The Little Brow n Church in the Vale

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Gary

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This weekend we made a wellness run out to Iowa to check on my wife's folks. On the way home (NEW YEAR'S EVE) we stopped at Nashua, IA and went to the Little Brown Church. We were the visitors, so we were asked to ring the bell. Then they invited us to stay for snacks after the service. They told us a few stories about the church.
The church was built during the civil war. They painted the church brown because it was what was available at the time. Turns out back then brown paint didn't contain lead, but white paint did. Lead was in short supply, as it was being used to make ammo, so they painted it brown and it has been brown ever since.
Another story is, the north wall has a bow in it. As the story goes, they built it barn raising style. The south wall was built by local craftsmen and the north wall was built by local boat/ship builders. Then they raised both sides and tied them together. The north wall built by the ship builders, built the wall the best way they knew how, the same way they built a ship, with a bow. I wanted to get a shot of the north wall after hearing the story, but a lady in the parking lot couldn't get her car started, so we jumped it with the truck, (it was about -18°f at the time). by then I'd had enough of the cold. Maybe the next time through we'll have to stop and get a photo, when the weather is a little less .....burrrr.

Hope you all have a great 2018.

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Thanks for the photos, and it looks as if a nice time was had by you and your lady.
 
So you folks were just passing by, and decided to go into the church for services? That is awesome! Great looking church as well!
 
So you folks were just passing by, and decided to go into the church for services? That is awesome! Great looking church as well!

We go by Nashua every time we go back home to see my wife's folks. We've stopped at the church to take pictures because it's a famous landmark, but never had the opportunity to go inside. This time by, the timing was right, so we made an on the spot decision to go. Glad we did, they were very nice folks. When we left, we dicided to make a deliberate attempt to "get there at the right time" in the future.

http://littlebrownchurch.org/the-church/history/
 
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