Below are a series of articles that told the story of Peace during our congregation’s 75th Anniversary Year in 2019.  Authored by Boots Winterstein and Eldon Olson.

On November 24, 2024 we marked the 80th Anniversary of our Congregation’s mission in West Seattle. 

ARTICLE 1: A PIECE OF PEACE HISTORY

The first of a series of occasional articles on the story of Peace as it heads into its 75^th anniversary year. The writer, Boots Winterstein, describes herself as a “recently-adopted member of Peace, eager to discover more of the family history,” who is enjoying perusing Peace’s boxes of clippings and photos. Boots spent most of her childhood in West Seattle and remembers “Papa” Karlstrom in his later years. This first article arose out of her curiosity to know more about what may have led the Karlstroms to establish a Sunday School in the Gatewood area in the 1920s.

PREQUEL

The 1920s in West Seattle meant summer houses and resorts on the beach, model Ts and rutted roads, streetcars, forested hillsides, moving picture theaters, and a new trestle bridge connecting the peninsula to the mainland. Some old-timers remembered the good times fondly. Others called young, growing West Seattle a “spiritually neglected town.”

But there were churches:  Congregational, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Church of Latter Day Saints—many begun as Sunday Schools by established churches on the mainland—and three Lutheran Churches.  Significantly, all but one of the congregations were in the more established part of West Seattle, north of “the Junction,” where two streetcar lines met at Alaska and California Avenues.

The geographical exception was the brand new St. James Lutheran Church, an Icelandic Lutheran group, near Roxbury. Strong ethnic identities marked all three Lutheran congregations; Hope Lutheran, though English-speaking, was in the German tradition. The other Lutheran church on the peninsula, today called First Lutheran Church of West Seattle, conducted its services in Norwegian.

When Swedish Lutheran immigrants Pastor Otto and Alva Karlstrom settled in the Gatewood area, their church home became Swedish Lutheran church (later renamed Gethsemane Lutheran Church) at 9^th and Stewart in Seattle—many rutted, muddy roads and a trestle bridge away.  The Swedish Lutheran church also supported the brand new Lutheran Sailors and Loggers Mission in Pioneer Square which had just been founded by Alva and Otto.

The same generous spirit that prompted their founding of the mission in Pioneer Square may well have been behind Otto’s and Alva’s Sunday School. Early Sunday Schools were marked by a strong sense of Evangelicalism—a desire to share the Gospel. Sunday Schools were often separate from churches and frequently had their own organizations, even their own buildings. There are indications that this separation from the worshipping communities may have been the source of the downtown Swedish Lutheran Church’s reluctance to support the Karlstrom’s fledgling Sunday School in West Seattle.

Sunday Schools in those years often met Sunday afternoons rather than Sunday mornings. It’s likely the Karlstroms had very full Sundays, trekking several miles back and forth for morning worship, and then gathering neighborhood children together for Bible stories in the afternoon. It was obviously a true “labor of love.”

But Pastor Otto and Alva were called away to other work, and, not having official church support, the Karlstrom’s Sunday School ended a short time later. Twenty years later, the Karlstrom family name shows up again, this time as founding members of the newly-organized Peace Lutheran Church up the hill. This time the mission among Swedish Lutherans in West Seattle had the enthusiastic support of the congregation downtown. More about that next time!

ARTICLE 2: BEGINNINGS – What’s in a Name?

This is the second in a series of 75^th anniversary articles by Boots Winterstein and Eldon Olson. Today we turn from the 1920s, when Swedish Lutheran immigrants Alva and Otto Karlstrom began a Sunday School in the Gatewood area (see the October 2018 edition of Peace Notes), to the 1940s.

Fourth Sunday of Advent, 2018.  I spot Jan Stenberg in the narthex.  “Jan, I’ve been looking at photos and clippings about Peace’s history.  I’ve seen many pictures of you!  When did you come to Peace?”  Big smile!  “1949!  We newly-weds took a train from Michigan to follow family who’d moved to Seattle.  When we visited the little white frame church on the hill, we knew we were home.”

And to think only five years before the newlyweds arrived, the corner of 39^th and Thistle was an empty lot, Peace Lutheran congregation didn’t exist, and the world was at war!  How had a new congregation and a beautiful worship facility come together in such a short, tumultuous time?

Wartime Seattle meant newcomers by the thousands, recently arrived for jobs in the burgeoning defense industries in the Duwamish valley.  It meant painful separation from loved ones back home and far away in Africa, Asia, and Europe.  Wartime meant the draft.  Rationing—gasoline, rubber, sugar, butter, cheese, flour, fish, canned goods, shoes, paper.  Five-minute limit on long-distance calls.  Women in trousers working alongside men in defense industry assembly lines. Newsreels at the movies.  “White Christmas” and “I’ll Be Seeing You” on the radio.  Re-location of Puget Sound Japanese Americans to inland “camps.”  And, by the time a tiny group of people met to consider starting a Lutheran congregation in southwest Seattle, news of unspeakable horrors emerging from places called Birkenau and Auschwitz.

