 Salem KMB Church, 1900-1941, built on land donated by John Tschetter because it was his father Jacob's homestead. |
Wolf Creek near Salem KMB Church and Jacob Tschetter homestead where John Tschetter and others were baptized during the winter.  |
Salem KMB Church today (2015) Kathy in front of church founded by her great grandfather  |
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KMB - Krimmer Mennonite Brethren. The Hutterites did not live in Crimea, but about 100 miles north of the Crimea. The Hutterite villages of Hutterthal and Johannesruh were about twelves miles southwest of the city of Melitopol, Ukraine. The Crimea Mennonite Brethren church was formed in 1869, shortly before the migration to America began. The church was formed in the small village of Annafeld, near Simferopol, Crimea. It was an offshoot of the Kleine Gemeinde Mennonite Church, but probably a bit more strict in their teachings and practices. When the church migrated to America, they came mostly to the State of Kansas, while the Hutterites migrated to South Dakota. In 1886 some of the Kansas KMB ministers evangelized among the "Prairie People Hutterites" in South Dakota and won many converts and started a new church called Salem KMB church. Eventually other KMB churches were started among the "Prairie People Hutterites," (those that lived in private ownership, rather than communal) at Yale, SD (Bethel) in 1902, Doland, SD in 1919, Onida, SD in 1920, and Huron, SD in 1947, Dinuba, California in 1911. About 1960 the KMB conference and the Mennonite Brethren conference merged into one conference and KMB was no more. (history provided by Norman Hofer) Notice that it was in 1886 that, according to his autobiography, great grandfather John Tschetter was baptized by Pastor Wiebe of Kansas, and the Salem KMB church was formed. |
Salem KMB Church Pictorial History Violet, Katie, Viola In front of church founded by Katie's father, Violet's and Viola's grandfather  |
 (Rev. John Tschetter's Autobiography continued) First we met in private homes for Sunday morning devotion and prayer and later in a schoolhouse. In 1900 we built a church building. It is the Salem Church and mother church of Bethel, Ebenezer, Sully or Immanuel, and Bethesda Churches. Later on some Low Germans or Dutch Brethren from our neighboring county, who had also left the old Mennonite church and had heard of the new converts from the Hutterite people, came to visit us. We had Sunday afternoon services with them together. They emphasized the importance of water baptism by immersion. That winter, 1886, the 25th of November, Henry Wiebe, pastor of the church at Hillsboro, Kansas, baptized me, brother Jacob, and brother David, and his wife, Maria, and also their daughter, Barbara and her husband, Joshua Stahl. It was cold and the ice was thick so that the people could stand around on the ice. Yet we did not feel the cold because the Spirit of God burned in our hearts. (Then and there was the beginning of the Salem Church.) The following spring more people accepted the Lord as their personal Savior. That summer my wife, Susanna, my mother and several others were baptized by immersion by Pastor Jacob Wiebe. My mother was old and sickly, but my father consented to her baptism by immersion. He said, "I do not want to be a hindrance to your salvation." Baptism by immersion was something new among our Hutterite people. Many times my father was mockingly approached by outsiders with these words, "And your wife has also become a Catholic." After my conversion, I felt the call to the ministry, and so I preached the Gospel of Christ to our little congregation and witnessed wherever I could. In 1889 I was ordained as a minister of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and brother David was ordained as deacon by Elder Jacob A. Wiebe. As our congregation grew and more room was needed, it was necessary to build a larger place of worship, and so in 1900 the Salem Church was built at Wolf Creek near Bridgewater, South Dakota. The Lord blessed us with 5 sons and 6 daughters. There names are Anna, Jacob, Susanna, John, Mary, Barbara, David, Margaretha, Joseph, Elizabeth, and Paul. Margaretha died when she was 9 years old. |