Alfred North Dakota

As we approach the 75th anniversary of the Church of God (Seventh Day) in Alfred, North Dakota, it might do us some good to remember some of the highlights and roots of the Alfred church. What have been the spiritual landmarks that make possible this celebration of what God has done in Alfred?

Alfred is located 18 miles south, 14 miles west, and two miles south of Jamestown, North Dakota, which is about 100 miles east of Bismarck and 98 miles west of Fargo. Alfred was a much larger town than today with stores, three churches, two grain elevators, and a fuel distribution center. Now all that is left is the Church of God (Seventh Day).

The records we have indicate that the first church in North Dakota was organized from several families who initially met with some Sabbath observers in Kulm, North Dakota, about 22 miles south of Alfred. These families then settled in the Jud-Alfred area and included the Henry, Sr. and Karolina Schlenker family, the Johonnas and Christina Gohner family, the Kalmbach family, and others.

Included are excerpts from material that has been collected over many years. We have attempted to meld them into a story that accurately represents the facts as they have been preserved.

Kulm, North Dakota. In the late 1880’s a group of believers living about 20 miles south of Kulm, through searching the Scripture, began keeping the seventh-day Sabbath as a day of rest and worship. They went by the designation “Church of God.” There were about 12 to 14 families at the time. Originally the group came together on Sabbath and met in homes for fellowship and worship. The believers eventually acquired a building of their own, but in November 1941 they dedicated a newly erected building in Kulm. Elder Christ Kiesz from Eureka, South Dakota, with Ivan Harlan and Harvey Otto, ministered through the years at this church. Ultimately people left or died out, and the Church of God (Seventh Day) no longer exists there today.

Eureka, South Dakota. Independently of the developments in Kulm and at about the same time, people from the same German/Russian background were studying the Bible and found the same Church of God (Seventh Day) teachings in Eureka, in north-central South Dakota. Eureka is only about 12 miles from the North and South Dakota state line and less than 90 miles driving distance southwest from Alfred. By 1898 the church members had established themselves with articles of belief and called themselves by the name “Church of God (Seventh Day).”

The October Bible Advocate in 2000, page 20, included the following information about the Eureka church:

“Eureka, South Dakota: This congregation has worshipped and worked together more than 105 years. Several German-Russian immigrant farm families (Brenneise, Dais, Kiesz, Miller, and Schrenk) pioneered the church with Bible studies and Sabbath worship in their homes. Other families (Straub, Fischer, etc.) soon joined them, and the members erected a building five miles north of town.

“Elder A. N. Dugger visited the church in 1924, finding close doctrinal harmony and introducing them to the Church of God (Seventh Day). A campmeeting was first held at the church site in 1925, with ministers from other states and Canada coming to speak and visit. Fall or winter revival meetings also were times of outreach and spiritual growth. Although the church experienced regular growth, it felt the regular loss of members moving from this rural area to other parts of the country. Over the years, about two dozen men with roots in the Eureka church have served in the ordained ministry or as laymen in official capacities with the General Conference.

“Since 1948 the congregation has met in a building it constructed at the corner of Seventh St. and K Avenue in Eureka. Its pastors include Elders John Kiesz, Delvin O’Banion, Wesley Walker, Ray Moldenhauer, Nick Nimchuk, and Jerry Morgan.”

Campmeetings became regular events each year. A tent was set up for meetings for worship. The church was used for cooking and eating. Food was kept cool in the root cellar on the Christ Dais farm. A large water tank mounted on a wagon that was normally used to haul water for the steam tractor during harvest. This tank was pressed into service for the needs of the campmeeting and was set up with a faucet and tin cup. With all the young people around the “water hole,” it is said that quite a number of romances started and bloomed into marriages.

Campmeetings generally ran from Sunday evening to Sunday evening, with baptism usually taking place the last Sunday afternoon. Some of the candidates were converts from winter revivals. Others were from a distance away, and still others had accepted the Lord during the meetings.

Henry Schlenker, Sr. and his family came to the US as immigrants from Germany/Russia in 1896. When they arrived in North Dakota, they stayed with the Gotfried Muntz (or Gottlieb Mantz) family, relatives who lived south of Kulm. This family kept the Sabbath, as did several other families in the area.

In 1898 Henry Schlenker, Sr. moved his family northwest of Jud (Jud is five miles east and five miles south of Alfred) to homestead. (Henry Sr. later donated a little over an acre to the Alfred church. That is were the church cemetery is today). But in those early years, Henry was extremely poor, and Muntz gave him a team of horses and a wagon for the move. When they arrived with their three children, the only thing they could do was to turn the wagon upside down and sleep under it. The first night it rained so hard that they were all soaked. They built a sod house as quickly as possible for the coming winter.

The family probably started keeping the Sabbath on their own at about the time of this move. Each week the Schlenkers packed up their family on Friday and drove with a team and buggy to meet with other Sabbathkeeping families in the Kulm area.

Henry was so excited about the Bible and its teachings that he nearly always carried the “Good Book” with him. If a neighbor happened by while he was out plowing or doing other work, Henry would stop to talk. It often turned into a Bible study. Occasionally the men would get so involved in the study that their horses would wander off.

Johonnas and Christina Gohner were from Wittenburg, Romania (south Russia), and in April 1910 immigrated to the United States, settling first on a homestead south of Kulm. Johonnas had a good job working on the railroad. His older children hired out for $10 per month. With his wages from the railroad, Johonnas managed to save enough money to buy two horses, a cow, and a wagon. Later the family moved four miles north of Kulm, finally settling on a homestead three miles south of Alfred.

