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Aberdeen Meeting Room, ID

93 bytes added, 08:32, 13 February 2022
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George Storrer and three other boys from Germany emigrated to the U.S., he had roots among the PB in his old country, and settled initially at Walla Walla, [[Washington|WA]], and relocated to American Falls by 1905, and was hired on by Cornelius & Paula Klassen for their farm in Aberdeen. George attended a conference at the [[Kansas City Meeting Room, MO]], where two laboring brothers ministered, Walter Potter (Chicago, IL) and a Mr. Fleck. George invited Walter to visit with Cornelius & Paula in Aberdeen, to admit to being in fellowship that year, which he was accepted. In 1912, Cornelius & Paula Klassen, George Storrer, Jacob Elias Landvatter, and one other started the Aberdeen Meeting Room.
About 1992, Harold Klassen led a split starting a smaller assembly colloquially known as [[Aberdeen Fellowship, ID|Aberdeen Fellowship]], that is presently aligned with the network known as Renton brethren (ex-Raven), and they meet on the outskirts of town with several other families.
=Klassen family=
Jacob Risser, a (Gen. Conf.) Mennonite from Ohio, homesteaded in 1881 in northeastern Nebraska in Cumin county, purchasing an extensive tract of land from earlier settlers southwest of Wisner, and employed young Germans from Ohio and Iowa, some of whom after marrying, returned to this area to settle as Risser's neighbors, including Peter Boehr, Jacob Showalter, and Henry Leisy, and they organized Salem Mennonite Church between 1889-1892, with a meeting house constructed on a small plot of land donated by Jacob Risser 4 1/2 miles south, and 2 miles west of Wisner. Jacob Hege and his family settled there in 1893, and he may have been among the initial pastors there, the small frame building accommodated 75-100 people. Other pastors include Daniel J. Brand (1871-1945), Sam P. Preheim (1881-1952), Gerhard J. Toews (1897-1987), and J.D. Epp. The services until 1920 were in German. Years of drought forced many to relocate to the east, or the west coast, and the church folded by the mid-1950's. See [https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1362&context=studentwork ''A Brief History of the Mennonites in Nebraska] (1953) by Paul Kuhlman for more history on this. Salem folded by the mid-1950's.
It is also worth noting that in one of the very first Mennonite churches planted Nebraska, known as Bethesda Mennonite Church, in Hendersonville, planted in 1874 by 35 Russian Mennonite families, there was a secondary school built in 1902, with classes 1903-1943, and the first two teachers were J.J. Friesen, and Christian Hege (b. 1878 Germany - d. 1971 San Miguel, CA), the latter being a son of Jacob & Elizabeth Hege (elder brother of Paula Hege Klassen). Jacob & Elizabeth later relocated to Hot Springs, California, and nearby Paso Robles where Jacob pastored a Mennonite church, and owned a ranch that employed Cornelius Klassen. This is where Cornelius met Jacob's daughter, and married her at the age of 18. TJacob & Elizabeth Hege and their family, including their married daughter Paula and her husband Cornelius Klassen homesteaded at Aberdeen, Idaho in the spring of 1904, and Jacob was the founding pastor of the First Mennonite Church of Aberdeen in 1907. Christian Hege later pastored the same Mennonite church in Paso Robles that his father did.
=Early Correspondents=