West Seattle had spread south to accommodate newcomers desperate for housing.  “War box” houses popped up alongside 35^th.   Already in 1942, the Federal Works Agency had built 1300 units of housing in the area known as High Point to house defense factory workers.  Realtors speculated that growth would continue at war’s end.  Seattle had been “discovered.”

In 1943, the Home Missions Board of the Augustana Synod of the Lutheran Church (the national group with which Swedish Lutheran Church downtown, now renamed Gethsemane, was affiliated) agreed to take on southwest Seattle as its area of mission.  By December a Sunday School was begun.  November 28, 1944 saw the formal organization of Peace Lutheran Church with 46 charter members, among them the Karlstrom family, Gethsemane members, who over 20 years before had begun a Sunday School in the Gatewood neighborhood.

December, 1944, was especially significant: the first worship services of the new congregation and the installation of Peace’s first pastor, Luther Anderson.  In short order the congregation bought both a parsonage on 35^th and property at 39^th and Thistle.  On July 7, 1945–in the interval between the ending of the war in Europe and the U.S. detonation of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico—the newly-named Peace Lutheran Church (surely a name born of faith as well as hope) broke ground for its future chapel.

However, there was one nearly insurmountable obstacle to the building plans: in wartime and its immediate aftermath, how could they obtain building materials?  In a move which can only be described as Spirit-led, the Peace community found a solution: they built their new chapel with salvaged wood from army barracks which they themselves had demolished.

March 3, 1946, built solely by volunteers and one contracted carpenter, Peace, the “church on the hill,” was dedicated to the glory of God.

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2: 4b)

ARTICLE 3: Inclusivity and Diversity at Peace

This is the third in a series of 75^th anniversary articles by Boots Winterstein and Eldon Olson. Today Eldon traces our Congregation’s journey toward a more diverse expression of humanity.

At its origins in 1944, Peace was located in a neighborhood which was then regarded on the city’s fringe. The neighborhood consisted largely of nuclear families living in “single-occupancy” homes (as the city codes of the day specified) – mom, dad, and kids, with schools, churches, and public resources located conveniently within easy commuting distance.  A glance at the photo of the commissioning of the new congregation reveals happy young families, lots of young children, all-male leadership (Board of Administration), and generally well-dressed models of that generation’s “ideal” American families. Congregational life included a large Sunday School (325 children enrolled by 1954), small groups for stay-at-home moms, and a well-supplied nursery for infants.

This model was repeated countless times throughout post-war America. The motto was “Growth!”— spreading the Gospel through the proliferation of new congregations in rapidly-growing new urban housing developments. The notion of “inclusivity,” whenever it came up, simply meant that everyone within the neighborhood was welcomed. That probably included everyone in the Peace neighborhood.

But perhaps not considered was that “inclusivity” might involve diversity. As the culture of our neighborhood changed, people aged as their children left home, properties appreciated in worth, leaving limited-income persons out of the local market, more highly priced neighborhoods “with spectacular mountain views” joined the middle-income housing supply, people of varying abilities moved in, families who had two moms or two dads bought houses. There was an influx, particularly after the Korean War, of Asian, South-sea Islanders, Hispanic persons.  Apartment houses replaced single-family homes along the major traffic corridors. Property “covenants” were challenged in the courts, allowing “persons of color” to buy homes in certain city neighborhoods where they had previously been denied homes. Schools were challenged to include programs for children with “alternate learning styles and abilities.” All of this has happened within the lifetime of Peace.

Inclusivity has always been easy for Peace – diversity has been more complex.  Within memory, Peace had become a congregation with few children or younger families, no ethnic or racial variety, generally static or declining membership. Then some changes began to take place–changes that were prompted by changing the paradigm from inclusivity to diversity—reaching out to our neighborhood, rather than simply opening our doors:

• Let’s change our building so that the neighborhood has full access to the building itself. Let’s build an entry that encourages the use of our structure for the general needs of our neighbors, a public space with an outside patio.
• Let’s deliberately call a pastor from an ethnic minority so that a Samoan presence becomes part of our congregation. This plan, though earnestly engaged, proved difficult, painful, and unfruitful.
• Let’s add staff to lead youth and family ministries, reorient our worship and fellowship, and slowly change the age distribution curve of our congregation.
• Let’s make a statement to our neighbors about our commitment to environmental and ecological issues. Let’s add raingardens and cisterns, solar panels, a creation-centered focus to our worship life. Let’s make our concerns more than an internal conversation.
• Probably our most effective deliberate act: let’s make an intentional outreach to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons. Let’s align ourselves with a population that has been culturally maligned and marginalized.  

