A Full Day

Yesterday was our first full day in Hartington, so it was jam-packed full of activities. We were busy from early morning until early evening, as there’s no shortage of people and places to see on this trip. We started the day with worship at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hartington, one of the parishes of our host, Pastor Bob Bryan.



Afterwards, we enjoyed some great conversation and fellowship in true Lutheran style by gathering in the church basement. I mention the church basement because it’s always something that I’ve heard about, but we don’t have any basements in California, so I’ve never experienced fellowship down there. We had an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the entire church and tell them where we’re from. The fact that I’m from southern California but visiting Nebraska during the worst winter storm in 30 or 40 years is always good for a few laughs. We also skipped over to Pastor Bob’s other parish, also named Trinity Lutheran Church, in the nearby town of Crofton, where we had a chance to mingle with the people.

During the afternoon, we visited the Argo Hotel, a restored Victorian-era hotel in Crofton. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places and is widely known as a haunted house because it was once used as a sanitorium for cancer patients. I can’t report any ghost sightings, but numerous people have reported seeing ghosts and spirits over the years. We also visited another local farming family. This gentleman and his wife are in their mid-eighties and still going strong in keeping up the farmstead. It’s very impressive how the hard-working farm ethic never really leaves people.

We kept ourselves hydrated throughout the day by enjoying some delicious chocolate milk and strawberry milk from a local dairy. We just took the bottles with us from site to site and drank them as we went. How did we keep them cold, you ask? Look around, as there is no shortage of snow.



A couple of quick pictures…here you can see just how high the snow has built up. As I said previously, the locals are saying that this is the worst storm that they’ve seen since the late sixties.



Also, I’m staying now for three nights in the town of Coleridge, about ten miles outside of Hartington. The town has a population of about 600 people. Phil Hefner, professor emeritus of systematic theology at LSTC, traces his roots to this town; in fact, he still has numerous family members who live here. A relative of his owns this shop.