Govert Harmony Sunday School

Are you ready for another story about Govert? This story is dedicated to LuKayzee, who is working on her middle school history report on Govert township. Govert is her birthright. That is yet another story, one perhaps LuKayzee will write herself.

The story I am going to tell you was first told in 1911 and has not been re-told in more than 100 years. You are in for an unparalleled peek into the earliest days of Govert township through the eyes of a congregational missionary assigned to southern Harding County and the Moreau River Valley.

When the missionary visited Govert town, my Grandfather Govert Van der Boom was 27 years old, and Govert township was then little more than gumbo, prairie grass and widely-scattered, newly-minted claim shacks. You might even call the story “pre-historic” because it was written and published before anyone else recorded the early history of Govert. I hope my grandfather read this story in the June 1911 edition of The American Missionary. He would never have dreamed his granddaughter would find it in the twenty-first century.

The story of Harmony Sunday School is told in the words of Reverend Vaclav Vavrina who, himself, was homesteading about three miles north of the road that connected Govert and Redig, closer to Redig than Govert, then more of a trail than a road as we think of a road today. Reverend Vavrina would have become a familiar and welcome sight in his one-horse buggy, man of God, homesteader, and neighbor.

Up for time travel today? Lock the hatch, strap on your helmet, buckle your seatbelt, secure your coffee, stay alert and help me parse the history of Govert as it was set out in June 1911.

A MODERN ABRAHAM
By Rev. V. Vavrina
Missionary for South Dakota

In the fall of 1909 the semi-arid but fertile region in the Belle Fourche, South Dakota land district, was open to settlement, and people began to take possession of the vast uninhabited wilderness. Two young men in an Eastern town of South Dakota heard one Sunday night a sermon about Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees and journeying to Palestine to become the founder of a race that would serve God. Reference was made to the new lands opened to settlement, and that young men with the faith and spirit of Abraham were needed, to take possession of the land, to become exponents of righteousness and pioneers for the Kingdom of God. The two young friends listened attentively and the appeal took possession of their hearts. They said, after the service, “Let us go, even like Abraham, for the country is opened before us.” They started out in search of a homestead and opportunity. They found it near the southern end of a long range of hills called Slim Buttes, on a treeless, fertile plain, seventy miles from the railroad.

 

Govert was selected as a name for the new post office, that being the name of one of the young men. Soon new settlers began to flock in and take possession of the choice land. In a short time there has grown up quite a community.

My attention was called to this new settlement by Rev. Emil Dietrich, the General Missionary for western South Dakota. I stopped to see the young men. It was interesting to see that while one took care of the store and work outside, the other tended the kitchen and kept house very neatly. They requested me to come over and open up a religious service, offering their living shack, 12 x 19, for the meetings. About twenty-five people were huddled together in the little shack, sitting on dry goods boxes and boards when I came. I shall never forget with what eager desire they participated in that first religious service at Govert. After the service a Sunday-school was organized. About ten of those present were children, while the rest were young men and women. A two-class organization was effected, and one of the young men was elected a teacher of the adult class. Since then the Govert Harmony Sunday-school has met regularly every Sunday, no matter what the weather; the adult class in the shack and the children in the store. It is a pleasure to be among them and listen to their discussions of the various questions brought out by the Sunday-school lessons.

Reverend Vavrina’s story rings true and is consistent with family stories and my research. However. We can be suspicious, but we really can’t discern how much of this article is rhetoric calculated to exhort evangelic fervor in the society’s missionaries, how much is intended to encourage the reign of the faithful in new homesteading communities across the prairie. Reverend Vavrina may have waxed evangelical composing his article about Govert, as The American Missionary is decidedly evangelical. As for me, I heartily suspect my very Dutch grandfather would not have pumped his fist in the air and declared: “Let us go, even like Abraham, for the country is opened before us.”

 

Would that Reverend Vavrina had been more direct in his composition, but he bequeathed to us more than enough clues to conclude Harmony Sunday School was organized in our Govert town. The settlement Reverend Vavrina visited was at the southern end of the Slim Buttes. Check. The settlement took the name of one of the two founders who was named Govert. Check. The settlement was created in 1909 the same year Govert entered his homestead. Check. The settlement was 70 miles from the nearest railroad which, at the time, would have been Belle Fourche. Check.