That last action, studied and planned over many years of congregational reflection, has had great significance. Once we decided that diversity of sexual orientation is our public stance, the doors seemed to open.  We no longer think of ourselves as “cradle” Lutherans; struggles and conversations about diversity in genders and orientations have opened windows through which some very different breezes have refreshed our life together. We’ve increasingly realized that greater diversity not only changes the way our congregation faces its neighborhood, it also enriches the quality of our life together.  We are diminished by any lack of diverse voices in our midst.

The most delightful element of diversity in recent years has been the resurgence of young families with their young children who reflect a good deal more racial and ethnic diversity than at our mid-20th century founding. The whole congregation seems renewed by the weekly presence of 15 to 25 small children at their special time of worship. And we now have a partner in our building space, a congregation of Korean language, Seattle Covenant Community, led by Pastor Ko. 

It has been a long and sometimes difficult journey for Peace – 75 years that represent struggles of our nation and our neighborhoods. But we’ve learned some very profound lessons along the way.

ARTICLE 4: The “FLOW” that is Peace

This is the fourth in a series of 75^th anniversary articles by Boots Winterstein and Eldon Olson. Today Eldon speaks of three distinct confluences that have contributed to our Congregation’s journey.

We’re familiar with several images for the church – a building certainly – ours at the corner of 39^th and Thistle. Or perhaps the more literal Biblical image – a gathering, a collection of those who are called out. That’s probably the most common theological meaning for the church.

But think for a minute of a church such as Peace as a river – something flowing through our neighborhood for the last 75 years. During the course of that “flow,” some people have come – some have left, some ideas have “floated” – some have “sunk.”  No one has ever drowned here, but we’ve certainly been watered by occasional tears of grief or joy, many of us have known torrential cataracts – yet we’ve all been splashed with Baptismal grace.

Most of us in the congregation have flowed here from somewhere else. We usually think of ourselves as joining a congregation. But most of us have gradually flowed into the Peace river. We came from yet other rivers, streams, or springs – tributaries, so to speak. As we began to flow into Peace, we brought with us certain flavors of our sources, flavors which contribute to the vitality and “taste” of Peace.

The pioneer sources of Peace came from Gethsemane Lutheran church in downtown Seattle. The former Swedish Synod, Augustana, asked Gethsemane to encourage some of her West Seattle members to form a new church. First a Sunday School, then a small group convened by a parish worker, meeting in a portable classroom of a local grade school; then, in 1944, a formal congregation with a permanent address and a called pastor (75 years ago this November). The flow from Gethsemane, challenged and supported by the Augustana Synod, consisted mostly of young families who were occupying an emerging neighborhood in West Seattle. They invited neighbors, who themselves came from several denominational “streams,” to join them to form a new congregation. They first built a chapel, then an enlarged church building.  The selection of the name “Peace” coincided with the hopes and prayers that accompanied the gradual ending of World War II.

 In more recent years, there have been at least three distinct confluences that have contributed to the present congregation. During the late ‘80s, continuing through the ‘90s, First Lutheran Church of West Seattle went through some “troubled waters,” bringing a significant group of neighborhood members to Peace. First Lutheran was formed in the early 20^th century by the former Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC), a Synod which embraced largely Norwegian ethnic origins. Peace itself had gradually shrunk to a much smaller congregation, while many from First had been congregational leaders. So the “flow” from First was both welcomed and renewing.

In 2005, St. James Lutheran Church of White Center neighborhood closed its doors, transferring yet another group of very active members to Peace. St. James’ history had been with Lutherans of the Icelandic tradition, and its ministries had been largely formed by the influx of immigrant and low-income persons who came to that neighborhood with marked needs for social ministry and family services. Formed in 1928, St. James was served for much of its history by the Rev. Kolbeinn Simundsson, its founding pastor. What was once the St. James facility in White Center is now an Islamic Mosque and school, serving the Somali immigrant community of Seattle.

Calvary Lutheran, a congregation of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, began in 1926 as a mission station of Hope Lutheran Church in West Seattle and organized as a separate congregation in 1933. Originally housed in the church-looking building at 32^nd and Trenton, the congregation established a school and church at 35^th and Cloverdale. Although the membership of Calvary declined, interest in ecumenical partnerships and social ministry steadily increased, so that, when the church properties were sold in 2006, a worshipping community continued through its ministries at The Kenney Retirement Home and the distribution of its assets with its community ministry partners. Eventually, nearly a million and a half dollars were distributed to 18 congregations and agencies in support of ministries of justice and mercy. Peace inherited a dozen former Calvary members and a critical endowment for social ministries.

Over the years, there were Lutherans of other stripes and ethnicities, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Methodists, and Congregationalists who “flowed” our way.  In recent years, the congregation has continued to grow.  Unlike most congregations, our average age is decreasing as younger families become part of our “flow.”  (We’ll have more about those current trends in a later Peace Notes article.)

The history of Peace embraces the varieties of “flows” from which we are comprised. There’s a current adage that congregations without “flow” tend to “rust out.”  It might also be said that they tend to lack flavor. As the salmon of the Pacific seem to recognize that there’s a flavor to each tributary, this river rejoices in the many flavors that have enriched our community.  Though complex and sometimes challenging (we each seem to remember our former streams fondly), Peace has been able, over its history, to accommodate and treasure the richness of this river of faith.

