First Presbyterian Church, Menominee, Mich.Dear George,
Our family went to church only once a year, on Easter Sunday. We were members of the First Presbyterian Church on Ogden Avenue. The minister, Reverend Buzza, was the father of Peter’s best friend, Johnny Buzza. I’m a little unsure of the exact title, but my dad had been appointed a deacon (or something comparable) in the local Presbytery. He credited his churchly status to his job as Menominee County’s prosecuting attorney. As an elected official, he needed to belong to a church to garner votes, and his visibility in the local legal system was welcomed by the minister.
My dad felt negatively toward organized religion. This was a consequence of some early life experiences. His father and my grandfather, Victor August L. Sr., was the owner and operator of the Main St. drug store in Marinette and a member of the Swedish Lutheran church. VA Sr. was a gentle, responsible, and thoroughly respectable member of the Swedish community. Local doctors, however, insisted that he keep his pharmacy open seven days a week, including Sunday church mornings, and, as the only pharmacist available, this meant no church attendance for my grandfather. The Lutheran minister used a lot of pressure to force VA to close his store on Sundays, but my grandfather couldn’t do it without losing much of his drug business. Failing in his efforts, the Lutheran minister denounced my grandfather from the pulpit and banished him from the congregation. From that point on our family became heathens who were destined for hell.
My father’s childhood hurt, though, didn’t keep us from enjoying Easter. Celebrating Easter went on for days prior in the school system, and Good Friday was a public school holiday. At home we spent lots of time dying and painting Easter eggs, and the Easter bunny himself made annual visits to our house, hiding chocolates and candies around the house or out in the front yard. One year Vicki, as a little girl, received a live Easter chick as her special present, and she loved it so much that she squeezed it to death that very same day. It took her years to recover (and I’m not sure she ever did).
Our family’s Easter Sunday church outings were not particularly spiritual. Steven and I spent a lot of time in the pew poking at one another and giggling. Eventually, our parents placed us on opposite sides of their seats to eliminate the fooling around. We were always extremely interested in our dad’s contribution to the collection plate, which amounted to what seemed to us a very sizeable check, e.g., a hundred dollars. My father wasn’t normally a big spender, and we found this incomprehensible. He finally explained that, since we only went once a year, he gave his entire year’s donation all in one shot.
Many years later, my mother died, and her remains were cremated. We had a private family service of sorts at Farm. Someone – it might have been Vicki – expressed a need to have a religious figure present, and my dad contacted the current Presbyterian minister, by then Reverend Rank. We gathered in the front yard where my mother’s ashes were to be returned to the soil. My dad explained that religion had not been a significant part of their lives together, but he appreciated the minister’s willingness to join us. Reverend Rank was very helpful – not a lot of godly stuff, but an authentic effort to learn more about our mother and aid us in expressing our feelings. Steven, very emotional about our loss, was initially uncomfortable about this, but soon he and all of us were sharing stories and feelings. Atheists or agnostics or whatever, our Presbyterian connection proved to be a good idea.
Love,
Dave
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