Paying Respects at Harrison

My mother-in-law, who knew Charley Dyke, author of the History of Sioux County, used to say, wryly, that you couldn't really believe everything the man said, which is to say that the journalist/historian was more than occasionally a fiction writer.

But Charley Dyke is on the money on this one. In his story about the very first Christian Reformed minister in Orange City, Iowa, Dyke claims that the Reverend John Stadt, who was somewhat summarily dismissed from service here after a couple of years, then banished to LeMars to do mission work among the Dutch immigrants then stepping off the train in goodly numbers, that Rev. John Stadt eventually left the area for Harrison, SD, where he died, and where, Dyke says, he's buried in the Harrison Cemetery. 

You can read the story here.

At the end of that post, I said I thought I'd go look and pay my respects. 

I'm not always a man of my word, but I did just that last week; and sure enough if I didn't find him. Well, that's stretching the truth, after all he was nowhere to be seen. But I did find his gravestone, which was considerably less readable than his wife's, who, someone thought, needed to be known as a juffvrouw helpmeet, or so her gravestone insists.

I found them both, no small task, then said hello, paid my respects, gave them my best and offered greetings from all my friends at Orange City First CRC. 

Here's the shocker. Just behind the stone, there's an inset stone, a marble brick with the word Vader printed on it.  Here 'tis.

Okay, you may think I've gone batty, but have a look for yourself. It seems to me that this little additional adornment is newly cleaned up, the grasses and refuse brushed away fastidiously as if someone there at the site wanted to make sure things were in order for a drop-in visit from someone from northwest Iowa. Look for yourself--it looks nicely kept. 

I'm thinking someone sent Dominie Stadt or his loving juffvrouw that little story I wrote about him, who then took me at my word, and didn't want the place looking, well, unkempt. Someone, I swear, tidied up in good Dutch Calvinist fashion. 

I like that idea.  

And some people wonder where on earth I got the idea for my last book of short stories.