ARTICLE 5: PROVIDERS, PROCLAIMERS, PRESIDERS, The Role of Women at Peace through the Years

This is the fifth in a series of 75^th anniversary articles by Boots Winterstein and Eldon Olson.  Today Boots traces the evolving role of women within Peace and the larger church.

“The twelve were with [Jesus], as well as certain women…who provided for them out of their resources.”  – Luke 8:1-3

CHAPTER 1. The scene is harrowing: “Three women made coffee and sandwiches in the new kitchen, standing in three inches of seepage water, cooking on hot plates balanced precariously on apple boxes.” Describing the 1946 dedication activities of the new chapel, the writer opined: “We like to feel that this fine spirit is typical of all Guild activities.”

Indeed! The women had their act together, organizing the women’s auxiliary weeks before the official organization of the congregation. From the start, they raised money for the new chapel, fed the volunteer builders, and staffed a Sunday morning nursery (sometimes in their own homes). They emptied their treasury to purchase two hams for the congregation’s first anniversary. They prepared meals: Men’s Club, Father-Son Banquets, Communion.   

As Peace grew rapidly in the baby boom years, women taught Sunday School and planned social activities: holiday celebrations, Mariners’ parties, children’s activities, plays.  As longtime member Connie Benjamin recalls, of then and now: “Peace is my home.” Her mother, Shirley Swallow, played a major role in making the Peace of the 1950s and ‘60s an extension of home, perhaps a reminder of the Midwest congregations where many of the parents had grown up. Peace became a community of stability and connection after the disruptions of WW II and the Korean Conflict, amid the fears of the Cold War.

Women were voting members, a decision made in 1907 by the Augustana Synod. Women appear occasionally in Peace’s lists of congregational leaders, usually as some type of secretary—financial (Jan Stenberg, take a bow!) and office (June Eaton). The business of the congregation was led by a Board of Administration, consisting of Deacons and Trustees. A review of congregational yearbooks from 1948-65 showed all male names for the Board of Administration. But…what’s this? A paper insert into the ‘64-’65 directory gives a new list of officers to replace the officers elected in their annual meeting just a few months before.  A Church Council had replaced the Board of Administration, and it included (gasp) women! What happened? And why?

CHAPTER 2.

Aha! A look at the previous year’s directory, ‘62-’63, shows an elected position: Delegate to Final Synod of Augustana Lutheran Church. A bit more digging reveals that June 28, 1962, four Lutheran bodies, including the Augustana Synod, joined to become the Lutheran Church in America (LCA)—one of the three predecessor bodies of our current Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Prior to the merger, the four bodies had approved three official documents, including an approved Constitution for Congregations which included expanded women’s roles throughout the new church body. 

Why had it taken so long? Were some afraid this might lead to women’s ordination? What would it look like to see a woman presiding at the Lord’s Table? Or to get used to a woman’s voice from the pulpit?

Women’s ordination came to the LCA in November 1970. In a significant “first,” Pastor Sheryl Biegert was installed as pastor of Peace, June, 1991, beginning nine years of strong pastoral leadership, which included increasing accessibility and inclusivity in all its aspects, all part of a forward-looking celebration of Peace’s 50^th anniversary.  Pastor Biegert was truly a groundbreaker for the Peace community.

Remarkable lay professional workers had paved the way: Gladys Peterson who in 1943, on behalf of the Augustana Lutheran Church, made a survey of the Gatewood area and began a Sunday School; Sister Hilda Peterson, a deaconess serving a downtown mission who served the young congregation in a variety of ways; Parish Worker Sandra Bowdish Kreis, now Pastor Sandra Kreis, remembered for her  creative and caring work with youth, 1962-63, whose path after Peace led her to work with street youth, campus ministry, and “Licensed Lay Pastor of Theology” before ordination and pastorates throughout western Washington.  

Chapter 3?

Are we there yet?  Will there be another chapter?  Our Northwest Washington Synod of the ELCA has to date had only male bishops.  Then there’s the presidency of the U.S.  Just sayin’…

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb…Suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. “He is not here, but has risen”…Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.….” – John 24:1-10

ARTICLE 6: Pastors and Interns who have served Peace through the years

This is the sixth in a series of 75^th anniversary articles by Boots Winterstein and Eldon Olson. This month Eldon recalls pastoral leaders who have served Peace over 75 years.

During its 75 years, Peace has been gifted with some outstanding pastors, interns, and lay professionals.  Our more long-term members remember them fondly for the years of service they spent at Peace, with all sorts of anecdotes about congregational events, challenges, and important times of pastoral presence and ministry.  While, for some, their tenure at Peace may have been brief, most of our professional leadership, when leaving Peace, went on to other arenas for ministry. Several had ministries after their Peace years that were very impressive.

