"A Day of Realization" -- conclusion

I’d like to believe that Abbie Gardner’s memoir describes a place in Flandreau just up the hill from town where, today, stands “the oldest continuously used church in the state of South Dakota,” or so the sign out front says—River Bend Church. The building was constructed in 1873; the original structure is on the grounds of the Moody County Museum, in Flandreau.

River Bend Church is on a piece of ground away from things, a quiet and beautiful place. A cemetery stands just west of the building and tells its own incredible stories, gravestones etched with Bible verses in English and the Dakota language. 

It just seems fitting that even the much-hated and much-loved Little Crow, in peace, is here too, far corner.

If you stop there sometime, you’ll almost certainly be alone. But I’m guessing that’s where Abbie Gardner stood one day in September, 1892, and saw before her death and life in a vision something akin to a new heavens and new earth, on a day she calls her “Day of Realization.”