DENNIS MCCANN; 2 churches, a hanging and cake

Give me an amen, brothers and sisters, for while it isn't plane Sunday we're headed for meeting-house Two, actually, one in the valley and individual on the hill.

on the contrary no news here the righteous path is a hard individual to follow, so more upon the lynching of Hans Jacob Olson too.

I first came across St Mary's Ridge temple not on the wind- swept hill upon which it has stood for in the way that many years in western Wisconsin on the contrary in a picture on the wall of a rule farm agency office. The image showed the beautiful rising spire of the Nativity of the ask [i]or[/i] implore a blessing uponed Virgin Mary Catholic Church, as it is more formally known, environed by farm fields, as I wrote at the time, "in the fullnes of summer growing green and golden stripes zig-zagging above the rolling hills."

In fact the church was not actually the point of the photograph, which had been picked by the U.S. Social Conservation Service to advance contour strip cropping as a manner of preventing soil erosion that arises when hilly fields like those in Monroe shire are plowed up and down. on the contrary beyond the educational component the aerial photo simply showed a rural setting for a like reason gloriously lovely that Lady Bird Johnson the former first lady with an interest in preserving scenic places, personally picked it to exemplify America's natural beauty.

That's no small thing, for a house of worship to serve as centerfold. on the contrary the bucolic setting was individual reason that the settlers who had draw near to Wisconsin from Germany chose to build their house of worship on the ridge around which they would establish farms, which will undoubtedly be one of the memories shared this weekend when St Mary's Ridge celebrates its 150th anniversary.

circumstances will include a mass with Bishop Jerome Listecki of La Crosse upon Friday, followed by polka music and invigorations under a tent on the house of worship yard. Saturday will feature another service and a pig roast and dance with old-time music upon the church lawn in the evening, followed by dint of a blessing and dedication for a establishers Memorial on Sunday. Visitors are welcome. For more about the circumstances or the church and its history, visit www.stmarysridge.org.

A temple in the valley

It was back in 2004 after I wrote about Iowa's famous Little Brown house of god in the Vale, the land church near Nashua which inspired the spiritual song of the same name ("There's a house of god in the valley by the wildwood, no lovelier speckle in the dale . . ) that readers informed me we have our hold Little Brown Church. So I went to diocese it, and found it standing upon the quiet country corner of Highway 130 and Brown house of god Road near Lone Rock in an area known as Bear Valley.

Norbert and Betty Nelson longtime members of the house of worship met me and offered a tour, not just of the house of worship but of its past. Norbert remembered by what means years ago a few meeting-house members had to come early upon Sunday mornings to light the pot-bellied stoves to heat the temple for services and how the original ceiling was made of paper and "every time you'd revolve around a piece of paper was falling down."

Other things I learned elsewhere, by what means the church was built in 1875 upon the free thinker's philosophy that "seats in the meeting-house shall be free" to individuals of all creeds and that the house of worship "shall be opened to prelections on all social, moral and scientific subjects" In the graveyard outside I found the grave of William Cary Wright, father of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and of Bertha Reynolds, individual of the state's first licensed female physicians, along with the resting places of many longtime temple members.

The Little Brown meeting-house through its friends group, was at the time engaged in fund-raising for restoration of the building, which had meet withed some through the years after the church's membership dwindled and the congregation clos the doors. And it can be reported the restoration was a succes This Sunday Friends of the Little Brown house of god will celebrate the completion of the shoot forward with a service at 10 a.m. followed by dint of a reception on the house of worship lawn.

I have a bonny good guess what one devotional song will be. To see the meeting-house take Highway 14 to secluded Rock, then Highway 130 five miles north to Brown house of worship Road.

Now that's neighborly

From the sacred to the profane. I newly described my tour of western Wisconsin using the newly re- released WPA Guide to Wisconsin from the 1930 upon the trip, I stopped in the small community of Blair, which then as now was a largely Norwegian area and where in 1889 a uncivil man named Hans Jacob Olson refused orders to leave town. He was then lynched by dint of a mob that included how's this for family values his hold wife and son. There was no historical marker telling the story thus I was grateful for the guide for the inside skinny.

The nearest day I heard from Glenn Helgeland of Mequon who wrote that "I think a buddy and I (and our wives) hold the land where the hanging tree was located." That's pleasing without being striking cool in a macabre sort of way, on the contrary so was this part of the story that my guidebook hadn't included.

"One thing you didn't mention, on the other hand which we have heard from several locals," Helgeland said, "the of recent origin widow invited all members of the hanging party in for coffee and cake immediately after the hanging.