Among the ten Seminary Interns who passed through Peace as part of their seminary candidacy processes, six became parish pastors, one (Karis Graham) now serves as a Deputy Director for the US Agency for International Development after a career as a chaplain in the US Navy; another, Sam Giere, is now Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa;  and a third, Thomas Holtey, has become a Chaplain for the Hospice network of the Red River Valley in North Dakota.  Whatever they may have learned about parish ministry while at Peace, they also sensed a freedom to embrace very diverse challenges of pastoral vocation.

Prior to the current ordained pastoral ministry of Erik Kindem, we’ve had nine pastors who served under regular call and another five who have served during long-term interim processes. Most of them are now deceased (Luther Anderson, 1944 to 1949; Ernest Bergeson, 1949 to 1961; John Paulson, 1961 to 1966; Theodore Johnstone, 1967 to 1973; Maynard Kragthorpe, 1973 to 1976; Donna Riley Williams, 2002 to 2004; and most recently Philip Petrasek, 1979-1990).  Two other former Pastors have retired from parishes they served after their Peace years (Carl Moll, 1976-1979 and Sheryl Biegert, 1991-2000).  Peace has also had the services of several very helpful interim and experimental ministries (Pastors Linda Milks, Polaia Mereane Tausili, Gretchen Diers, Linda Nou, and Martha Myers).  Several stories:

Pastor Anderson, our founding pastor, came to Peace directly from Seminary. After he left Peace, he became a leader in refugee resettlement, helping settle immigrants who were displaced by World War II.  He would continue this ministry in New Jersey and Florida parishes, helping resettle boat people from Viet Nam and refugees of the war in Bosnia.  In recognition of his work, he received the “Salt of the Earth” award from the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. During his career, he was directly involved in the resettlement of over 250 refugees.  While he was Pastor of First Lutheran Church in Fort Lauderdale, an estimated 1.2 million meals each year were served to the poor and homeless of that community.

A lay parish worker, Sandra Kreis, served Peace during a break in her college years. Although women were not ordained in those years, she wanted to experience what a career in the service of the church might be like.  She went from Peace to complete her college and, by the time she graduated, seminary to become one of the first ordained women pastors in the Northwest. She has recently retired from her last call at the ELCA church in Aberdeen.

Pastor Theodore Johnstone left Peace to assume pastorates in California, notably in Palo Alto, where he served a large congregation which is the Campus Ministry site for Stanford University.  His son, Theodore Johnston Jr. was ordained to serve several pastoral positions in Southwest Washington, following his father’s interest in the integration of pastoral care with services of mental health. He was a pastoral counselor in the Tacoma area for many years. His daughter recently visited Peace during Christmas season, with rich memories of her family’s heritage at Peace.

Pastor Linda Nou was a much beloved interim pastor, effectively serving a sequence of difficult interim pastor positions in the Western Washington area. She was also fluent in Latvian, and, after her tenure at Peace, became the Pastor of the English language church of the Lutheran World Federation in Riga, Latvi,a during the years when Latvia was struggling to find its independent voice in the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc.

In addition to the history of Peace’s roster of pastors, interims, interns, and parish workers, Peace has also contributed at least three of its youth to ordained pastoral ministry: Dennis Kalweit, Karl Gronberg, and George Beard.

In its 75 year history, Peace has been well-served by professional leadership. Our present pastor, Erik Kindem, is already our longest serving called pastor, lending a note of stability and depth to what have sometimes been short term pastorates. Peace has been able, throughout its history, to have a high regard for its pastors, while valuing their ease of working with gifted laity. For most of us, our sense of vocation has been both enriched and honored by those who have lived out their sense of vocation in professional offices of ministry.

Whether we are laity of Peace, pastors who are regularly called to Peace, or persons who spend time among us in discernment and training for ministry careers, Peace has been well-served by enriching the vocations of others.

ARTICLE 7: TIME FOR A QUIZ!

This latest article in our series takes the form of a quiz.  Test your knowledge of all things Peace!

Over 75 years, the people of Peace have worshiped and served in a variety of settings.  See how many matches you can find to the questions listed.

QUESTIONS

1. First worship site
2. Year Chapel was completed
3. Number of people Chapel could seat
4. First refurbishing
5. Year new addition was dedicated
6. Reminders today of original Chapel
7. Author of “Farewell Message to the Mortgage”
8. Year of dedication of the Peace remodel inspired both by Vatican II and the desire to be more accessible
9. Architect of last sanctuary and narthex remodel
10. Location of stage (“rostrum”)
11. Original location of current baptismal font
12. Recent efforts to increase accessibility
13. Inspired by desire to be good Earth keepers
14. Location of “the attic”
15. Dark wood panels removed from chancel
16. Year wheelchair lift was added, plus addition to north side for office, workroom, library.
17. Number of baptized children in 1959.