 

Those of you who have been following Thru Prairie Grass are familiar with the details of those early years. The town of Govert in Govert township was founded by Govert Van der Boom and Howard Jacobs, friends in Wessington Springs in the eastern part of South Dakota, the former in his late twenties and the latter already entering his 30s. “Young men”, sure, they would have accepted that description. They both had strong religious foundation, and would have attended religious services and mission programs on what was probably their only free day, Sunday. They were businessmen, Howard a harness-maker and Govert a grain buyer, and they saw homesteading as a business opportunity. Nevertheless, they would have been inspired, perhaps in equal proportion to their business aspirations, to establish a community in which saloons were unwelcome as precursor to immorality. This fits.

 

What else. The Govert post office mentioned by Reverend Vavrina began operating with the appointment of Howard Jacobs as postmaster on May 27, 1910. Reverend Emil Dietrich was appointed general missionary for western South Dakota in April 1910 by the Congregational Home Missionary Society, and three months later (July 1910) Reverend Vaclav Vavrina was assigned as missionary for southern Harding County and the Moreau River Valley. This also fits.

If you accept the two young men being Govert Van der Boom and Howard Jacobs, and of this little doubt exists, you may wonder who did what in Reverend Vavrina’s narrative. Gary Lehman and I have concluded that his Grandfather Howard tended house and my Grandfather Govert tended the store and the fields. Govert was the healthier man and had farming experience. Howard would have been voted to be the teacher of the adult Sunday school class because Howard was a native English speaker and Govert spoke with a heavy Dutch accent. We can consider that settled. Maybe Reverend Vavrina’s vagueness was intended to give his reader a story that could apply to any homestead settlement. Or maybe an overworked missionary-homesteader was meeting more people than he could cache in memory and by the time he put pen to paper he couldn’t remember which man was which. Which leads us to …

The article was published in June 1911, but when did Reverend Vavrina visit Govert? The usual delay between a missionary activity and the coverage in The American Missionary was two months, sometimes more, sometimes but rarely less. In this case, the delay may have been considerably more. If Harmony Sunday School was organized during Reverend Vavrina’s second visit to Govert, as the article suggests, the date may retreat several months from publication back to the fall of 1910 when the heat of summer had passed and the mornings in claim shacks began with a chill. As for his first meeting with Govert and Howard, August 1910 may have been Reverend Vavrina's earliest opportunity after filing his homestead on May 21, 1910, and his July 1910 assignment as missionary to the Moreau River Valley. We can do little better than this, and this is probably good enough.

What follows is a picture from the early days of Govert.

 

I can’t prove the picture was taken the day Reverend Vavrina visited Govert to form Harmony Sunday School; I also can't disprove it. The two claim shacks, Govert's and Howard's, store and residence, are already “stitched” together over the section line looking just like I had always imagined. I don’t recognize the people, but maybe you do. My Grandmother Emma is not in the picture, but this picture would have been taken before Emma made homestead entry in Butte County in May 1911. My Grandfather Govert also is not in the picture; perhaps he positioned himself alongside Reverend Vavrina, one step behind and one step to the left of the photographer. Curiously another picture, in a different South Dakota prairie community with different people but similarly posed, accompanies an article in the November 1911 edition of The American Missionary.

Our takeaway is a confirmation of details of the founding of the Govert community and a clearer understanding of what life was like in early days of Govert. When researching a little-documented prairie town that has long ago returned to dust, any details are welcome wherever found. The firsthand observations of a witness, someone who shared words that memorable day with Govert and Howard and with homesteaders who quit their shacks and delayed their work so they could gather together in community to worship, gives history a patina that carries us far beyond facts. Those who lived in Govert township in 1910 were excited about the missionary coming to visit them, they were eager for social interaction, they were optimistic about the religious structure provided by churchgoing. Maybe they even showed off a little in the presence of a visitor as people are known to do. And, by golly, they washed up pretty good.

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass ... Kate 

WELCOME TO THE GOVERT COMMUNITY!

HISTORY IS HAPPENING AND YOUR COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME.

Can you identify anyone in the picture?

