This photo shows St. Andrew’s White Carpenter Church in McIntosh County, North Dakota, a simple yet elegant rural church built in 1906. The white wooden structure features a tall central steeple topped with a cross, pointed-arch windows, and double front doors reached by red-painted steps and a small ramp. Surrounded by open prairie fields under a cloudy sky, the church stands as a classic example of early 20th-century prairie “carpenter Gothic” style architecture, reflecting the faith and craftsmanship of the community’s settlers.

St Andrews, like so many rural churches of its day, has long provided the loving arms of support to a devoted congregation. The beautiful white of her architecture, surrounded by fields of waving grain tells us that it provided an anchor, a place, a purpose. It was one of the first churches in the county and the only survivor of a five-point parish.

​Think of traditional old-country weddings… Karl and Katharina were the first couple married in the new white church. Not completely finished, their parents - good friends who migrated together from the same village in Russia - paid for completion so the wedding could take place on June 6, 1907. Karl in a new suit with a traditional white sash attached to a small Lily of the Valley boutonniere. Katharina wearing a headpiece of wax candle beads and a matching white sash around her waist. The bride wore black – as they did in the old-country.

Close your eyes and see the real candles on the Christmas Tree under the watchful eye of an elder with a bucket of water at the ready. Or, see the prairie women picking wild prairie roses, or maybe going to their garden, carefully picking flowers grown from year to year and harvested from seeds that came with them from the old country.

Baptisms took place at the beautifully carved baptismal font. Proud parents chose “sponsors” - 2 men and a woman for males and two women and a man for females. A long Germans from Russia tradition.

As it was in the old country, men and boys sat facing the altar on the right, women and children on the left. Almost everyone knew the worship songs from memory and sang with an enthusiasm unmatched today.

Confirmation was a rite of passage for young teens in those early years. Most were denied the opportunity to attend high school. They were needed on the farm. Confirmation signaled adulthood for them. On the big day, girls in white dresses and boys in stiff new suits, their hair slicked back with a homemade flaxseed tonic, would gather on the steps of the parsonage and walk to the church singing their chosen class hymn. Most received their own hymn book that day. Often with their name and date engraved on the front cover.

​For over 100 years, the walls of this beautiful structure have echoed words of comfort and encouragement from that high pulpit; messages of hope and strength to carry them through another week of a life - that wasn’t always kind.

The members of St Andrews, most of them descendants of the original founding families, know they have a treasured heritage. Services continue to be held a few times a year. The walls of St Andrews tell many truths. You simply have to listen.