On the way to St. John’s United Church of Christ, located between Faribault and Kenyon just off Minnesota State Highway 60 on Jacobs Avenue. That’s the church in the distance, on the left.
ALL ACROSS MINNESOTA, in church basements and fellowship halls, parishioners are plating pie and scooping vanilla ice cream. It’s the season of ice cream socials.
This simple sign on the door into the fellowship hall welcomes diners to the Ice Cream Social.
Sunday I attended the annual Ice Cream Social sponsored by the Youth Fellowship of St. John’s United Church of Christ, Wheeling Township, rural Faribault.
Lynn, left, and Kim, right, make sandwiches.
While the youth scooped ice cream, collected money, served beverages, cleared and set tables, the adults mostly manned the kitchen. Kim prepared ham sandwiches while Lynn made BBQs.
One volunteer was kept busy restocking pies and taking orders for specific pies.
Potato salad on ice, ready to go.
Cake was available, too, for those who preferred or wanted that sweet instead of/in addition to pie.
Others kept the pie counter full, washed dishes, restocked pickles and potato salad and more.
The fellowship hall/dining space.
Craig scurried around the dining area with a pot of coffee in one hand, a pitcher of water in the other.
The door to the Pie Room is labeled as such.
Banana cream pie inside a Pie Room fridge.
Elsie, hard at work in the Pie Room. She turns 90 in October.
And, in a narrow room off the kitchen, in a space officially dubbed “Pie Room,” 89-year-old Elsie plated pies.
I asked Elsie, “What’s the most popular pie?” She replied, “Pecan.”
I marvel at this petite life-long St. John’s member who, with arthritic hands, tirelessly cuts and plates pies at a fast pace and then slides the plates through a small window onto the kitchen counter. I hugged her upon my arrival and she welcomed me with a kind and gentle spirit and sweet smile. I love Elsie.
It’s all about the pie at the St. John’s Ice Cream Social. Just look at this lovely lemon meringue.
And I love this congregation of friendly and faithful people who minister through delicious homemade food. St. John’s also offers weekly soup and salad luncheons during Lent and each fall hosts a German Fest featuring superb Deutsche Essen.
Parishioners made 28 pies for the Ice Cream Social. The varieties included pumpkin, pineapple, peach, strawberry, cherry, custard and more.
If you are a fan of church meals, as I am, you likely have favorite ice cream socials or dinners. I’d like to hear where those are.
Pie cost $1.50 per slice. This is strawberry, likely Elsie’s as she brought strawberry pie.
Have you gotten to know the faithful who labor in the kitchen, who truly deserve hearty thanks for blessing us with their tasty homemade cooking and baking?
Thank you, St. John’s United Church of Christ, Wheeling Township, for the great fellowship and food.
© Copyright 2015 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
I am now officially WANTING pie for breakfast!!!!!!! sigh………………….
At our age, you may have pie for breakfast. I had a root beer float at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, at church.
Yum!!! Great choice!!! LOL!!!
I am with you, Doreen. I could use a piece of that strawberry pie STAT! Yum.
I can vouch for the deliciousness of the peach pie.
This brings back the GOOD memories of cake, pie and socials 🙂 I remember the church ladies as we called them as kids making us homemade donuts every once in a while before classes started. I do not find donuts like that and when I do I stock up and usually end up eating two right away. I miss my grandmother’s baking and I am a pretty good baker myself I just do not bake very often because I will eat the whole pan of brownies in no time flat. Oh the memories. Happy Day – Enjoy!
Oh, yes, we still call them “the church ladies,” although men often help these days, too.
I can almost taste those donuts of which you write. Good old-fashioned ones. Such sweet memories.
The lunch meals the church ladies would make when I was in 2nd to 6th grades. I went into public school in 7th grade and questioned and wondered what the school was serving for lunch. I grew up eating homemade for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I learned what processed foods were though in my 7th grade education. I also learned pretty quickly to brown bag it. I still brown bag it for lunch and pretty much make homemade dinners at least 5 to 6 nights a week.
Like you, I grew up with great homemade foods served from the elementary school kitchen. And this was in a public school, albeit a small one.
I think it is a phenomenon of small town life – and how blessed we are that we have found it! 🙂
Blessed is a great word. Thanks for stopping by with your endorsement of these small town events.
I bet that ice cream and pie tasted real good too! 🙂
My peach pie was excellent. I skipped the ice cream.
is this social a fundraiser or just fun?
Both. Monies raised for youth and fun for all.
awesome!
I remember church ice cream socials… I can’t say I know of any around here these days. What a lovely post with mouth-watering photos. Thanks a lot Audrey… my sweet tooth just kicked in. Looks like I might have to bake a cobbler to go with some ice cream! I have a lot of blackberries to do something with – so this post is my motivation!! 🙂
Always happy to motivate. Fresh blackberries sound delish. We had to eradicate ours as they were taking over our backyard.
Pass the pecan pie please
I think the pecan pie is gone. 🙂
Love the rural USA.. In Maine they still have ham and beans(Boston baked beans) suppers.
That sounds delicious.
Ha, but I’ve never been to one, at least not yet.
Get Thee there.
Ha, ha, I just had the ham for supper here at the homestead, should have had some beans to round out the meal (there were some left over in the fridge too). Had “tater tots” instead. lol
Tator tots. Now that’s genuinely Minnesotan, but only if you use them in a hotdish (not a casserole) with cream of chicken/mushroom soup.
Really? That sounds interesting. My wife has a recipe for pork chops that uses cream of mushroom soup and then cooks them in the oven.
Cream soups are a key ingredient in Minnesota hotdish, our winter comfort food.
I Love to hear about these ice cream socials and fellowship dinners.I love the pattern on these church dishes, and the Pies look amazing. Every Fall one of our sister churches hosts a pie auction for the youth of the church. Some of those pies have gone for hundreds of dollars (for real) It’s a fun way to support the youth and get something yummy in return. The members love outbidding one another the get their favorite pies 🙂
I love the pattern on the dishes, too. We attend a fundraiser each year where pies are auctioned as the dessert. There are not enough for every table. The bidding gets fierce and, yes, pies there have gone for hundreds of dollars. All for a good cause, to fund a local Christian camp.
It’s great to see everyone really enjoying and embracing summer. Ice cream is so good in the heat. I love the look of the scooped potato salad (at first I thought it was a chunky ice cream!) and that lemon meringue pie looks really good. I’m thinking of making a passionfruit meringue pie to feature on my blog in the next few days! xx
I can see where the potato salad could be confused with scooped ice cream. I look forward to seeing your passionfruit pie.
The pies look amazing and so delicious. Don’t forget Sunday is National Ice Cream Day. Perhaps hit the DQ or make a pie adding a scoop of ice cream..
National Ice Cream Day, huh? I should tell my oldest brother. He eats a bowl of Schwans ice cream every evening.