PAWNEE ROCK — Tuesday morning, the parking lot of the Bergthal Mennonite Church north of Pawnee Rock was lined with trucks, SUVs and minivans. Former members and neighbors of the 98-year-old church arrived early to register to bid on church pews, stained glass windows, and other items left before the final demolition of the building later this year.
“Good morning and we’d like to welcome you to the Bergthal Mennonite church. This will be the last chance to buy anything out of the church. I might add you have until November 1 to remove all the items,” announced the auctioneer from Carr Auction.
For some, it was sad to watch as the church that they, their parents and their children were married in was picked apart and sold off piece by piece. But for others, it was an opportunity to salvage a piece of history, to acquire a sentimental piece, and to add some authenticity to an ongoing project, or simply to get a good deal for resale later.  
Winona Unruh, Janis Deckert and her husband came to watch.
“The three of us are the oldest ones left in the church,” Deckert said. “We talked it over and we said it was better than watching it deteriorate in front of us.”

The final accounting
Jolene Hetzke, acting treasurer of the church, said several tables, chairs and chair carts, and hymnals were sent to Texas to bless a Mennonite church plant. Some of the exterior brick, as well as the church cornerstone, will be used to build a memorial at the Mennonite cemetery a little more than a mile south of the church. The remaining brick will be used by the Larned highway department for road base.
We’ve been talking about this for four years, so we’ve worked through many of the emotions,” she said. “I think most of us agreed, as much as we could get things out of the church where people would use them, as opposed to dumping it all in a hole, is what we wanted to do.”
The church held a memorial service over Memorial Day weekend earlier this year, and that day sold many items at a silent auction. Church members have also salvaged much of the trim and hardwood flooring for use in their own homes. The auction would take care of what was left. Sometime in November, the structure will be demolished and the foundation filled in.
“There aren’t any other Mennonite churches in the area,” Hetzke said. “You have to go 60 miles or more to get to the closest ones.”

Wedding day memories
“I got married here,” said one bidder who asked to remain anonymous. “There was actually a little round mirror that was in the room where I put my wedding dress on. It’s all I had to see myself in. My parents got married here, and my aunt and uncle, and that mirror was in pictures from all of our weddings. It’s not there now, but that’s what I came to bid on.”
A member of the church overheard her, and they began reminiscing about their wedding days.
“I needed to come see it not be a church, and I thought that might help me,” she said.

Sanctuary
An anonymous bidder purchased the church piano, with the knowledge it had been tuned in 2012, making his less than $100 final bid money well spent, he said. Even though he doesn’t play well, he said he will find a place for it at home.
Church pews were purchased individually, but one bidder purchased five. His wife later said she didn’t know what he would use them all for. That was a common refrain from many purchasers, though one bidder came knowing her daughter planned to use one for seating in a loft area of her home.
The straight backed pews went for higher dollars than the unique curved pews. The representatives of the McPherson ReUse It store said they didn’t bid on the pews because they knew they would be too difficult to move. “They don’t really fit a straight walled room,” one said.
A young man purchased the table the Bible once rested on. He was not available for comment after the sale.  
Don Dreese purchased all the hardwood flooring in the sanctuary, as well as the hanging lights. He is building a house out of salvage four miles west of Pawnee Rock. He said it’s pretty much done, but he began nearly 40 years ago. Now, he’s just working on details. It was a homestead place, he said, made from torn down buildings here and limestone foundations there.

Stained glass windows
The Dean and Gretta Lakin live half a mile away, and came to the auction in hopes of being the winning bidder for at least one of the smaller stained glass windows to use in a kitchen remodel.
“They had the auction of the Methodist Church in Pawnee Rock a year or two ago, and the way they sold the stained glass windows there is the sold them individually, and then they sold them as a lump sum, and which-ever way brought the most money, that’s the way it went. A buyer from Colorado wanted them so badly, he bought them all just to get the big ones, so nobody local had a chance to buy something from there,” Dean said. “I was pleased to find out they were going to sell these individually here.”
He had no plans to bid on the stained glass windows in the sanctuary. Many wondered how much they would go for, certain it would be far out of reach.
Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case.
First would be the north facing unit.
“It will just be a sale of three windows. Would anyone like choice, if not, we will sell as a complete unit. That’s either the left column, the right column or the center column. I’m not moving that window.” the auction declared.
The window was sold for choice. The first winning bidder took the center column for $100. The buyer was not available for comment.
The two outside columns were sold together for $35 each.  The buyer of these planned to section them out and sell them in little frames.
“I just didn’t want someone to walk away with them,” he said.
The smaller northeast window in the entry sold as a complete unit for $125.
The east window sold as one unit also. It went for $180. The bidders purchased the window to resell through the ReUse It Center in McPherson. The center supports nonprofits in McPherson County.
While they didn’t know yet how they remove and transport it, they were confident it could be done. “It’s going to be a lot of work,” one said.
While the final bids may seem low, the real challenge will be getting the windows out of the church, intact and on time.
“If you happen to buy the exterior doors or any exterior windows that would leave the church open, they would like to have you work with them as far as getting those out,” the auctioneer reminded bidders. “They would like to have those removed from here after about two weeks.”
That leaves only about a week before the Nov. 1 deadline.