Christian Grenz

          Farmer and resident of the good Samaritan Center, Selby SD.  Services held Wed May 2, 1979 at the United Methodist Church of Artas, S.D.  He and his wife farmed at Artas until their retirement.  He was a clerk of the school district, member of the building committee of Eureka Hospital, director of Artas Co-op Co.  Insurance agent for Milbank Insurance Co for 50 years, member of the Artas Town Board for 10 years and held all offices of the Artas Church.  Since Dec 15, 1978, he and his wife have been residents at the Good Samaritan Center, Selby, SD.                                                                                                 Per Obituary

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           Christian was left fatherless at an early age.  Being the oldest child, he helped his mother and the other children with the farming operation until he started farming on his own.  this was after his marriage to Margaret Scherbenske.  Besides the farming operation, Christ was an insurance agent for Milbank Mutual, served on the school board, was a tax assessor, served on various committees of the church.  He was one of the members of Valley Telephone instrumental to its beginning.  The church affiliation was Evangelical, later the Evangelicals and United Brethren merged and were called Evangelical United Brethren and at present, with more mergers, is known as united Methodist.  On Sunday in Nov of 1933 Christ and Margaret with some of the children went to church in Artas.  There was such a bad dust storm you could hardly see the road and Christ wanted to go back home, but the children said "We're almost there we may as well continue."  The reason they wanted them to go the church was that some of the children who remained at home were preparing a dinner for their 25th wedding Anniversary.  When they arrived at the church, they were surprised to find no one else had showed up, so they went home to find some early arriving guests (who came to help the children) already there.  This had all been planned in secret and was to have been a big surprise but with the intervention of the weather, caused some confusion.  Some of the Grenz's own ducks had been butchered for the occasion without their knowledge.                      Centennial Anniversary Book, 1887-1897 Eureka, South Dakota