ANSWER OPTIONS

1. 1983
2. 282
3. Cisterns, raingardens, solar panels
4. E. C. Hughes Elementary School
5. 1949
6. 1994
7. David Kehle
8. 160
9. 1946
10. 1956
11. Arched windows in western wall of narthex
12. Chapel
13. 1993
14. Patio, ramp
15. East end, lower level
16. Above narthex
17. Al Bartol

FULLER EXPLANATIONS

1. D
2. I. Stand in narthex, facing north. You are there!
3. H
4. E. Just 3 years after being built, Chapel was refurbished with pews, organ, wine-colored carpet,and “blush pink,” rose, and light green paint.
5. J. Chapel was refashioned into classrooms and Mothers’ Room (see last question), and new addition was attached to the East.
6. K.
7. Q. (See quotation at end.)*
8. F. Remodeling completed in time for 50^th anniversary. Remodel included moving altar out from east wall, enlarging chancel and narthex, moving communion rail to floor level, angling pews and west walls of nave and adding clear glass to west walls of nave.
9. G. (Our very own architect!)
10. O. Stage was where current storage room and youth room are located.
11. L. Dedicated in 1950.
12. N. (Preceded by a major excavation).
13. C
14. P. Ceiling of Chapel was higher than ceiling of remodeled narthex.
15. M. Part of major ‘93-’94 remodel. Panels held lovely brass candelabra, but panels were “real dustcatchers and impossible to clean.”
16. A
17. B. Really! They and their families were the main reason for the 1956 addition of our current sanctuary and classrooms on both levels. It was all about the baby boomers.

*Excerpt from “A Farewell Message from the Mortgage,” 1977, by Al Bartol: “…Beware of sitting back complacently in the satisfaction of having accomplished your goal, for in complacency, growth and progress die. May your experience with me be long remembered and may it have indelibly written on your memories the fact that the higher the goal the more in earnest is the effort and the greater the joy of accomplishment.  Farewell, and may God guide you in the work ahead.” 

ARTICLE 8: Worship – The animating core of the life we share

In this latest article in our 75th anniversary series, Eldon lifts up the animating core of the life we share: Worship.

In 1944, as the carnage and chaos of the war was coming to an end, our ancestor generation began a congregation and defiantly named it Peace.  Using several consecutive worship spaces, engaging multiple pastors and music leaders, there have been, in these 75 years, over 4,000 Sunday worship gatherings (we had two Sunday services for several years), annual seasonal celebrations for Lent, Holy Week, Advent, and Christmas, and other public rituals of our life together.  Our worship life at Peace has been our most consistent common experience.  And rightly so – that’s why congregations are formed in the first place: to provide a community within which worship, our most ordinary gathering, takes place.  Although Peace has been gifted throughout its history with pastoral and liturgical excellence, it’s that gathering of ordinary people for the worship of Word and Sacrament, that sense of a “gathering” (a congregation) of ordinary, common-minded people (a koinonia) to engage one another in the tasks of listening, confessing, and engaging God’s grace (a liturgy) together.

The symbolic banner which was created for our Anniversary ideally portray our history and our identity – we’re a bunch of scraps, remnants that together form a cross which radiates to become something far greater than any of us could accomplish alone.  No matter who we are, that sense of gathering, adhering, and radiating define who we are and who we’re called to become.  We commonly refer to the words and music of worship as our liturgy, using numerous variations of ancient patterns over the years.  But liturgy is everything that happens when we come together – the handshakes, the hymns, the smiles of friends, the words of scripture and homily, the drama, meals and “foretastes,” the tears of regret and loss, the celebrations of birth, life, and change – the common “stuff” that pulls us magnetically together.

Over the 75 years of Peace, it is worth noting that there have been some variations—some trends—that mark the course of our common journeys. Here are a few you might have noticed – but the list isn’t definitive.  Think for a minute – then add your own…

• We speak less in the first-person singular – more in the first-person plural. “Me-talk” has given way to “we-walk.” Rampant cultural individualism has created a pervasively lonely people. It’s relieving to hear about our common faith – my doubts, thoughts, convictions, and resolutions take on new meaning when I hear the echoes of everyone around me.
• The call to live a Christian life seems more ambiguous. We used to be called to purity, moral integrity, and the relinquishment of a few naughty habits. Now we’re more likely called to end intolerance, establish justice, renew creation, and advocate for peace on earth. It’s the common challenge of everyone at worship – we need to undertake the dimensions of our callings together.
• We used to focus our worship on words – readings, prayers, lyrics of hymns, sermons, etc. But now there are moments of deliberate silence, music (have you noticed that more people now stay for the Postlude music – just to relax and hear the beauty?), graphic arts, drama, fabric arts – to name a few. Sacraments (especially Baptism) are festive occasions for everybody – not private moments of piety. The symbolic elements of worship seem to take on increased dimensions of meaning.

