Interesting stories about Jacob Stratemeir and family

 From and email from Muriel & Joan Van Loh 

Your grandfather's name was? Jacob Stratmeyer. I think it was Jacob J. Your grandmother's first husband? yes I think I know but it would be helpful for me to confirm it. Her second husband was Jacob's cousin. Gene's grandfather. This brought 10 children together--Jacob, Anna, Ella, Bena (Jacobena?), Albert and Grayce plus Claus, Henry, Ben and Gertie. Dad's family across the road about a 1/3 of a mile away had 11 children. Florence, John, Otto, Emmeline, Matilda (Matsie), Minerva (Minnie), George, LuVern, Ella, Esther, Elmore. There were other Stratmeyer cousins not too far away--Uncle Claus and family and many others. The young people liked to get together--and they had happy times.

Our grandfather Jacob bought the farm on Highway 17 with the large apple orchard and I suppose the line of walnut trees beside the lane (probably planted by the family who planted the apple trees) and some time afterward he also bought a farm near Dempster. When the Stratmeyer family got the farm on Hiway 17 the apple trees were about 7 years old. The wife of the couple who planted the trees had committed suicide by drowning in the water tank--partly we were told because of desperation as the trees were not bearing fruit. She did not know that the trees would take 7 years to mature. The year the Stratmeyers moved there the trees blossomed and bore fruit.

As Jacob was cutting wood one day for the winter supply not too long after buying the Dempster farm the Lord told him to get his house in order because he would not live long. He got his horse and buggy and went to Dempster and sold that farm. He developed pneumonia. As we remember what we were told, he had much pain. He died if we remember right about 6 weeks after the Lord's warning. I think he was 44. Mother was 6  years old, the youngest child. The Stratmeyer name was badly misspelled on the tombstone in the Germantown cemetery.

The Stratmeyers used to have a gold framed picture in their bedroom with Der Herr ist mein Hirte --the 23rd psalm in German. That picture was always there even in later years in the little house in the orchard where Grandpa Henry and Aunt Ella and Art lived when we were kids. 

Severina, our grandmother was  a Van Hove. After Art's funeral we went to another cemetery nearby--probably Turner Cty Presbyterian-- and found her parents tombstones, her brother etc. One of Severina's sisters married a Muller, whose son Henry married another of Dad's sisters. Mother remembered her grandfather reading in the Bible and singing to them in Dutch. Severina died in her early 60's. The doctors came to bleed her--a popular remedy. Before she died she was given communion. She said afterwards that she really understood what it meant then--for the 1st time in her life. 

Yes, please send us the e-mails  you mentioned if you have time to do it. We are in the process of getting new computers and getting a network set up and new software and we are struggling.

 

Yours is a powerful testimony. I hadn't connected the Rotschafer from Sibley to being your uncle. He was known as a powerful pastor and preacher in the German Synod of the West. I have been in the Sibley Church a number of times, one time for the marriage of my college roommate in 1956 - another time in a Presbytery Youth Rally and I preached there once when I was on the faculty of Dubuque Seminary. Dubuque Seminary is the Synod of the West's Seminary, started by East Friesian and other German Christians to train clergy. Niebrugge was a Dubuque graduate as I was. Must have been his father who visited Grandpa.

 

Art Binger told me that during the Depression, my grandfather went around to every member of the Session and asked them to pledge how much they could give to the church each week. Art said most people gave ten cents a week but grandpa Henry always gave 25 cents a week. My grandfather and your step grandfather was Clerk of Session there for 25 or so years. My dad Henry remembers pumping the old pump organ - they apparently had to go outside. I was never in the church. We do not remember this. Could the pump have been in the basement? That is where we had the Mission Feast meals in the Fall and they were something to remember. Then we went upstairs and there were 3 tall preacher's chairs on the platform and guest preachers and we heard a message about Missions.

 

Jean and I lived in Loquard, Ost Friesland for six weeks during 2011 - that's where your grandfather came from. If you are interested I can send you some of the emails I sent back during that time.

 

Good to hear from you. Thanks Gene for sharing this information with us.

 

Gene

 

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 7:20 PM, Muriel & Joan Van Loh <mjvanloh@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Jean and Gene, 
Thanks for sending us this very interesting piece of history.  

We remember going to this church as children. Our grandmother, Severina Stratmeyer, who died the year before I  (Muriel) was born gave the land for that church--probably before she married Gene's grandfather. 

Aunt Ella was our SS teacher, and we remember the programs at Christmas time and the Mission Feasts. One time we saw the interior being repainted with our Aunt Florence (Mrs. Jake (Van Loh) Stratmeyer), and we suppose Uncle John and Aunt Anna, and our parents hard at work along with other church members. Being very small, the height of the walls and the painters up there impressed us greatly.

I went to school at the Schoffelman school for grade 1 and part of grade 2 before we moved nearer to Sioux Falls. 