Johannas and Christina first heard about the seventh-day Sabbath around 1914 from neighbors Henry and Karolina Schlenker. Christina started attending first. After that, Johonnas also became interested and started keeping the Sabbath.

Eventually the Schlenkers joined the Gohners, the Kalmbachs, the Reichs, and other local families to have Sabbath services in their homes in Alfred. Services continued to be held in German until the 1940’s. Some of the early ministers were William Halbesleben (1898), Paul Kornmesser, Engels, and Kleitzmann.

A building was purchased in Alfred in 1933 and used for services. It had been a store run by a Jewish man who had moved to Carrington, North Dakota. Frieda Schlenker kept a record of the expenses of the trip to Carrington in order to settle the purchase:

Brother Christ Kiesz filled in, holding meetings for the next ten years. He would arrive in Alfred before sundown Friday and left on Sunday morning for his home in Eureka.

In 1942 Elder Kiesz held a revival for about seven weeks. There were 38 conversions and baptisms. The baptism was held in a pond near the railroad tracks east of Gackle. This revival included attendance from other denominations.

In the spring of 1944 the church members in Alfred decide to move into a new place for worship. The trustees — John Schlenker, John Gohner, and Ted Schelenker — purchased what had been a Presbyterian church for $800. It was decided to remodel the building. But with World War II in process, materials were scarce, so things took a little longer. It cost $1,294.01 to do the work. The total cost of $2,094.01 was quickly covered by gifts and donations from the congregation, with a part covered by the North and South Dakota State Conference.

During this time, there were campmeetings that alternated between Alfred and Eureka. When in Alfred, a large tent was set up and the town school was used for cooking and serving meals. People coming from a distance would stay with local families.

Ivan Harlan. After holding meetings in Alfred for six weeks in the winter of 1942, 43, Ivan Harlan became the first full-time pastor. His family moved to Alfred in April 1943.

Elder Harlan received a salary of $50 per month. The local farmers generously supplemented the Harlans with farm-fresh eggs, meat, milk, and other food stuffs. But brother Harlan also eagerly pitched in and helped farm families with any sort of work to be done, especially during the busy seasons. He also held meetings all around the area in the small towns. Sometimes he would sing and preach on the street corner on Saturday night. A group of young people often went along to help with the singing and to pass out literature.

Tjeerd Nienhuis, an early pioneer of the Devil’s Lake Church of God, came to the United States from Holland in May 1886. “Tjeerd (pronounced “cheered”) studied his way into the seventh-day Sabbath as the Christian day of worship. He wrote to . . . Elders Dugger and McMicken and became acquainted with the Church of God (Seventh Day)…. He purchased land in Ramsey County, North Dakota near Devils Lake in 1905 and eventually farmed 320 acres there….” In 1913 he and Aaltje (Alice) Stuut of a Seventh-day Baptist background, were married. The couple had eight children and “all ten of the Nienhuises lived in a two room house with no electricity or running water.”

While farming was hard through those years, “Tjeerd regularly read the Bible and told Bible stories to the children. Devotions were held each morning and evening. . . .”(Quotes here are from the December 2004 Bible Advocate, pages 20 and 21.) For years they had received the Church of God (Seventh Day) magazine, the Bible Advocate. In 1935 they attended a campmeeting in Eureka.

For many years the Nienhuis family traveled to the Alfred church and enjoyed many visits from the members and ministers from both Alfred and Eureka. In 1991 the group bought their own building and now have services there each week. In December of 2006 an adjacent lot was bought, and a building project is now in the planning stage. The Devils Lake church over the years has shared the pastor with Alfred and covered part of his salary and expenses. The current pastor, Stephen J. Kyner, serves in Alfred and once a month in Devils Lake.

During Dan Camero’s first Alfred pastorate in the 1960’s, another church building (the one-time local Baptist church) was acquired and donated by Harry Schlenker and attached to the existing building that had been purchase in 1944. Later the church was fully remodeled with a main floor addition and new bathrooms. Finally a new fellowship hall was added and completed in 2005.

In the fall of 1974 Ray Youngs and several members of the Alfred church helped establish the Fargo Church of God (Seventh Day) This group continues to meet today under the leadership of Jesse Hopewell (currently in preparation for the ministry).

In 2004 Brad Ciavarella (with the help of the Central District), Brad Kalmbach, and others began a study group at Mitchell, north of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They meet each week in a rented facility.

Presently Harris Kinzler and Brad Kalmbach from Alfred have helped with services in Eureka. Since pastor Jerry Morgan came to Eureka to retire and run a restaurant with his wife, he often speaks for Sabbath services.

Today the Alfred Church of God (Seventh Day) is all that remains of the once thriving town. There are still about ten families that call Alfred home. But the Alfred church still continues strong, drawing from the surrounding farms and towns, but also has members that come from Jamestown. Some drive over an hour weekly to be in services. Many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren down to the fifth generation still are faithful to the truths discovered by the pioneers that founded the Alfred church. And with the numbers of young people, children, and infants in Sabbath school and church services, the future looks very promising.

Alfred is a strong supporter in the local, district, and national work of the Church and has supported the work of an orphanage in Nicaragua for many years.

With a new pastor, hopes are high for the work to grow in Alfred and that we may be a light for the gospel and truth of God’s Word in south-central North Dakota.

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