These are some trends that you might recognize. However, the core of our life together remains consistent over our 75-year experience together.  Our worship life continues to be the adhesive that binds us together.  But it’s more than a private Peace-party.  It’s also the adhesive that ties us to every other Christian assembly throughout the world.  Much as we treasure our Peace family, in worship our family expands to include countless others.  And the profound mystery of our worship is that, when our souls are gathered, we somehow sing and pray on behalf of our neighborhood, our city, our fellow citizens on this earth, and our earth itself.  Whenever Peace has worshipped during these 75 years, the world has joined us as the fullness of the Body of Christ.

ARTICLE 9: Seeds of Social Ministry at Peace

In this latest article in our 75th anniversary series, Boots traces the roots of Social Ministry at Peace.

It all began with a phone call to me from Pastor Erik: “I’ve been looking at the archives, and I discovered that your father was one of Peace’s first guest preachers.”  That intriguing discovery led to hours of immersion in photo albums and written histories and, eventually, to this series of 75^th anniversary articles.  Here is the subject that started it all.  – Boots Winterstein

School backpacks, blood drives, meals at the Welcome Table and lunches for Angeline’s; quilts, gardens, letters to legislators, Tiny House, seal raft, socks, Fair Trade, Open Door Ministry – “So much is going on!” people say of Peace.  What’s the back story?

Bold Beginnings.

It began with the women. Even before the formal organization of Peace in late 1944, the women organized the Mary Martha Guild to “provide Christian fellowship for members and friends and to aid in furthering the work of the local congregation and the Church at large.”

In addition to starting a Sunday morning nursery, raising funds for a new worship facility and providing meals for the volunteer builders, the women took homemade snacks to the servicemen and women at the Lutheran Service Center in downtown Seattle, prepared food and clothing packages to send to war-ravaged Europe, and, as soon as World War II ended, adopted a French war orphan.

The women’s generous spirit permeated the congregation. Written across the top of its first newsletter, were the words: “Peace Lutheran Church, now under construction, dedicated to the service of God and our fellowmen.”  Peace was blessed with bold, outward-looking leadership, both lay and pastoral. The young congregation’s first post-war budget included, in addition to the construction costs of the new church building:

• Wartime relief in Europe
• The Lutheran Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Denver, Colorado
• China Relief
• The Augustana Synod’s Columbia Home for the Aged in Seattle (a relationship still maintained by Peace)        

In 1949, Peace’s first pastor, Luther Anderson, was called to another congregation. That November, as Peace celebrated its fifth birthday, members read the following message in Peace Notes from their new pastor, Ernest Bergeson, as he urged members to support a clothing and shoe collection for what is now Lutheran World Relief: “Some 13,000,000 refugees are existing (not really living) in Germany and Austria. The Germans can’t fit them into their economy, but the stupidity of our statesmen at Potsdam has dumped them there.” Clearly, words and actions furthering both mercy and justice are part of Peace’s DNA.

Extraordinary Connections. There is more to the story: unique and fruitful connections with three significant Lutheran social ministry organizations, all within a few blocks of each other in downtown Seattle.

The Lutheran Compass Mission, had been founded twenty five years earlier as The Lutheran Sailors and Loggers’ Mission by Swedish immigrants Alva and Otto Karlstrom; by the early 1940’s the mission had transitioned to providing shelter, meals, and direction to men who had lost their jobs in the Depression, many of whom had gravitated to Seattle in hopes of bettering their lives. Alva and Otto, with their children, were founding members of Peace who brought their passion for sharing God’s grace with the poor and ignored to their new church home.  Several Peace people served on the Board of Directors of LCM, including AA Gronberg, who later served as the agency’s Executive Director with Peace member Jan Stenberg as his executive assistant.  Today, the Lutheran Compass Mission continues its mission as the Compass Housing Alliance, a highly-regarded Seattle-area provider of housing and support services.

The Lutheran Service Center, a war-time ministry of several national Lutheran church bodies provided religious and recreational services to servicemen and women stationed in the Seattle area. A deaconess from the center worked with Peace’s growing Sunday School, and the Center’s director regularly shared updates of the Center’s work with the women’s organization; Peace members shared their gifts (and homemade treats!) with the “just-passing-through” military women and men.  As the Lutheran Service Center prepared to conclude its ministry at the end of the war, its leaders brought together local Lutheran lay and clergy leaders to consider how to continue to work together to serve families and children whose lives had been affected by the war.

From these conversations came a new pan-Lutheran child and family service agency, Associated Lutheran Welfare. A good friend of Peace, my father Ruben Spannaus, was the agency’s first director. The young agency’s first casework supervisor was Peace member Reinhold (Ray) Karlstrom, son of Alva and Otto, who with his wife Sig Karlstrom, played significant roles in forming Peace into a vibrant servant community.

Peace Lutheran Church and Associated Lutheran Welfare were siblings, both born in the same year—1944; both responding to the societal changes brought about by the war and fueled by a vision of peace and wholeness.  Associated Lutheran Welfare continues today as an extension of Peace’s ministry, now known as Lutheran Community Services Northwest, recognized widely for its innovative services with children in foster care, family support, and work with asylees, refugees, and immigrants.