PLEASE CONTACT KATE

at thruprairiegrass@gmail.com

Notes:
[1] Although newspapers allow people like you and me to assemble a good substitute history, the Govert Advance repository of issues published between 1911 and 1928 was reduced to ashes in a flue fire in the attic of the publisher, Charles Laflin, in that latter year, and no stray copies from the earliest Govert years have re-surfaced in modern times.
[2] The Congregational Home Missionary Society provided missionaries to support the underserved in the United States in contrast to foreign missionaries who travel to another country to serve.
[3] The American Missionary article set out in this post: Vavrina, Vaclav, “A Modern Abraham”, The American Missionary, Volume 65 Number 1, p169, June 1911. You can find this periodical at books.google.com.
[4] The concept of a “modern Abraham” was used widely before, and after, 1911. Reverend Vavrina is attributing to the founders of Govert and other like communities the mission of biblical Abraham who was called by God to be the father of new generations of faithful followers. A modern Abraham could be used to describe anyone who leads the faithful, including missionaries like Reverend Vavrina himself.
[5] The dates attributed to the assignment of missionary duties to Reverends Dietrich and Vavrina can be found in The American Missionary. For Dietrich: The American Missionary, Volume 64, Number 6, page 180, June 1910. For Vavrina: The American Missionary, Volume 64, Number 9, page 409, September 1910.
[6] Even if the picture was not taken the day of Reverend Vavrina’s second visit to Govert, even should the picture not portray Govert, the image certainly is representative of Govert and that wonderful day Harmony Sunday School was organized.

Good Night, Marija (Part II)

Marie Kulisich Webb

April 28, 1930-December 19, 2015

If you came calling in Govert recently, you know Marie Kulisich joined her friend Lorraine Jensen, a voice in the wind blowing through the prairie grass ... returning to the weathered planks of the small house that saw her birth 85 years ago, returning to the prairie she wandered barefoot as a girl, an eyewitness to the history of Govert Township in Harding County, South Dakota.

Marie's roots meander deep in her family's history, as deep as the roots of the grass blowing on the prairie, that dense tangle gripping the soil in defense of the legendary Harding County wind.* Her roots claim Marie as a daughter of the prairie, but her roots also frame her as the daughter of immigrants. Marie's parents were born a world away from the Kulisich homestead in Govert, South Dakota.

Miko Kulisich chose America in 1903, and Nike Miljas set out on the same ocean journey in 1914, as "Austrians" from that part of the world today again called Croatia. In South Dakota, Mitchell and Nikla both filed for homestead and naturalization papers in quick succession, so relinquishing the label of "Austrian" and becoming "Yugoslavian" after World War I had less meaning for them than for their families who remained in Dubrovnik. Neither Mitch nor Nikla knew a free and independent Croatia, not when they were born, not at any time before their deaths. Freedom was what they found in South Dakota, what they gave to their children.

Nevertheless, with Croatia in her blood, Marie never tired of pictures of rocky ridges leaning into the deep blue of the Adriatic Sea, nor did she tire of baking her mother's strudio or propping up Croatian cookbooks for inspiration. Marie marveled over images of large rosemary bushes growing wild, but the Croatian influence did not end in the kitchen or along the shore where the sea began.

Mitch and Nikla were Catholic, as was everyone they knew in their homeland. Nikla's Catholic traditions were easily transported with the few possessions she carried aboard the four funnel ocean liner called the SS France, a ship hauntingly reminiscent of the SS Titanic. Two years later on July 8, 1916, Mitch and Nikla were married at Saint Joseph's Catholic Church in Lead, South Dakota. Nikla became the custodian of the faith on the Kulisich homestead, as Mitch preferred shepherding his sheep to praying the Rosary. Without even a circuit priest to rely on, Nikla did what she could to assure her children would never lose the reminder of their Catholic origins, no matter where their faith would take them as adults.

Mass was the order of the day when the Kulisich family traveled to Lead, to visit family and friends in Slav Alley. Nikla's children were baptized in the same church where she and Mitch were married. Nikla saw to that. Nikla also assured her children were named according to Catholic tradition.

The uninitiated might dismiss the names Nikla chose for her children as simple, old-fashioned, unimaginative: Ann, John, Tony, Marie. Not only were these names not simple, they were complicated with meaning. All of Nikla's children had saints' names. Nikla saw to that. Nikla made sure each of her children was branded with a name carrying expectation, giving each child a personal role model. In her home, Nikla raised children named for Saint Ann, Saint John, Saint Anthony, and Mary the Holy Mother.

Catholics have a strong devotion to the Holy Mother, so naming a daughter Mary, Marie, or Marija is no middling matter. Bearing the name of Marie would be both blessing and increased obligation, as the Holy Mother loves with a perfect love. For those who have lost their own mothers, and those who have been unloved, under-loved, or loved imperfectly, the Holy Mother becomes just that, the perfect mother. How could this little girl, born to the prairie, be expected to live up to the model set by the Holy Mother?

Nikla was at her strongest, at her very best, when protecting her children. Nikla oriented her daughter, teaching Marie the compassionate arts by example. In her turn, young Marie practiced tenderness on the bum lambs, babies themselves abandoned by their mothers. And she befriended the dogs and the cats, the saddle horse, the goats, especially the goat Marie described in later years as "that silly goat who ran with the band of sheep". Nikla's lessons were reinforced by young Marie's playmates, the West sisters, and their kind and loving mother.

