I remember when I was a little girl and I was at home from school, so it must have been in summer time. My Mom was serving this month, and had the table all set for dinner or supper. Don’t know which it was. The ladies were in the living room and then Rev. Kuene came with his horse and bugy and must have tied it up to the mail box post. Don’t know how the ladies all got there; I suppose their husbands brought them with a horse and buggy too. Guess I didn’t see them come. Maybe some had a Ford car then already too, and their husbands brought them. Then for awhile my Mom didn’t belong to Ladies Aid. Maybe this was when we be longed to the Boltonville church, as that is where they got married. In fact they were the first couple to be married there. I remember being in the Christmas program there, just to speak a piece. Then when I was old enough to go to instructions they changed to the Silver Creek church because then they and the Wilke’s could exchange driving us to the church St. Paul’s for our Saturday morning Instruction Classes. Lester was a year ahead of me. We had to go two years to get confirmed. He and Emily Risse and Vivian Klug still had instructions in German and the rest of us had it in English. So Rev. Kuene also taught us to read German too, since we still had German services every other Sunday. Then we could sing out of the German songbook too. Then I would go by my Grandpa and Grandma Krahn and they had me read from their German Milwaukee Herald the long funny article written about Philip Sauerumpher to them. I enjoyed that as it was really funny. Don’t think I missed a week of going there to their house, just down the road, to do that. Finally the German services were abandoned and now I wouldn’t be able to read the German anymore.

So after I was married and had children my Mom and I joined the Silver Creek Ladies Aid, later called “The Women’s Guild”. When my children were babies, I would bring the buggy along and maybe they would sleep the while. Later when they were older, they maybe stayed home with Dad and Grandpa. We had quite a group of ladies, around 20 or so. Mrs. Merkel played the piano and later I did too. Oh, when we had instructions then Rev. Kuenne played the organ when we would sing. We always had favorite songs. One of our favorites was “What a Friend We Have In Jesus”. We got confirmed in Fall just before school started. We just had Beechwood and Silver Creek kids in our class. It so happened that Boltonville had none that age then. So that year it was Beechwood’s turn to have the Confirmation. We girls wore arm bouquets. Mildred Mehlos and I had dresses alike and our first time in high heeled shoes. The mothers had to decide if they would let us have them, and they did. There were 11 of us; four from Beechwood were two sets of twins. They were Orville and Orlan Reysen and Elroy and Marlowe Glass. One of the Glass boys and myself are the only ones living yet, I think. Don’t know about Willard Bremser. So that was 5 boys and 6 girls. Lillian Deckliver who lived in Adell, and Jeanette Hammen from Beechwod; who later was Ronnie Risse’s Mother-in-Law. And her daughter and my son Norbert Degnitz were confirmed together also Ronnie. We took pictures of the four of us. Then there was Virginia and Ramona Schulz. Virginia later became a Silver Creek school teacher. Last but not least were Mildred Mehlos and Dorothy Kahn (which was me). Mildred and I had been good friends from little girls on, as our paents visited together. When I took piano lessons my Mom would visit at the Meholos’s while my Dad took me to my lesson a little ways from there to Olga Seider, later Olga Eberhardt, Jim Eberhardt’s Mom. Then when I was through we also visited there at the Mehlos’s. Then Mildred and I would play duets on the piano and her Father would play the violin. He was Gustave Mehlos and played in the Mehlos Band.

In l941, I married Eugene Degnitz at St. Paul’s church in Silver Creek. We had two children, Norbert Degnitz and Janet Degnitz. Then Eugene died and I later married Lester Wilke (who I had gone to Instructions with, and also to grade school, also in Silver Creek.

My Mom insisted we have the children baptized inour home instead of at church because it might be bad weather to take the babies out. They were both confirmed in Silver Creek though. That is, the questioning was there, but Norbert got confirmed in Boltonville, and Janet in Beechwood. I also had questioning in Silver Creek but confirmed in Beechwood.

Eugene and I had been married 22 years when he died and the funeral was at St. Paul’s in Silver Creek. Lester Wilke and I were married almost 20 years when he died and his funeral was also at Silver Creek’s St. Paul’s church.

Norbert had married Muriel Verhulst in 1961 and therefore belonged to her church on Zion Methodist in Batavia. After 40 years of marriage Norbert died and Muriel wanted to donate $1000.00 of Memorial Money to the Silver Creek church; but it had just burned down. So I said that maybe she could donate it towards a Cemetery Sign. which she did.

Janet got married in the Luthern church in Newburg where her in-laws insisted she attend.

Janet died March 24, 1993 and Norbert died on Jan. 2, 1992. Janet is buried in the Silver Creek Cemetery and Norbert is buried in the Zion Cemetery. Norbert was a carpenter after high school and had built a cabinet in the side room behnd the pulpit in Silver Creek. He also played the trumpet accompanied by Gert Risse on the organ occasinaly at St. Pauls when he was still going in high school. Norbert and Janet were also in the choir for a short time.

I had felt really bad when my Great Grandson, Justin Luft called me to tell me that the Silver Creek church had got struck by lightening and was burning the morning of May 20, 2003. I cried and drove there later and cried while I was walking around it. I was married there twice, My children were both confirmed there as well as I was. Both of my husband’s funerals were there, as also were my parents funerals. When Lester’s funeral was going to be the outside stairs bad been removed ready for a new one which they hurried to do. They did not put the landing in as was planned so it wouldn’t be as close to the road. So when the pallbearers carried the coffin down with the help of the undertakers on each end; the body slid down and they almost dropped it, but didn’t. So I used the donations to re-build the stairs and put the landing in the middle again.

After the fire, they had saved the bell from our steeple and hope to use it along with the bells from the Beechwood and Boltonville churches to display in a steeple like structure at our new church. Our new church is located near Boltonville, on Hwy. 144 and 28. We are on the Washington side.

Donald Voeks used wood from the burned stairs of the church to make wooden flower vases with some burned spots on them to sell for donations towards our new church. Dick Junge also salvaged the stained glass from one of the stained glass windows and wood from the hardwood flooring to make picture frames with the stained glass inside; also to sell for donations toward the new church.

I couldn’t help with painting etc. so I decided to donate a “Lord’s Last Supper” picture that I embroidered about 25 years ago when I lived in Plymouth.