Another significant connection is Peace’s many-years-but-still-current relationship with the Millionair Club Charity (yes, the spelling is accurate), which describes itself as “a temporary staffing agency,” but which is, as we’ve learned from talks on Pass the Hat Sunday, so much more.  While serving as Executive Director of the Lutheran Compass Center, AA Gronberg received a call to the Millionair Club and Jan Stenberg followed him there, serving as Business Manager for 13 years before retiring.

Peace’s deep and fruitful relationships with its ministry partners showed in its choice of its first guest pastors who served in the summer of 1946 when Pastor Anderson traveled east to marry his beloved Lilian:  Peace’s “Papa Otto” Karlstrom of the Compass Mission, Pastor Rudolph of The Lutheran Service Center, and Pastor Spannaus of Associated Lutheran Welfare.

Going Green.  The last decade has seen the merging of creation care and social justice at Peace.  In addition to being recognized by Seattle Earth Ministry as a Greening Congregation, people of Peace have engaged in a variety of actions and projects to live up to that reputation: marking a Season of Creation in worship each year, engaging in environmental advocacy on a variety of fronts, installing rain gardens and cisterns for better water stewardship, putting a solar array one the roof to reduce our carbon footprint and contribute excess solar energy to the grid, growing gardens whose fruits stock local food banks. Perhaps we are beginning to realize the full meaning of some very old words: The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it. (Psalm 24:1)—a rethinking of the answer to “Who is my neighbor?”

Seeds planted…seeds nourished. Seeds still bearing fruit, 75 years later. Thanks be to God!

ARTICLE 10: Whither Peace?

In this 10th and final article in our 75th anniversary series, Eldon invites us to consider what trajectories of mission we may be grappling with as the future unfolds.

On this occasion of celebrating Peace’s 75^th Anniversary, it is important to conclude our occasional reflections with a strong note of challenge for the future. Remembrances and histories can too easily degenerate into nostalgia (with its comfortable illusions) or smug self-satisfactions (with saints and heroes from whose gene pools we emerge). It’s difficult to imagine what sort of future Peace will have 75 years from now – or even 10 or 20. Such speculations are also dangerous – not only are they likely to be fallible, they also tend to be somewhat arrogant.  The future is, and will remain, embraced within the mystery of God’s purpose for our congregation.  It is possible, however, to get a sense of trajectories. For instance, based on all the hints that life has provided, it seems likely that we’ll all gradually get older. That’s a pretty safe trajectory—one all of us will likely experience– and the very mention of this reality invites us into thoughts and conversations that form community. Whatever the future may bring to your plate, be assured, we’re all in this together!

With these reservations in mind, let’s speculate, as a community, directions that seem to be emerging. Please regard these speculations as invitations for your own thoughts. What trajectories do you sense for the future of Peace? What conversations will call us into this community that we now mark at the milestone of 75 years?

During the last several years, threads of barely discernible fabric have emerged. Pope Francis, whose encyclical, Laudato Si’, our congregation discussed several years ago, challenged the world Christian community to a conversation about what sort of planet home we can envision living in. We know what sort of world our actions have hastened—a world that is endangered and at a tipping point. But it is not clear what sort of future world awaits us as Earth suffers the throes of abuse and exhaustion.

This is a profound moment in the life of the church – we will either enter this conversation with creativity and commitment, or, by default, we will join the ranks of the abused and exhausted. The setting for this future will be different from those we have known. Instead of being spoken to, even by experts, we will each contribute through speech and habit our perspective on the challenges of Earth’s future in small group settings.  We each come from a background of both faith and life on this Earth that qualifies us for the conversation.

• How can we think about the future through the lens of ‘sufficiency’ rather than ‘abundance’?
• How can we delight in a handful of dirt, with all its intricate forms of life, rather than the landscapes of majesty and beauty?
• How shall the diminishing resources of the Earth be apportioned in ways that are just, satisfying the hungers of all humanity, not just the rich and powerful?
• How can he help create a culture of compassion, even for flora and fauna, instead of a culture of competition?
• What sort of economy will this conversation allow?
• Can the dichotomies of our democracy’s politics (left and right in theatrical combat) prevail?
• How can we sanction a new way of discerning truth-telling, finding each other credible?

These are enormously challenging questions that will face us, likely to increasingly dominate social, political, scientific, economic and cultural conversations for the 21^st Century. Whatever else may be suggested by the trajectories of today, they will likely center on the concern for what is happening to our Earth.As a Christian congregation, these are also profoundly faith-questions, questions that call the church to conversation. We’re good at conversations – we’re also good at hearing diverse thoughts and plans. We have that recurrent Biblical mandate: “Do not fear!” If we fail to have the conversation regarding “whither this Earth” within communities of faith, someone will assume a role of expertise and authority in a way that will violate all of us.

These are some thoughts about a future for Peace. What are your ideas? What trajectories do you sense? It’s time, on this 75^th Anniversary, to pause long enough to ask that question.