5/14/1999
Dutch roots still nourish families, traditions in bucolic Verboort
| |
|
Kristen Hannum
By Kristen Hannum
Of the Sentinel
VERBOORT - Folks give themselves a few extra minutes to get to Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary here come springtime here, for tractors are on the roads again. They make their ponderous way between the dark-earthed fields, with their farmer-drivers perched on high seats open to the sunshine.
It's enough to make anyone long for a farming life in just this kind of locale.
Its farms safely protected by urban growth boundaries, Verboort isn't a town; it's rather a parish and a place. Families here are still big and Catholic, many are related, and many faces are weathered by work out in the sun. The solid-looking brick church, flanked by a dozen towering, dark sequoias, looks out over fields edged by budding oaks and flowering cherry trees.
On this spring morning, the church is packed with not only parishioners but also family and friends of the first Communicants. The boys in their ties and girls in their white gloves look pleased and comfortable as they share in the sacrament for the first time.
"We weren't nervous at all," say Ashley Swearingen and her friend Cynthia Nowak.
Second-grader Mitch Ooley, like most of the youngsters, had plenty of family in attendance, including his aunt and uncle, Sue and Pete Lepschat.
Pete Lepschat describes the parish as being a small, tightly linked by its small school and the annual parish dinner. "Everyone works on the dinner," he says.
Indeed, Verboort is best known for its Sausage Fest, an annual harvest festival that ties the community together in common purpose and also still means something to people here, attuned as they are to the turning of the seasons.
The festival typically draws 6,000 to 8,000 sausage-eaters to eat in the well-equipped parish hall.
Florence Markee Crop married into the parish and ahs now been here 47 years. She has worked on the dinner for about that long - including 25 years on the steam counter.
She doesn't do as much these days, but can vividly describe cutting up the apples and steaming them for applesauce.
Family traditions
Lyle Spiesschaert, whose godson Benjamin received his first Communion on this day, was born and raised here. His great-grandparents, grandparents and father are buried in the cemetery out beyond the church; he is chair of the cemetery committee.
Spiesschaert is especially aware of the strong roots of this parish. "The traditional values have not changed," he says.
At the same time, old families like the Spiesschaerts are aware of newcomers finding their way to the church. "The school brings them in," he says approvingly. "New families are a good thing."
Not all the new families are young ones with children. Retirees Don and Anita Cornacchia moved here in 1993, attracted by the traditional church and community. They were especially watching for young Nick Duyck during the first Communion. "He and his family have adopted us," the couple way with a laugh.
The couple have felt welcomed by the entire parish, they say. "We feel like we belong here," Says Don. "Parishioners are very friendly, very nice. Father has been at our house."
That would be Father Joseph Heuberger, an easy-going man who has become well-loved during his tenure here. "He is stupendous," says Crop. "He relates so well to the young people."
Although Father Heuberger admits it's a bit isolated out here, compared to his last assignment in downtown Portland, he says the people are wonderful. He has moved his chickens and turkeys into a coop behind the church. The birds are a popular stop for the children after church, who are waiting for parents to finish visiting.
Dutch roots
The parish is home to an old and established Catholic community with Dutch roots, rather than the French Canadian and German ancestries of the mid-Willamette Valley. Verboort began with the arrival of six Dutch families from Wisconsin in 1875. Those families' names are familiar ones: Verboort, Hermens, Jansen, Martin, Vander Velden and Krieger. Archbishop Norbert Blanchet sent Father Louis Verhaag, who was assistant at the Cathedral, to celebrate a Mass for the families. That is believed to be the first Mass ever celebrated in Washington County, says The Centenary, a 1939 centennial publication of the Sentinel.
The group called their new community "the Catholic Colony of Forest Grove," writes Jesuit Father Wilfred Schoenberg in his history of the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon, Those Valiant Women.
Father William Verboort, whose family was already here, arrived in September 1875, also from Wisconsin, to care for the spiritual needs of the community. Father Verboort died soon after his parents the following year, despite the best attentions of two nursing Sisters of Providence who came to care for the priest. All three were buried in the parish's historic little cemetery.
After saying the Requiem Mass for the dead priest, Archbishop Blanchet changed the name of the community to Verboort. A new priest, Father Joseph Hermann, was then assigned to the community.
A growing parish
The first church was blessed in 1875, and the next one in 1883. A school opened in 1883, and a new one was built in 1923. A high school was acquired in 1938.
The St Mary of Oregon Sisters have staffed the school since 1891.
Father Schoenberg says that the success of the little community here can be gauged by the fact that six Catholic churches formed within Visitation's original boundaries in the span of a single generation - St. Thomas, Buxton; St. Matthew, Hillsboro; St. Francis of Assisi, Roy; St. Anthony, Forest Grove; St. Alexander, Cornelius; and St. Edward, North Plains.
Vocations from the area also show the depth of faith here: Father Schoenberg says that in addition to at least nine priests, there were 36 women who joined religious life from Verboort alone between 1892 and 1949; 30 chose to become Sisters of St Mary of Oregon.
St. Mary of Oregon Sisters Mary Agnes O'Rourke and Mary Alexia O'Rourke were assigned to the Verboort School in 1918, the year of the deadly influenza epidemic. Sister Mary Agnes left a detailed account of their nursing assistance to the families of the parish. The two sisters evidently never came down with the flu themselves, despite going into more than a dozen sickhouses to care for the sick and dying.
St. Mary of Oregon Sister Clare Vandecoevering continues to work at the school today.
St. Mary of Oregon Sister Ruth Etzel, who first served as a young teacher here in 1952 and who ended her second tenure as principal here in 1997.
New principal Michael Sweeney came to the school this school year.
The future looks safe here in Verboort, although not without challenges.
'Time and talent is what a parish community are all about,' says Spiesschaert. 'It takes people rather than money. But there's always the struggle to maintain that sense of community.'
|
|
