Small World

Many years ago - in an earlier life - I attended a wedding at what was then St. Francis Catholic Church north of Brussels.  Little did I know that years later I would take up residence in this community founded by Belgian immigrants.

The unincorporated community of Kolberg is at the edge of the Belgian settlement and is home to a smaller number of individuals of German descent.  County Road D Connects this settlement to Forestville and Brussels.  Kolberg is home to Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church.  I attended a funeral there today.  

Over the course of approximately three decades a wedding and a funeral book-ending a great deal of change in between.  What a journey.

At the service today was sung a hymn - Old Rugged Cross. Not universally-known this common hymn has its roots in the Door peninsula as well.  The Reverend George Bennard of Sturgeon Bay Friends Church composed and introduced this song for the first time in January of 1913.

Maybe I'm just feeling a little melancholy at the present but this is a pile of evidence of what a small world we live in.  And sometimes you haven't a clue at any particular moment in time.

You can learn more about Friends Community Church and the Old Rugged Cross here and Wisconsin's recognition of this moment in history here.