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Show Historic Church Plans Facilities For Newly weds NASHUA, IOWA. Special accommodations ac-commodations are being planned for honeymooning couples who are married mar-ried in the Little Brown Church in the Vale, the historical small church which was made famous by & song written before it was built. Harry Richers of Worthington, Minn., has purchased the former Bradford academy property across the street from the church. He plans to erect honeymoon cabins on the property. A photographic studio to -accommodate the newlyweds and facilities for wedding dinners and receptions also are planned. The church, built in 1864, long has teen popular ' for wedding ceremonies. cere-monies. The peak was reached in 1940 when 1,549 couples were married. mar-ried. The bride and bridegroom usually ring the church bell after the ceremony, the pastor admonishing them to "pull through life together, just as you are pulling on the bell rope." The small neat church in a pleasant pleas-ant rustic setting once served the religious needs of old Bradford, a town of 600 persons two miles from here. The town died after it was bypassed by-passed by a railroad in 1868, but the song has kept the church alive. Attracted by the beauty of the site upon which the church later was built, William S. Pitts, a young visitor vis-itor from Wisconsin wrote his moving hymn, "The Little Brown Church in the Vale" in 1857. He put his manuscript away and it was forgotten. In 1864, when the church was completed, com-pleted, Pitts, who had returned to the tov n as a singing teacher, was asked to sing a solo at the dedication dedica-tion ceremony and he obliged with his own song written seven years before. |
