October 23, 2003

Plains Folk: Trinity Supper

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

It’s astonishing what prairie light can do. It spills on-screen as I contemplate images harvested at dusk from Trinity Lutheran Church Cemetery, Prairie Township, Lamoure County, N.D. What is the color of those cloud-bellies in the west? Prunus Americana, I’m going to call it.

Is it my imagination, or is the westward-facing accordion etched into the tombstone of Aaron Busche (1930-1970) glowing? And see the dull metallic glint from the home-fashioned marker for Lester Miller (1909-1937). Company 795, Civilian Conservation Corps, we read by the legend and by the strap-iron CCC shield. From what far camp was this boy sent home to his folks?

Now the radiant amber of the church façade at night and that peculiar pink neon cross puncturing the night sky where once the steeple stood. This place has seen better times, but maybe not a better night than tonight, the occasion of Trinity’s annual fall supper.

It’s a German supper put on by the descendants of Hanoverian German immigrants. Selling tickets in the back of the sanctuary is Faye Bubach, who has other lives. In one she is an elementary principal, and in another she is the proud new grandmother of John Robert Lahlum, whose picture and vital statistics are posted on a nearby pillar. We take our tickets to the front, where Faye’s husband Robert collects them before we turn into the adjoining parish hall. Alongside him are a couple of sharpies that take us for a book of raffle tickets. Who knows, we could use the quilt.

The meal is generous. Precedent is set by Audrey Lahlum (mother of the delinquent scholar Lori Lahlum, who once again, after bragging on this event, has failed to show up, some sort of excuse about being in Canada); she piles on the roast beef, and we proceed through the potatoes and gravy, kraut and sausage, relishes. Most notable is the hot potato salad, the product of a crew supervised by Wanda Bassen, the food chair. Good hot potato salad like this is a meal in itself.

Later we’re back for dessert, your choice of fried dough or apricot kuchen or both. I tell you, kuchen is infiltrating everywhere. What once was a Black-Sea-German specialty has become a regional standard.

Seated at a table, parish kids flitting about filling this or that and bussing, we pick up quotables. "The Lutherans have the best food," I am assured by the young woman beside me. It turns out this is a longstanding point of contention between her and her Catholic husband, who knows better than to argue about it here.

Her place is taken by an older fellow, a cultural liberal who announces, "I’m a Norwegian, but I like German food, too." What he really likes, though, is lutefisk suppers, like the one over in Gwinner. It doesn’t sound like he’s picky, though, as today he’s already been to a noon dinner in Lamoure and an afternoon golden wedding celebration before coming here for supper.

Others have good excuses for their evening appetites, having taken part in a hunger walk in Lamoure that was supposed to be six miles but turned out to be, we are assured by those who measured it by odometer, more than that. Among the walkers was Pastor Lucinda Nygaard, 15 months here right out of Luther Seminary. She has a two-point parish, also serving Marion Lutheran. More gossip heard around the table: "She’s sure been good for this place," and similar comments.

Her portrait-short blond hair with red-orange tones doesn’t look much like the others in the pastor gallery on the wall. All the pastor names are German to 1966, after which they go Norwegian. The pastor for 1933-45 bears a remarkable resemblance to Pretty Boy Floyd, and one of his successors is a dead ringer for Buddy Holly.

Like I said, prairie light does amazing things.

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Source: Tom Isern, (701) 799-2942, isern@plainsfolk.com
Editor: Rich Mattern, (701) 231-6136, richard.mattern@ndsu.nodak.edu 

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