LYLE – Last weekend, it was Red Oak Grove Lutheran Church’s turn to shine.

Friday, September 17, 1999

LYLE – Last weekend, it was Red Oak Grove Lutheran Church’s turn to shine. This weekend, it is Six Mile Grove’s turn.

Red Oak, a rural Austin church located near Corning, observed its 140th anniversary last Sunday. Now, Six Mile Grove can celebrate that occasion.

The 140th anniversary celebration will begin at Sunday morning worship services, where a part of the liturgy used during the 1930s will be used.

Those gathering for the event will join in the sending off of helium-filled balloons just prior to the start of the 10:45 a.m. Sunday service, according to Lydia Mittag, interim pastor for Six Mile Grove and its sister church, Mona Lutheran Church at Mona, Iowa.

Council president David Anderson and Selma Klemsrud will provide the opening welcome and the service will include organ-piano duets by Pam and Kelsey Sampson.

Also, the Rev. Russ Wangen, now retired, but a former Six Mile Grove Lutheran Church pastor, will sing a Norwegian hymn in – what else? – Norwegian.

The congregation’s response with three stanzas of the song in English as well as several traditional hymns will also be a part of the special music for the historic service.

Glen Aanonson will be reading his commemorative address, "The Departed Pioneers" followed by the morning service given by Wangen. He will weave faces of the life of the church’s originator, the Rev. C. L. Clausen, into the broader message of the faith of the generations who have belonged to the congregation.

Special guests will include the Revs. Barbara Finley-Shea of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Lyle, and Einar Unseth, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church, London. Both are scheduled to speak during the meal that follows the morning worship service.

Anyone who has not purchased the $6 per plate catered meal and who would still like to join in the fellowship is asked to call Mary Slindee at 325-4613 to make reservations.

Six Mile Grove was permanently organized in 1859 by a prairie pioneer, Rev. Clausen, the minister who organized more than 20 churches in the Upper Midwest.

First Lutheran at St. Ansgar, Iowa, was the first, but Six Mile Grove has the distinction of being the third, ranking second to Bear Creek Lutheran Church, rural Grand Meadow, as the oldest in Mower County.

Bear Creek Lutheran held its first services in 1856. Then, Six Mile Grove and Red Oak Grove came into being three years later.

Clausen created Lutheran churches as far south as Joice, Iowa, as far west as Estherville, Iowa and north to Minnesota and Wisconsin. He was called to Red Oak Grove to preach after it organized under another pastor.

Six Mile Grove is something to be cherished, it members say.

It is the "home" church to many local families, including as many as six generations.

Glen Aanonson’s family has belonged since 1918 and he was the chairman of the congregation’s 125th and 135th anniversaries.

He and his wife, Irene, were married in the church parsonage and their two sons, Leland and Larry, were baptized and confirmed in the church. Larry and Jeff Helle took it upon themselves to create and install a new church steeple a few years ago.

Today, the silver-colored steeple rising above the red-brick house of worship nestled in a grove of pine trees is one of the first sites visitors see traveling east from Lyle on Pine street and a township gravel road.

Larry Aanonson is a grave-digger for six cemeteries, including Six Mile Grove’s in which many of the first settlers in the area are buried.

Glen Aanonson, the unofficial church historian, spends a lot of his time research both the life of Clausen and the churches he created on the Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin prairies.

Jeremy Sampson, son of Jerry and Diane Sampson, who live near the church, undertook a project to map and identify every grave site in the church cemetery. He earned the Eagle Scout Award for his efforts and the undying gratitude of the congregation.

Glen Aanonson was the impetus for the Boy Scout’s work.

"I started one day, finding all the names on tombstones made of soft rock over a century ago," he said. "They were so faint that they could not be read. I traced them with a pencil to see who was buried there. Something like that shouldn’t be forgotten and then Jeremy Sampson did the rest."

"It’s the only church I’ve ever gone to and I hope to be around for the 150th anniversary, too," said the retired farmer.