St. John Lutheran Church in Genesee celebrates 103rd anniversary

After a lengthy delay brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the members of St. John Lutheran Church in Genesee will finally get to celebrate the church’s 103rd anniversary.

Worship service, followed by a parishwide picnic, which is open to the public, begins at 4 p.m. Sunday at the church at 648 W. Ash Ave., in Genesee. Besides dinner, dessert and activities for all ages, the congregation will also formally install its new part-time pastor, Peg Harvey-Marose, of Lewiston.

Harvey-Marose is also the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in Lewiston.

“I started (at St. John on) Feb. 1, 2020,” the pastor said recently. “Six weeks later we were on shutdown (because of the pandemic), so part of the celebration on Sunday is my installation. We’re finally getting there.”

Amy Peterson, one of the organizers of Sunday’s event, said that day also coincides with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s synodwide “God’s Work, Our Hands” service project. Because the day falls on 9/11, the church will take up a special offering to make travel kits for the community’s first responders.

“This means a lot to all of us,” Peterson said.

According to Pacific Lutheran University archives, on July 14, 1889, an itinerant missionary pastor of the Joint Synod of Ohio, the Rev. Henry Rieke, accepted the call to become the first pastor of St. John, a German congregation. Construction of the original church began in 1890 and it was dedicated in November of that year.

In 1898, the congregation became self-supporting but it was not until the turn of the century that services were held in English. In 1905, the church was enlarged and used often as a school.

German language services were discontinued permanently in the 1930s.

“That original St. John (church building) burned down and the current building was dedicated in 1919, and that’s what we’re celebrating,” Harvey-Marose said. “It’s 103 years and we had to postpone (the 100th anniversary celebration) because of COVID.”

Harvey-Marose said the first Lutherans came to the area in 1876.

“They came out as farmers and these were the German Lutherans, as opposed to Norwegians or Swedes or Finns.”

Gradually, Lutherans from other cultures moved to the Genesee area and, in spite of the small population, each ethnic group of Lutherans built their own church with an adjoining cemetery and worshiped separately. The Valley Lutheran Church, which still stands, is the oldest continuously worshiping congregation in the State of Idaho, Harvey-Marose said. It was founded in 1887 by Norwegian Lutherans.

Valley Lutheran is located north of Genesee, and five miles down the road is the Cordelia Lutheran Church, founded by Swedish Lutherans. That church is no longer functional as a congregation but occasionally hosts cultural events such as music festivals.

“We’re all part of the (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) and called the Genesee Lutheran parish,” the pastor said. “Those congregations are together but because of the historical nature of the churches they want to continue to be individual congregations.”

In 1960, the congregations of St. John Valley Lutheran began worshiping together with a single pastor serving both congregations, an arrangement that continues to this day. Harvey-Marose is currently the sole pastor. Sunday services are at 11 a.m. most days, and in the summer the congregation meets at the Valley Lutheran church and in the winter at the “town church” — St. John.

There are about 80 families who are current members of the parish.

“There’s very little distinction between who is a member of which church,” Harvey-Marose said.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented the congregation with its most pressing challenge of the past several years.

“With COVID, I was just starting to get to know folks up there and then I couldn’t go anywhere,” Harvey-Marose said. “So worship was in my living room. I did one service for Grace and the Genesee Lutheran parishes livestreaming on Facebook while we were shut down for three months. Then I began going each Sunday to both sanctuaries and livestreaming with a small group of people at those buildings.”

Decisions about when to open back up depended on whether churches were in Idaho or Washington, which had stricter rules during the pandemic. In-person services at the Genesee parish resumed in June 2021.

Archives say the present church “was built and dedicated in 1919 to the honor of God and to the worship of him in truth and spirit.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.