Salt Lake church marks 50th year

Activities at First Christian look back at past, celebrate

Cliched references to "the good ol' days" are often pointed toward American life in the 1950s, the post-World War II baby boom exemplified in popular culture by June Cleaver, a socially connected, stay-at-home TV mom with two sons and whose suit-and-tie-clad husband went to work each morning and returned home each night to a dinner warmed by the children's daily exploits.

But the founding members of First Christian Reformed Church in Salt Lake City don't necessarily remember life that way. As a small group of Dutch immigrants struggling to rebuild their lives after the war, they found themselves looking to God and each other for comfort and community. All came without the trappings of social or financial position, and some couldn't speak English.

Having scattered widely in the decades since then, they're gathering this weekend to celebrate the church's 50th anniversary, and to remember the myriad daily challenges and joys that bonded friends as family.

Betty Molenaar came from her most recent home in Canada to share, to celebrate and to participate in the church's old-fashioned hymn sing — an event she says exemplifies the best of what it means to be part of the Christian Reformed faith. "When we hold a hymn sing, we really sing! Everyone knows the words by heart."

Molenaar arrived in Salt Lake City with her husband and children in 1958, nearly three years after the church was founded on Oct. 30, 1955. "No one could enter the U.S. at the time without a sponsor," so they became members of the Christian Immigration Association in Holland, which arranged sponsorship through American churches who agreed to help get new immigrants settled.

She and her family were originally assigned to a church in Michigan, where a large community of Dutch immigrants had already welcomed numerous refugees. But two months before they were scheduled to immigrate, "we got the word we couldn't go because all the people there were being laid off from the auto industry."

Alternate plans were made, and they found themselves in Salt Lake City as the first family to be sponsored by the new First Christian Reformed Church. "When we came here, all these people knew each other, and we didn't know a single soul." Even so, one family opened their home to Molenaar for four weeks, until Betty's husband was able to secure a job and they could move into an apartment.

As she was getting to know the other families, new immigrants continued to arrive, and "the women all had babies. You've never seen such a fast-growing church," she said, remembering how the new arrivals all clustered their new living quarters as close to the church as they could.

Margareth VanMinde and her family joined the group in 1960, after immigrating from her husband's homeland in Indonesia. Formerly a Dutch colony, the country had gained its independence, and rather than adopting Indonesian citizenship, the couple came to Salt Lake City, because Holland was closed to non-natives as it struggled to recover from the war.

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