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A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Zion member Terry Anderson (who is married to part-time organist Vicki Anderson) spent a month planning and at least four hours making this spectacular cake, which is an edible replica of the church's pipe organ. The keys were made of brownies, the stops were made of suckers, and the preset buttons were made of malted milk balls.
Cloquet High School student and organist-in-training Sam Brenner plays a selection of Christmas carols on the 90-year-old pipe organ at Zion Lutheran Church in Cloquet.
Cloquet's Zion Lutheran Church held a 90th birthday Sunday for a part of the church that's heard but rarely seen: the church's Opus 5296 pipe organ.
Purchased in 1928, the pipe organ was installed at the old church on Carlton Avenue and Sixth Street in August and ready to play by Sept. 1 of that year.
When the current church building on Washington Avenue was built in 1961, the organ was removed from the old church and reinstalled by members of the congregation.
That's when the pipe organ was tucked out of sight, although not out of hearing, as was the style in the 1960s, according to Vicki Anderson, who has been taking organ lessons and playing the organ at Zion on an occasional basis for more than a decade.
Anderson said the service also honored the church's longest serving organist, the late Gordy Nelson, who was organist there from 1958 until 2003.
"The other motivation I had was to remind people we have a pipe organ, in this day and age," said Anderson, who started planning the event two years ago when she commissioned David Tryggestad to compose the prelude music in honor of Gordy. "People are using more piano and other instruments now."
Sunday's ceremony harkened back to the days when the church bought the organ from the Moeller company. Back then it was the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Zion Church, and the congregation was only 30 years old. Scripture was read in Swedish and English. Sunday's Vesper service included hymns from the 1925 Augustana Hymnal.
Here's an pipe organ fact. The thing that looks somewhat like a piano where an organist sits is called the "console." The organ itself is made up of all the pipes, each one producing a single pitch when pressurized air is forced through it. The forced air for early pipe organs came from people, according to winchester-cathedral.org.uk: the massive pipe organ (featuring 400 pipes) installed at Winchester Cathedral in the 10th Century required two men to play it and 70 men to blow it. Today, most pipe organs are powered by electricity.
The organ at Zion is made up of 906 pipes. It also has two manuals, or keyboards. The pipe organ is the original, but the console was updated in 1990.
The church doesn't have a full-time organist anymore; rather, there are several people who play the organ when needed. On Sunday, Vivian Bergquist played, as did Marge Stillwell, who plays for the Presbyterian Church. Anderson, who calls herself an "organist wannabe," also played. Two younger church members -Sam and Owen Brenner - are taking lessons now and also played on Sunday.
"The organ was and still is the ideal instrument to accompany singing in a large space," said Anderson.
Following the service Sunday, attendees gathered to enjoy a host of Scandinavian treats, including lefse, rosettes, krumkake, sandbakkels, cardamom bread and, of course, a massive cake shaped like the console and pipes of a pipe organ.
Other churches in Cloquet with pipe organs include the Presbyterian Church (its organ is 90 too!), Our Savior's Lutheran Church and Queen of Peace Church.
