Local church to celebrate 160 years
The North Waseca Lutheran Church congregation will celebrate 160 years of worship this Sunday, Sept. 23, with a special service at 10 a.m., various activities, and a noon meal.
The event commemorates the crisp and windy, autumn day in 1858 when a group of 23 Norwegian settlers met on a hill top with a minister from western Wisconsin to form a new congregation on the edge of the prairie.
According to current congregation member Dan Forrest, the pioneers were relatively new to Blooming Grove and Iosco Townships at the time.
"The common threads that held these recent arrivals together was their Norwegian heritage and the Lutheran religion. Thus was born the North Waseca Lutheran Church--the little church on a hill," Forrest explained.