75th Anniversary Program

by Charlotte Graydon
of the Oregonian Staff, July 18th, 1986

Bethel Lutheran Church will mark its 75th anniversary with a series of events beginning Sunday and concluding July 27 as the congregation looks toward the 21st century.  “We will consciously acknowledge our past.  The rest is the celebration of the future,” said the Rev. Zane 0. Wilson, pastor of the church at 5658 N. Denver Ave.  The past evokes memories of Bethel's Norwegian heritage. Erik Ingebretson, chairman of tile anniversary celebration, said 3,000 Scandinavian families were living in lower Albina at the turn of the century.  The area had German, Finnish and Dovish Lutheran churches but no Norwegian Lutheran church.  People of that heritage took the Albino Ferry across the Willamette River to attend Bethlehem Lutheran Church on Northwest 14th Avenue and Davis Street, he said.  By 1910, the home missions board for the Norwegian Lutheran Free Church recognized the need for an Albina church.  It asked the Rev. B.A. Borrevik, pastor of a Norwegian Lutheran Church in Silverton, to come to Portland to organize a new congregation.  Two Norwegian carpenters and lay leaders, John Oyen and Ole Stokke, assisted in the organization, and the congregation was incorporated in 19l1.  “Our congregation met all over - first at Lundy Hall at Northeast 15th and Alberta, then at Steuben Hall at Ivy and Williams,” Ingebretson said. “That's now the parking lot for Wonder Bread.” Steuben Hall was a beer hall on Saturday night.  A member who wrote about the problem in 1941 for a 30th anniversary account said church people had to clear (put the beer barrels and “various signs of riotous living” before the hall could be used as a place of worship.  The congregation decided to build its own chapel in 1914, using the skills of tile membership's many carpenters.  Money for materials was scarce, so the pastor wrote to all the Norwegian Free Lutheran churches in the country and asked for a $1 donation.  This resulted in enough money to build a little church at Northeast Rodney Avenue and Wygant Street in 1916.  It was dubbed the “Dollar Church” by people who teased about the way it was funded.  However, the congregation still owed $63. After a decade, the little church became too small.  It was sold to Hope Lutheran Church of the Deaf and the Bethel members bought a lot on North Denver Avenue.  They met in community halls until Bethel Lutheran Church was completed in 1928.  Again, the congregation outgrew the church and in 1959 completed an annex for Sunday school rooms and other activates.  All services were in Norwegian until 1920 when the Sunday school switched to English.  The congregation voted to switch to English-language church services in 1928 but still offered an alternate “Norse” service. Bethel has a history of providing relief services during war and depression and in the past 10 years has made a conscious effort to serve the neighborhood, Ingebretson said.  One charter member, Julia Olsen Giesy, who was in the first confirmation class, is still in the congregation. At 9:30 a.m. Sunday, an antique car parade will begin at the church.  The Founder's Day worship service will begin at 10 a.m., with a Scandinavian “coffee mingle” afterward. On Tuesday, a songfest will begin at 7 p.m. and birthday cake will be served.  A banquet is planned at 6 p.m. July 26 at Peace Lutheran Church.  A festival warship service is scheduled at 10 a.m. July 27, with Bishop Torn olefins of the Pacific Northwest Synod as speaker.