A Sad ‘Joy to the World’ Christmas

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

Fresh out of seminary in 1978, I was appointed to serve as pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church in Montello, Wisconsin. Ernie Vohland was the baker there. He was one of the first people I met on my first Sunday morning. I met him again at Leone’s Bakery the next day when I stopped in for sweet rolls. Ernie wouldn’t let the new preacher pay.

The smells and tastes of Ernie’s pastries were an exquisite pleasure. He made them from recipes inherited from his German grandfather and perfected under the tutelage of his baker father.

Ernie was born in Milwaukee in 1915. He delivered milk for Borden’s using a horse and wagon. Then he operated bakeries with his wife Leone in the Milwaukee suburbs for several years before moving to Montello in 1960. They lived in one of the apartments over Leone’s Bakery, near the intersections of Highways 22 and 23, in the heart of Montello.

People in Montello still rave about Ernie’s baked goods 38 years after the bakery closed in 1985. On every Communion Sunday a big round loaf of potato bread adorned the altar at Trinity Church. It was the best Communion bread I ever tasted.

Jesus would have loved Ernie’s bread. But it is not the delicious bread or the special walnut Danishes that I remember most about Ernie Vohland.  It’s the part he played in a tragic event that occurred at Christmas time, just after we built the new church.

Tragedy occurs just before Christmas

On December 16, 1984, we had an open house at the new church. About halfway through the afternoon I received an emergency phone call. Ernie’s two granddaughters, 4-year-old Jessica Vohland and her seven-year-old sister Candi Rinehart, had fallen through the ice on a pond near Packwaukee. By the time I arrived at the hospital in Portage I knew they had been under the water for 30 minutes. When they brought the girls up, they were not breathing, and their hearts were not beating.

I found their parents, Bob and Lillian, in the emergency room lobby.  Grandpa Ernie was in the hospital chapel praying. I remembered seeing him with his granddaughters in church the previous Sunday. And perhaps you can guess what Ernie was praying: “Dear God, if it be your will, take this old man, and let our little girls live.”

We finally got word that the doctors had revived both of the girls. “The two girls were ‘technically dead’ before they were revived in the hospital — Jessica after a half-hour, and Candi after a full hour of not breathing,” said hospital spokesperson Charles Church in a Portage Daily Register article.

The article continued, “Church believes the girls were saved by the chilling effect the icy pond water had on their bodies… their body temperatures were 90 degrees when they were brought into the hospital. Church explained that a ‘hibernation effect’ took place that slowed down the girls’ metabolism as they experienced the hypothermia brought on by the cold water.”

Shortly after they were revived the doctor said the girls were strong enough to be transferred to the trauma center at University Hospital in Madison. I drove down there and waited and prayed with the family for hours, until at last a doctor came to tell us that both girls were stable. I went home to wait some more and to pray with the congregation that was gathering that night for the annual Christmas program.

The girls were in critical care for several days. We were told that their chances of surviving were good. But on Christmas Day, as our family was getting ready to open presents, we received word that 4-year-old Jessica had died.

It was a sad Christmas for everyone in the Montello community. We had the first funeral in our new church building; and, miraculously, Jessica’s sister Candi was able to attend. It was a strange mixture of sorrow and joy. We concluded the service by singing “Joy to the World.” My wife Jo said she had never heard it sung so sadly, and yet, with so much hope.

I am comforted by the memory of Jessica Vohland and her sister Candi Rinehart, the Sunday before they went through the ice, kneeling at the Communion rail, breaking bread with their Grandpa Ernie in the shadow of the Christmas tree.

John Sumwalt is a retired pastor and the author of “Vision Stories” & “How to Preach the Miracles.”