Marie and "that silly goat"

When all grown up, Marie married widower Warren Webb and together they raised two sons, the first son left motherless when his father was widowed, followed by a second son, both sons loved as deeply as a mother could love. The devotion Brant and David Webb have shown their mother as adults is ample testimony that Marie loved well.

Marie was not one to draw attention to herself. She was not loud, not flashy. She was not proud, not demanding. Marie tended to what needed tending, wasting nothing ... nothing, including time. She tended to her husband and sons, her home, the family business. And when that was done, Marie tended to her muse - orange paint transformed into graceful loping poppies on china, paint dabbed on porcelain breathing life into dolls with wistful eyes and tentative smiles. Marie pieced colorful fabrics into whimsical figures on quilts, embroidered flowers on scraps of fabric, fired glass capturing bubbles perfectly adrift. Marie's art also surprised and pleased in the prose poems she wrote for her family. She created all these out of love, adding beauty to the lives of the people she loved.

Marie's family grew beyond her sons and daughters-in-law, beyond her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, extended further, reaching out to friends who needed her encouragement. Then followed the years when her excursions from the cottage by the pond became increasingly infrequent. But even then Marie had a mission and a ministry ... Marie had a telephone ministry and a ministry of prayer until the day she breathed her last breath. Marie listened. Marie observed. Marie comforted. She was a master of the compassionate arts. Her mother would be proud.

How did this little girl, born to the prairie, measure up to the model set by the Holy Mother? After a lifetime of meeting each day with the desire to serve, what better legacy can Marie Kulisich Webb leave than "She Loved Well".

Gentle woman, quiet light,

Morning star, so strong and bright,

Gentle Mother, peaceful dove,

Teach us wisdom, teach us love.

Good night, my dear friend, good night.

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate

*The root system of prairie grass furls, and loops, and twists deep below the surface of the soil to depths reaching 10 feet and more, creating a thick mat of root-snarled soil. These naturally occurring grasses are perfectly suited to prairie land subject to drought, like Harding County - at these depths the roots tap sufficient moisture to maintain life and growth. Although plowing an acreage of land was required for ownership under the Homestead Act, widespread crop systems were not successful in the area of Govert Township, and those who remained on the land reverted to grazing cattle and sheep, largely returning cultivated land to natural prairie by the middle of the 1930's.

[Written with appreciation for the friendship of Marie Kulisich Webb, for her memories, and her companionship as I recorded the history of Govert, South Dakota. I delight in the choice Marie made to become computer literate. Without our computers, exchanging information would have been slower, as would building the foundation for our friendship. Without her taking this leap in her 70s, my finding Marie would have been harder, although I'm convinced we would have met. A year after Marie and I first made contact, Skip Wiest, whose sister married Marie's son, David, wrote to tell me that I needed to talk to his sister's mother-in-law. Skip was another who loved the history of Harding County and he is gone now, too. Those historians who remain continue to preserve their history in memory of those who have passed, so as to give another generation the strength of deeper roots. And an equal desire to continue where we left off.]

[Photo credit Marie Kulisich Webb. Used with permission] 

Good Night, Marija (Part I)

What fun we've had, Marija, exchanging morning emails for almost eight years. That's how the deepest of friendships are made, two like-minded people exchanging ideas day after day. Two people rejoicing when the dawn bloomed bright in the eastern sky and in our hearts. One cheer-leading the other the mornings you preferred an after breakfast nap, or the matters of the world interfered with my writing. Every morning was a good morning.

Our friendship was foretold when you posted a note on the RootsWeb Internet message board in 2005, an inquiry about the Govert School. Then the snow of three winters fell on your cottage by the pond before I stumbled upon your message. I found you 10 days before your 78th birthday. "What a nice surprise!" you responded to my email, "Thank you for writing!"

After that, you shared your memories, a tomboy growing up in Govert, and I shared my research. You gifted me with answers to nagging questions and details long elusive. Our friendship started out as a long interview, a digital visit over coffee each morning.

Memories that good begged to be recorded, and not many months passed before I surprised you again, this time with your written family history, my first Govert publication. Later, when I began publishing "Thru Prairie Grass", you were the best of boosters, just like Govert Van der Boom and Charles Laflin were the best of boosters for Govert Township. Everything I wrote was, in your opinion, "the best yet".

"Good morning, Marija!", I'd write at the beginning of each day.

The good mornings we shared were many, but no more.

Good night, my dear friend, good night.

Marie Kulisich Webb

April 28, 1930-December 19, 2015

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate