Foundation of faith

Once in awhile a person gets assigned a task that puts one a little outside his comfort zone ... "Do an interview in front of the camera?" was the request from a "local" television host. "Sure I can do that but let me find someone better and more deserving," was my response. Good luck on that one! Some kind soul, anonymous, had fingered me so the commitment was made.

The subject of interest was the Old Stone Church that sits along Highway 17 about 10 miles south of Culbertson. As a church it has been inactive since 1951, if by church the definition includes weekly services to an active congregation. Yet the building is kept in good repair by a caring group that calls themselves the "Stone Church Association." Regular services are also held, once a year on the Sunday before Memorial Day, so in a sense the building still holds sway to proudly hold its title of "Church".

Why me? Well possibly because the man in charge of construction when the present day building was built, the year 1900, was my great grandfather. He was James Hoyt who had been a stone mason in Ohio prior to enlisting in the Grand Army of the Republic to fight on the side of the Union (the North) during our Civil War.

Our family history reveals that somehow, after the war, he came out to eastern Nebraska Territory, probably to visit family. There he met one Priscilla Bobinmeyer a 16-year-old school teacher. We know not the details but the two were married and made the trip to the Culbertson area, the western end of the rail line that year.

Their goal was to homestead free land along the Driftwood Creek. Being a Civil War veteran Mr. Hoyt was entitled to homestead two quarter sections (one quarter = 160 acres) and in addition Mrs. Hoyt staked claim on an additional quarter. By regulation a woman had to be at least 19 years of age to homestead and earn title to her quarter section but that was evidently just a detail easily overlooked in the rush to get the country settled.

In our family it is well known that Priscilla Hoyt was without doubt the matriarch of the clan. She had been raised as an evangelical Christian protestant, and so it was only natural that church be organized in that community.

Their first meeting place was a building constructed of the abundant native sod. That building was located across the country road south of the present day Stone Church site. By the year 1899, that sod building was bursting at the seams from over 90 persons gathered to worship so an association was formed to build a more permanent church building. There is no doubt in my mind that my great grandmother Priscilla volunteered her "Casper Milquetoast" husband to be in-charge of construction.

Records show that Mrs. Hoyt organized ice-cream socials and other fund raising events to cover the cost of flooring and roofing materials all imported wood. The walls were constructed using native limestone dug from the bluffs five miles south, shaped on site, and carried by horse and wagon. It was all a big community effort, labor, lunch, bring what you have and enjoy the fellowship of working together. The American Pioneer way!

The TV host asked me why the Old Stone Church was important to me. I think I stumbled through explaining that it was where I started Sunday School.

Enlightened, I did state that "It is the foundation of my faith." Gee I wish that I would have had the wits to explain how that little stone building had been the center of community life.

During the 1920s the young people there had even formed an orchestra to enhance services in a building with really wonderful acoustics. It was where young people met and inevitably paired off and started marriage.

Families named Hart, Confer, Wallen, Meyers, Mills, Haller and more to include in-laws, the list goes on.

Christmas eve was a special time with a fresh cut native tree brought in and decorated with candles (they never lit them). Lighting was the soft glow of lantern, no electric. Santa Claus always arrived with small gifts for children. A real fresh orange came that way, the first I ever tasted!

For me then, like so many that grew up in the neighborhood that wonderful old stone building is the foundation of our faith. Yes church is the people but yet it is the edifice and lessons learned therein that anchors our belief system.

Still I feel guilty to have been the one to go before the camera. It should have been my cousin Ginny Lynn who grew up within sight of our venerated old building with so much family history.

Ginny and her family are the ones who mow the grass, arrange repairs like a new door or a new roof and even keep paper in the outhouse. Beware the occasional rattle snake that hangs out beneath that structure.

Thank you Ginny and all the others who devote time, effort and money to preserve a structure, a monument really, and along with it the memories of who built and made it the center of their rural community.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail