Beulah Community Church

“O Beulah land,
sweet Beulah land,
as on thy highest mount I stand.
I look away across the sea,
where mansions are prepared for me
and view the shining glory shore,
my heaven my home forever more.”


I think that old hymn is where Beulah's name came from. There is a history of Beulah Community Church that you will find here:
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~handcosd/Cem/Beulah-cem/beulah-cem-hist.html

Front door.

There was no running water, but there was a two-holer outhouse on the east side of the building. The door of the church was never locked. There were dishes and serving ware for special occasions. There was a tray with the small holes in it for glass communion cups. Someone took them home after the service to wash them, or brought a covered pail full of hot water, which had cooled considerably by the time church was over, to wash them.

We used to sit in wooden chairs which were painted a tan color. I'm not sure when we got the pews. They came from a church which was either closing or getting new seating. They were too long for our little church, so the men cut them short and put the ends back on. If you look in a photo below, you can see that the center support is not in the center of the pew. That's why. It was a big deal to get pews, and exciting!

The prints on the walls have been there as long as I can remember. They are standard, very traditional Jesus prints that one can find just about anywhere.

Be sure to notice the board on the wall.

The building was heated by an oil-burning stove along the east side of the church. In the winter it was lit very early on a Sunday morning, or on Saturday night. If it hadn't been lit early enough we had a chilly Sunday!


 Inside Beulah was very plain, as a conservative, Methodist leaning church would be in that time. No railing, no altar. Those things were “too Catholic,” and strictly avoided.

I remember Gertrude Paustch playing the old upright grand. I can see her reddened hands moving carefully across the keys. Gertrude knew how to read the music and play the notes. She was a technician who played everything a bit too slow, and she was the only musician the church had. She almost never missed because she was faithful. Gertrude was single, living with her brother on a farm southeast of the church several miles. She raised chickens for their eggs and meat. Mom frequently commented that Gertrude worked too hard and had too little fun. Gertrude was very quiet.

Beulah's piano.

If you look closely at this photo, you will see our hymn book. (See below for more info on that.) The chair next to the piano is one of the ones we used to sit on. It was about 60 years old in 2000. There was once a flexible neck lamp on the piano. It was given in memory of Dad's mother, Louise. She played that piano and sang in that church many, many years.

I remember our preachers Hoverstein and Algood. When we struggled to find a preacher, we were served by some bible college students from Huron. I remember Rev. Hoverstein best.

Ernie Hoverstein was a lay preacher/farmer from up near highway 26 in the neighborhood of our Strasburg cousins. His wife was Ruth, and they had two sons. I believe their names were David and Neil. The older brother was Kay's age and she had a mad teenage crush on him for some time. Dad liked Ernie's preaching. He could relate. What I recall is that he was a nice man with a ruddy farmer face. Better than that, I remember Ruth.

Ruth Hoverstein seemed to be a woman of dignity and resolve. She had shoulder length brown hair, and was tall and strong. I think she really liked sports, perhaps played as much as possible. If she grew up in the 40s and 50s, there wasn't much opportunity. She was quite active in all things church. In the summer, on the first Sunday after Bible School, we put on a program for church, then had a picnic and played softball. She always umpired the game, even calling balls and strikes. She was smart, calling the pitches from behind the pitcher!

Ruth led Bible School, teaching us the old-time children's hymns and songs. I managed to find a copy of our songbook, entitled Youth Sings! We sang "I'm in the Lord's Army, The B-I-B-L-E, Do Lord, Fishers of Men" and many others. "Do Lord" is still my favorite. I remember nearly all the words of each of those, plus most of the motions too. Every song we learned had motions - hands, arms, feet.

"I'm (point to chest) in the Lord's (point up) army. (march feet)."

Every Sunday we had Sunday School for children and adults first at 10:00am. followed by church/worship at 11:00.. The children used the little tables and chairs at the back of the church. There was a screen put up in the aisle to separating the two classes. The adult class was on the raised portion at the front.

There is a Sunday School classroom.

 Edna Ward, Gertrude Paustch, Ethel Carr and Mom are the teachers I remember. Edna was the most fun. Ethel was tough and had a temper. Gertrude was her quiet self. We children created very few problems for our teachers. Children obeyed their elders in the 50s and 60s.

Flannel graphs were the visual aid. This is what a flannel graph is:

It started with a small piece of cardboard or light wood, like three sheet plywood, about three feet square. That board was covered with one piece of solid-color flannel. The teachers had a supply of paper Biblical people and features. They glued those figures onto another piece of flannel and cut the figures out according to their shape. In addition to human figures, there were animals, an ark, trees, houses, churches, stable, stars, wisemen, whales, boats, etc. As the teacher told a story, she pressed a flannel-backed figures against the board. A little friction was usually enough so that the picture stuck to the board, which was on an easel at the end of the table. I thought it was all pretty cool. After enough use, the flannel got flattened out so much that it wouldn't stick any more. 

I have a King James Bible, leather bound, that I received in 1963, when I was 10 years old. I think Jim got one too. I'm not sure about Kay. Ethel Carr was my Sunday School teacher, and she gave it to me for memorizing the Lord's Prayer, the 10 Commandments, the books of the Bible, and more. It's still in good shape. It was a very fancy Bible in that time, and expensive. Ethel and her husband Harold had more money that most anyone else. They drove a big old Cadillac!

We had Bible School for a week in the summer. We sang songs, learned stories, and made stuff out of different shapes of pasta, burnt wooden matches, plaster of paris, coffee cans, and other assorted odds and ends.

Doors between the entry and church proper.

 Birthdays were celebrated according to an exacting tradition. There was a glass globe piggy bank on a metal base on the plain table in front of the pulpit. At the beginning of church, people with birthdays were called forward. Little children came up clutching pennies. They dropped one at a time into the piggy bank. Each penny pinged, and the congregation counted the child's age. Adults did the same, with much laughter. I remember Mom coming forward one Sunday in August. She had scrambled for coins before we left in the morning. She got a little red in the face, dropping in around 40 pennies, but it was all good natured. It seemed that she liked a little attention that way. I think we all liked our birthday Sundays.

Singing is a strong memory. I don't remember how many hymns we sang on a typical Sunday. Mom was a good singer, and very encouraging to her children. Everybody sang out. I don't remember any sense of criticism or judgment. We used a hymnbook called Tabernacle Hymns. It had some liturgical elements and psalms in the back, but we hardly ever used any of that. We sang! WE SANG!!! It was fun!
“List songs.”



Gertrude's hands were on the piano. Dusty Lamm sang so loud that his face got red. Sometimes we had Sings, and got to call out our favorite hymns. Special Music, or “Specials” were not unusual. An individual or small group sang something for us. It was generally a hymn that we all knew well. Of course Gertrude accompanied. Sometimes Mom did solos or sang with others. Usually it was women who did the Specials. It was something extra they did for church, to add to a Sunday.

I can see Rev. Hoverstein standing behind the pulpit, preaching to us, red-faced as usual. I clearly remember a Sunday when he had something really important to tell us.

There was a problem in his family. He said something about not being able to control or manage his own family. If he couldn't do that, he couldn't preach to us. It was dead silent. I looked over at Ruth Hoverstein to my left. She focused on him, never glancing about, her face set. I wondered if she had to do that so she didn't loose her composure. It seemed to be a general consensus that this was a loss for us. Some of the men tried to talk Ernie into staying, but he was adamant that he was no longer fit to be a preacher. I'm pretty sure no one ever learned what happened. There were guesses – Ruth? Their sons? (The oldest one was something of a trouble-maker.) I have no idea, but I still feel the sadness of that Sunday.

Rev. Hoverstein had seen to finding us another preacher though. He was the Rev. Allgood. I remember the Sunday when Hoverstein introduced Allgood to us. He said that Allgood was, “All-good.”

Where Hoverstein had been an easy-going farmer, who focused on being a faithful servant, Allgood was more like a professional clergyman. I think he was heavier on guilt and sinfulness, stressing our need for redemption. Dad didn't like him and didn't come to church very often after that.

Allgood was the last regular preacher I remember at Beulah. He was the one who pushed the congregation to carpet the floor, panel the walls, and lower the ceiling. The members seemed to feel pushed, and never did really take to Allgood. He was not “one of us.”

Notice the center support of the pew, not centered.

 Ladies Aid was a Beulah bedrock, as it always has been in so many churches. They met monthly in different women's homes. Mom felt a lot of pressure at hosting meetings. Dad's mother, Louise, had been an institution at Beulah, until succumbing to stomach cancer in 1958. She had played the piano, sang, taught Sunday School, and contributed in so many ways. Now Mom was living in the house that Louise had hosted Ladies Aid meetings in.

