Saturday Dec. 17th at 7pm…
JOIN US for a Clearfield Christmas Celebration!
A Classic Candlelight “German Style” Christmas Celebration at Clearfield Church: 2197 N 600 Rd, Eudora, KS 66025
EVERYONE is welcome, bring the whole family!
The History of Clearfield Kansas and it’s German Christmas Celebration
Clearfield, Douglas County, Kansas, 1858 – 2022
It is 1854 and Kansas has recently been organized into a territory. Migrants from all over Europe and America are on the move. Farmland is cheap and guaranteed to be profitable. Men and women from many countries make the trip to start anew. Many emigrants seek out familiar culture and settle with others hailing from their former countries. Such was the case for a group of German settlers in Douglas County. These men and women founded a community around their commonalities, language, and religion being primary bonds. These German families brought with them their Evangelical beliefs.
In 1858 a circuit rider, Reverend G. Fleisher, started a class in the Captain’s Creek area of what would become Palmyra Township in Douglas County. This stop on the circuit rider’s route marks the beginning of the Clearfield community. The Clearfield community, formed around the church, has survived throughout one hundred and fifty years and still carries traditions passed down from the original German settlers.
Today, only the Clearfield Church building and cemetery remain. Several families descended from original settlers are still active within the church, now Clearfield United Methodist, which hosts an annual Christmas celebration.
George Sturm created the wire frame used to support the candles hung from the Christmas tree in 1929. He wrote:
“As nearly all the families that settled in the Clearfield community came from Germany, Christmas was celebrated very much the same as the country they left, much the same as now but everything was in the German language… The first two men I remember were David Schendel and William Selzer – they got a nice tree and decorated it with a lot of ornaments and a lot of popcorn strung around the tree like a rope. The candles were small and were first lighted when the program was half over.
Our family still continues the tradition of cutting a tree and assembling the frame for the Clearfiled Church candlelit services.”
