2024 #52Ancestors #Week13 Worship

Among the many denominations that came into being after Martin Luther nailed his thesis to a famous door, was the Dutch Reformed Church with an official founding date of 1571. The earliest record I have for my Dutch ancestors in the Netherlands in from the late 1600s, and many extended family members are still parishioners at churches in NW Iowa and beyond.

My great grandmother Elsie (Alice) Ten Kley Winkel was a faithful adherent for all of her days, her baptismal record found in her childhood homeland, Emmons County, ND where she appears to have been baptized (or at least recorded) with a number of her siblings. The first Dutch Reformed Church in NW Iowa was founded in 1871, 300 years after its European inception. I know very little about her faith life, or of the traditions of her church except that this sect was quite conservative. Women were forbidden from cutting their hair, and dancing and music were likely on the chopping block as well. My grandmother remembered long ago her dislike of her duty of washing her mother’s long hair. Grandma herself never had hair below her shoulders, at least not to my knowledge.

*from the website of the First Reformed Church, Sioux Center, Iowa

Peter Winkel, Elsie’s husband, wrote of his upbringing in the Calvinistic tradition and of learning its' cathecism, but chose a different path while the children were still young and all at home, causing a considerable amount of tension in the home.  I’ll write about this in detail at a later date.

The couple’s four children all chose paths of their own as adults, likely due to a variety of factors not the least of which were the influences of World War II and wider views of the world.

Dorothy, the eldest, adhered to her husband Richard's German Methodist faith (at least early in the marriage. They were divorced after 10 years together). Dick and wife Mary were among the congregants of the Methodist Church. 

David Winkel married Carole, a Catholic, while he was in the Navy. They had 9 children, and their oldest daughter was a nun for many years. Margaret married a Norwegian Lutheran, and she and Grandpa (Clint) were members of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis for many decades. I have fond memories of coloring in a pew next to Grandma, and of visiting the Sunday School. Both lived in a care facility named for Martin Luther himself.

Back in Iowa, the town of Sioux Center where Grandma spent her childhood, has a mere 8,000 people, but 5 Dutch Reformed Churches.  No less than three of Grandma’s 50 first cousins (sons of Uncle Henry) became ordained pastors of this denomination in North Dakota. Other cousins served as deacons.