We had no knowledge of the history of the Salem church but we always did know that John Rotschafer, (we had been told that he was a student minister, or newly graduated from seminary) came one summer to preach. He married our father's sister, Emmeline. We thought he was connected to the seminary in Dubuque, IA. Rev. Niebruegge was connected to Dubuque wasn't he??? Anyway we know a Rev. Niebruegge visited Grandfather Henry at various times over the years.

Uncle John Rotschafer loved hunting, and although his church was in Sibley, IA he came back to SD to go hunting with his in-laws and friends. Frederick, Leola, Merlyn, Bob and Jim Rotschafer were their children. Mother and Dad were married in their home--as were other relatives. We visited there as children and respected Uncle John as a man who loved God. He once confided to Dad about checking out his shotgun in his study on the second floor of the big house where they lived and it went off, shooting up the ceiling.  

Uncle John died of cancer of the throat in 1948 or 49, (maybe because he always used some nasal drops or something to clear his throat for preaching???) At his funeral service,  I was listening to the many speakers and the beautiful music when suddenly in my mind I heard a question, "Where are you going when you die?" I answered, "I go to church, I help teach SS, I don't run around with bad friends."  When we got to the cemetery, just as I stepped out of the car, I heard again in my mind the question, "Where are you going when you die?" I suddenly knew that my works were nothing and I said, "To hell." When we got home I got on my knees and told the Lord I didn't know what to say but that I knew I had nothing in myself that would take me to heaven, that I believed Jesus had died for me and I asked Him forgive me for my sins and to save me from hell. So I will always be thankful for Rev. John Rotschafer and his testimony for the Lord and for the Lord using his funeral service to wake me up from self-satisfaction and passivity to face reality.

Some years ago there was a centennial or some publication--don't remember if it was for Tea or Lennox or what, but some Stratmeyers contacted us to ask if we possibly had a picture of that church. They wanted it for the book that was being printed and they came to our house in Canistota and promised us faithfully to return the few pictures we had--legacy from Aunt Ella. One picture was, we think, from the time of the churches construction. We never saw the pictures again.

We did not know what had happened to the church, or that Uncle John was a deacon in 1945.  We go by that corner on Hwy 17 often on our way to a Fri evening Bible Study near Lennox at Country Cross Ministries. We do see that the old barn of the days when our parents were young still exists on that home place where Mother grew up. The Van Loh home grounds are gone.

Thanks for sharing the history. 
Muriel and Joan

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Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:00:09 -0500
Subject: Re: testing

From: jean112538@gmail.com
To: mjvanloh@hotmail.com

Muriel & Joan:

 

I just wondered how this Van Loh in the Salem Church history is related to you.

 

Tea, SD Salem Presbyterian Church – Organized October 12, 1916 (1916-1945)

The Rev. S. G. Manus, pastor of the Germantown Presbyterian Church northwest of Lennox, South Dakota, began holding services north of Lennox, SD and east of Tea, SD in what was known as the Schoffelman school house on Sunday afternoon. Being the first clergyman to have a horseless carriage at Germantown, Dr. Manus drove his five passenger “Imperial” to hold services on Sunday afternoon. The meetings were responsible for the organization of the Tea Salem Church.(1) – 1947 Synod of the West Yearbook, p. 32.

The church was served during the summer of 1918 by a Sunday School Missionary, the Rev. John A. Rotschafer. On July 27, 1920, he was united in marriage to Emmaline Van Loh at Tea, SD. 1950 yearbook of the Synod of the West, pp 22-24

This small church, seven miles north of Lennox, SD, on State Highway # 17, was closed shortly after World War II.  Eventually the building was moved to South Main Street just south of the Sr. Center in Lennox where it was converted into an apartment building. Today it is setting vacant and in need of repair. Below are the minutes of the final congregational meeting which was held to close the church. Several of the members transferred to the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church in Lennox, SD.  Tea, SD. Salem Presbyterian Church was organized Oct 12, 1916 and closed December 12, 1945 

Church members present for the congregational meeting were: Henry Stratemeier, Anthony Otten, elders; William Schoffelman, John Van Loh, deacons, C. J. Kuper and Folkert Poppen, trustees, Mrs. Anthony Otten and Mrs. Louis De Nui, and the Rev. George Uhden, the moderator.  The Presbytery Commission was Revs. R. E. Niebruegge, I. F. Hayenga, August Cramer and elder Leonard Gronewald.

Motions were made to dissolve the church at the close of the meeting and to sell the church with all the equipment in it.  

They let the interested buyers into the church and the Rev. I. F. Hayenga conducted the sale.  The highest bidder was Mr. E. G. Commack of Lennox, SD at a price of $1150.00.  A check was written for the amount and the property was turned over.  The meeting was adjourned and closed with prayer by Rev. Uhden.

 

Blessings

Gene