Kimberly Thompson
Catalog Number: 2019.069.01
This communion flagon or pitcher held wine for countless communion services in the early days of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. Made by Connecticut-based Simpson, Hall, Miller & Company between 1880 and 1898, the flagon’s wheat and grapevine motifs indicate its connection to the bread and wine of communion. Its hinged lid and projecting spout made it easy to fill chalices or individual cups for the church’s congregation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this time, services at St. Paul’s Lutheran were conducted primarily in Norwegian.
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church was one of many Norwegian churches that popped up in La Crosse as a wave of Norwegian immigrants arrived in the city and surrounding farmland in the late 1860s. A group of 38 of these immigrants, along with Pastor Peder Asbjornsen, organized St. Paul’s Lutheran in 1870.The congregation went through several moves before building their own church at the corner of West Avenue and Division Street in time for Christmas Day 1896. Two services were held every Sunday, in the morning at 10:30, and in the evening at 7:45.
By 1917 sermons were given in English, apart from the last Sunday of the month, which remained a Norwegian language service. Norwegian was no longer the primary language for many of the church’s members, many of whom were second or third generation Americans. However, the Norwegian language remained dominant elsewhere in the church, with church records kept in Norwegian through the 1920s.
Gradually the Norwegian language lost its hold. The last Norwegian language communion service was held on July 28, 1940. The congregation voted to make English the exclusive language for services from then on.
This communion flagon remained at St. Paul’s Lutheran decades after it was retired from communion services. The church held its final service on August 29, 2019 and artifacts from its past, including this flagon, were donated to the La Crosse County Historical Society.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on February 7, 2020.
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