipes lying on the floor next to it. (I hope all goes okay with that process!)




I’ve blogged about the St. Thomas summer picnic before, but here’s a refresher: Fried chicken and roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, fresh tomatoes, sauerkraut with potatoes in it, applesauce, homemade bread, and a dessert, chosen by you off the opulently enticing dessert table.

At St. Thomas, the dessert table is actually organized by dessert type: Slices of peach pie, strawberry pie, blackberry pie, rhubarb pie, pumpkin pie, coconut cream pie, lemon meringue pie, cake, cookies, etc. It’s even labeled. I don’t know of any other of the church suppers in the area that are that careful. Usually, the desserts are spread out on tables willy-nilly, in glorious disarray, and you might have to guess about what kind of pie to choose.

Anyway: St. Thomas! Good fried chicken. Long wait. We had tickets #1770 and 1771, I think, and about the time we got in the door, we saw people with tickets 2120 or something. And this was still three hours or so before the end of the serving period.

Quilt auction. Cake walk. Country store (bake sale, homemade preserves, fresh produce). Stuff for the kids to do, including pony rides. The beer wagon. Country music. And much more. I’ve told you about these local church suppers before.

Sue’s been using an old twin-lens reflex camera—you know, the kind that uses film—and developing her own black and white negatives. (She can scan negatives herself, so she doesn’t need an enlarger or whatever.) So we walked around the town of St. Thomas, where she found lots of fun “textures” to photograph.




Also, St. Thomas has one of the post offices that, according to recent announcements by the U.S. Postal Service, will probably soon be closed. We had to get a few pictures of it. They don’t build ’em like this anymore.




Back on the road, and we drove through the town of Meta, whose big industry is the making of pet foods; formerly, it was a hub for charcoal manufacture.






Meta is a town that reminds me of Eureka Springs, sort of; it’s hilly and decorated with some truly nifty old houses. Unfortunately, Meta hasn’t experienced much of a renaissance, and many of the old homes are quite dilapidated.

We drove on, cruising through the “wide spot on the road” known as Babbtown, and stopping next at Koeltztown. You generally hear it pronounced “kelts-town.”




By far the most prominent building in Koeltztown is the St. Boniface Catholic Church, which in 2008 celebrated its 150th anniversary; the congregation dates to 1858, though the current building apparently went up in 1877.

It’s a lovely church, adorned with remarkable paintings, including the Stations of the Cross on both sides of the sanctuary.




Perhaps more remarkable is the large, elaborate, handmade stone grotto or shrine outside the church. A plaque on it reads: “Donated by Henry J. Lueckenhoff, in memory of Joseph and Anna Lueckenhoff.” It’s really something to see.




The stones were carefully chosen and placed. At certain places, whoever built this (Henry J.?) attached particularly intriguing or beautiful specimens—big chunks of crystals, or rocks with prehistoric mud cracks, and more.




It’s kind of like a geology field trip, just looking at it.

And of course, after a morning of yard work, I couldn’t help but look at it and think, “Hey, maybe I could make a planter like this. We sure have lots of rocks I could use . . .”




From there, we drove back home, stopping briefly at Westphalia, which I guess will have to have a whole separate post.

All in all, a satisfying day—good yard work accomplishment, good country food, and a relaxing drive. And we needed it.

Christkindelfest: Mark Your Calendars!

Kristkindlfest, Kristkindelfest, Christkindelfest—no matter how you spell it, you’ll want to be there. Music, cookies, coffee, food, fellowship, fun, and a beautiful, German-flavored worship service to get you in the Christmas spirit. Mark your calendars now.

First, I have some music to share with you! You can watch and listen to music from Christkindelfest 2008 while you read the rest of my post.

First, here’s the Central UCC Choir singing “Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming.” That’s a good German Christmas hymn!




Central United Church of Christ—which is Jefferson City’s historic German Central Evangelical Church—sets aside a Saturday in early December to offer a German-style Christmas worship service to the community. And lots more. Do you like church suppers? Do you like cookies? I thought you did!

The date is Saturday December 4, 2010. Here’s the schedule.

9:30 to 11:00—Kaffeeklatsch and bake sale in the church gymnasium. The bake sale features German-recipe cookies, kuchen, tea rings, and stollen, along with other yummy things. The idea is: Buy some goodies to take home with you, plus a little extra to eat right now, while you sip coffee, visit, and make new friends.

(By the way, they usually have cookbooks to sell, too. In case you’re like me and can’t get enough of church-ladies cookbooks.)






11:00—German-style worship service, in the church’s sanctuary. First, if you’re not a member of Central UCC, relax!—you’re welcome to participate. If you’re a Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, or anything else, don’t worry: The United Church of Christ welcomes you as a fellow Christian! (That’s one of the reasons this denomination is called the United Church of Christ: The idea is that despite the denominations, we are all united under God.) (Hmm: that sounds kind of familiar, somehow . . .)

And even if you’re not a Christian at all, it’s okay. This service is light on the preachin’ and heavy on the music. I think we can all agree that the Christmas sentiments of peace, joy, and love are powerful and are worth celebrating, whether you think the stories are literally true or not.




This year, the choir is preparing music from a German-language mass written by Franz Gruber (who wrote the music for “Silent Night”) that features an Alpine horn (well, it will be performed on a French horn)—and it should sound very “Tyrolean.” As far as I’ve been able to tell, this mass is rarely if ever played in America; it was brought over by Central UCC’s former choir director, Carl E. Burkel, who wrote the arrangement.

There will also be a “children's time” and plenty of good Christmas songs for everyone to sing. I understand, too, that the Christkindelfest offering always goes to local charities. Please don’t hesitate to attend this—it will get you in the Christmas spirit for sure.

Here is another video for you to watch—this is also from the 2008 Christkindelfest, and the singer is Esther Seidel, a lifelong resident of the greater Jefferson City area, who learned “Silent Night” in the original German as a little girl, and has known it by heart ever since.



By the way, I was there when she sang that year, and I couldn’t help but think of my Grandma Schroeder, who is about her same vintage, and how little it took to get her to start singing, and how she remembered the German lyrics to all her old songs.

I can’t tell you how moving it was to hear Mrs. Seidel sing this song. The video gives you only a small taste of this beautiful lady’s sweet singing.

And! I’ve heard that Mrs. Seidel will perform again this year! Yes! She’s planning to sing the beloved German Christmas hymn “Vom Himmel Hoch” (“From Heaven Above to Earth I Come,” or “From Heaven High I Come to You”). It’s one of Martin Luther’s hymns!

And then . . .




12:00 (or thereabouts--after the service) to about 1:30—Lunch in the gym. They’re serving delicious Burger’s ham from Moniteau County, plus—I’m sure—a bounty of yummy church-lady-style side dishes.






1:00—Reverend Stephen H. Buchholz, pastor of Central UCC, will lead a tour of the church. He’ll describe the congregation’s 150-year history and focus on the lovely artwork, stained glass, carvings, and their symbolism in the sanctuary of this historic church.




One more YouTube link for you: It’s the Central UCC choir (under the direction of Dr. Ruth Robertson) performing the traditional German carol “Never Do Bells Ring More Sweetly.”



So: put it on your calendar right now, so you don’t forget it!

—And see you there!




Special thanks to Rene Miserez of Central United Church of Christ, who has posted several Central Church videos on YouTube. She made it possible for me to share these with you. A big exuberant Munichburg “Danke Schön” to you, Rene!