Mom was really concerned about measuring up to Louise. I know that Kay and I dreaded the Aid meeting because it required intense preparation. We cleaned that house top to bottom. Wall were scrubbed, floors were waxed, windows were cleaned, silver was polished, party trays washed and dried by hand. Intense.
Some years later, I don't know how many, Mom came to a decision. It wasn't Louise's house any more. She wasn't Louise. She wasn't going to kill herself, and us, preparing for Aid. Hooray!!! From that point forward, hosting Ladies Aid was a routine occasion. Good for Mom.

At the Ladies Aid meeting there were small booklets that contained a lesson from the Bible. The ladies discussed it and filled in answers. They read the Bible, said prayers, and had a business meeting. There were elected officers. Well, not so much elected, as willing to take their turns at filling the positions of president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. They collected an offering, and used other means of acquiring money which went to missionaries and needs for the church.

We had a children's program every Christmas Eve. It was a big occasion, and all the neighborhood came. We children had pieces to recite. A piece was a short poem or bit of scripture. I remember clutching that scrap of paper in my hand, struggling to memorize it, and being drilled by Mom. Jim was always the worst at memorizing his, while Kay was a quick study. I was somewhere in the middle.

The program was always about the Christmas story. We had some costumes; the ever-reliable bathrobe for each character, plus a towel around the head, and some type of sandals. The sandals were the hardest to come by. Few farm families wore thongs, as flip-flops were known then. Most of us had two pairs of shoes, one for everyday, and one for Sunday.

On Christmas Eve entire family activities revolved around church. I remember us all getting into the car at the Trautman place, when Mom and Dad needed to go back in to get something they forgot. So we children waited in the car until they returned and we were on our way. I remember being bundled up to my eyes, lots of white snow on the ground, shining in the moonlight, the car full of excitement!

Beulah was comfy and warm, filled to the brim with people come to celebrate Jesus and be with family. Children were nervously chattering, pushing, shoving and giggling. Then the program began.

Children said their pieces, with frequent coaching from an adult, usually their mom. The adults watched, chuckling at childish antics, relishing the opportunity of the social gathering. It was cute and the children were earnest and sincere.

Everyone sang Christmas Carols with great gusto. Suddenly came a time when quiet reigned. The church council president got up to say a few words, when a sound was heard?! What was it?! Jingling bells? Suddenly Santa Claus burst through the door from the entry into the sanctuary! “Ho, ho, ho!!” He had a big sack over his shoulder. Santa! Santa! It was so exciting!!!

(This was before Christmas had become the commercial mecca it is today. There was no Santa in every store or around every corner. This was the only Santa the children probably saw.)

Santa asked if we had been good girls and boys. We shyly nodded our heads, eyes shining bright, about to explode with anticipation. Santa had something for each one of us. We got a little brown bag. It held Christmas candy – brightly colored hard ribbons of sweet candy, slices of round candy with a picture of a Christmas tree in the center. Peanuts! As an extra special bonus, there might be an orange!!

(In the 1950s there was no interstate highway system in South Dakota. Year 'round fruit and vegetable growing was only available in Florida and California. The produce was not capable of arriving, unscathed, from the long journey to South Dakota. Refrigerated trucks were slow and dicey. In the winter, whatever fruit and vegetables one had were canned. So a fresh orange in late December was a real treat.)

We had a simple meal, usually soup and sandwiches, then returned home. The strangest thing had happened while we were gone. Santa had come!!

Yes indeed. We raced into the house and found our presents under the tree. They weren't wrapped, but we knew whose was whose. Toys were our favorites of course. There wasn't that much because we couldn't afford lots of gifts. There was a toy and an article of two of clothing. We thought it was great!

To me, Beulah was a warm and rich place where I was loved and treasured. Now when I go back and see it empty, I can still see Gertrude at the piano, us crowded around the oil burning heater, Mom walking up to the birthday piggy bank, Edna Ward's eyes showing her love for us children, Harold Carr's six feet plus of hunched over height, dishes in the steel cupboards in the entry, the misery of that cold outhouse in the winter, Dusty Lamm's red face singing as loud as he could, Ruth Hoverstein's face that Sunday her husband left our pulpit, and more.

There are smells and sights that bring back Beulah: The dust of the road, which wasn't paved until the late 70s, hay drying in the field to the east, singing, Rev. Hoverstein's kindly voice, the old hymns.

Whenever I see a little country church, I yearn for Beulah Community Church. I see it through the rose-colored lenses of childhood. It was a refuge, a perfectly safe place.

“O Beulah Land, sweet Beulah land . . . . “