A Danish real-estate man, Mr. A. Madsen, offered a property for sale on the corner of Rockwell Street and Wabansia Avenue. This building formerly housed a German church which was obliged to sell because of an indebtedness of $2,200 attached to the property. Mr. Madsen notified the pastor of the Siloam Danish Lutheran Ghurch, Reverend I. M. Hansen. The result was that Mr. P. H. Linden, a charter member of the Siloam Church, bought the property on September 22, 1893, and offered it to Siloam for a mission among the Danish people in that locality. At a business meeting held September 25 the mission was named the Ebenezer Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The first meeting and church service in the Ebenezer Church took place October 31, 1893. Since that day there have been regular Sunday services, weekly meetings, and Sunday school, both in the Danish and the English language.

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The Siloam congregation invited the Illinois District to hold its meeting the following spring, April 11-15, 1894, in the Ebenezer Church. On Sunday, April 15, the new Church was dedicated by President H. Hansen, assisted by the pastors of the district.

During the spring of 1894 the Siloam congregation called the theological student, Laurits Pedersen, of Trinity Seminary, Blair, Nebraska, to be assistant pastor in Siloam Church and mission pastor in the Ebenezer Church. He accepted the call after his ordination, June 13, 1894.

On December 1, 1895, the Ebenezer Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church was organized, with twenty-two members, as an independent church of the United Danish Church of America. Reverend L. Pedersen became its regular pastor and served well for almost twenty-five years, or until 1920, when he and his family left for Denmark, where he served in the Danish State Church, Aastrup Praestegaard, pr. Glejbjerg.

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The Ebenezer Church rented Mr. P. H. Linden's building until the congregation bought it in June, 1901. The building was a small wooden structure, erected in 1885 on a twenty-five-foot corner lot. The lot next to the Church on Rockwell Street was also owned by the Church.

In 1908 the Ebenezer congregation tore down the old wooden Church and built a new building on the two lots owned by the Church. The new Church was built of pressed face brick, in modified Gothic style, facing Rockwell Street. The tower lends somewhat of a medieval castle effect to the whole structure. The windows are glass mosaics in which many Christian symbols appear. The new Church was dedicated February 14, 1909. Much of the work on the building was done very reasonably or altogether free of charge by members of the Church.

Reverend C. M. Videbeck was called from Elk Horn, Iowa, to serve as pastor of Ebenezer Church. He arrived with his family in July, 1931. He is the present pastor of Ebenezer. He lives at 2415 North Kedzie Boulevard.

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Interview, with Reverend C. M. Videbeck, 2415 N. Kedzie Blvd., Chicago, Ill., by J. Enselmann, June 9, 1937.

The Danish language was for many years used exclusively in the Ebenezer Danish Church, but about 1910 the first English class was organized. Since then the English language has been used more and more and, in the last two or three years, the Sunday school has had only one Danish class. The fact is that approximately eighty per cent of the Sunday school pupils are from the community, which is not Scandinavian as was the case thirty or forty years ago.

At present (1936), more than two hundred children and young people are enrolled, with twenty Sunday school teachers. Mr. Carl Nielsen has served in the Sunday school for thirty-three years; one of his former pupils is now a pastor, the Reverend Edwin Petrusson of Kankakee, Illinois. Another pupil, Mr. Herman Sorensen, is now preparing for missionary work in Sudan, Africa.

At the annual Christmas festival of the Sunday school it is customary to take up a collection for the Indian Mission in Oaks, Oklahoma.

The Ebenezer Danish Church has for many years conducted a daily vacation Bible 5school. The enrollment last year (1936) was eighty-seven. The school is held every day for the four weeks immediately following the close of the public schools. The children, who range from five to fourteen years of age, are assembled in the Church parlors from nine to twelve o'clock every morning for instruction in Bible stories, singing, handiwork, making of picture books, soap-carving and drawing.

The Luther League of the Ebenezer Danish Church was organized during the spring of 1899 with twenty-one young members. In 1931 the organization joined the other synodical groups of similar nature. The League supports the Inadomi branch of the Japan Mission, and spreads Christian literature, published by its own Synod, especially Christmas Chimes and Ansgar Lutheran.

Interview, with Reverend C. M. Videbeck, 2415 N. Kedzie Blvd.,

Chicago, I11., by J. Enselmann, June 10, 1937.

The Ebenezer Church Choir was started in 1895 with eight singers, and with Mr. 6J. Knudsen as its leader. After a few months Mr. Edward Nelson became the faithful director of the choir. The choir first met at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Pedersen, 733 Maplewood Avenue. One of the members of the present choir has been singing for twenty-four years. During the war eight of the boys from the choir served their country, in either the Army or the Navy, and they all came back safely.

In the spring of 1928, Mr. Edward Nelson relinquished leadership of the choir to his son, Mr. Edward Nelson, Jr. The choir now has about forty members, having doubled in size since 1920.

The choir appeared in robes the first time at the Easter Morning Service in 1929.

The choir sang in West Branch, Iowa, in 1930, and has sung in Kenosha, Racine, and Clinton. It has also sung over WMBI of the Moody Bible Institute.

Ebenezer Kvindeforening (Ebenezer Ladies' Society) was organized in 1916 with 7a board of five members. Its aim is to help the pastor, the foreign and inner missions of the congregation, the Children's Home, and the needy Danes. The flower committee visits sick people at the hospital and in their homes.

The Society meets every second and fourth Thursday of the month in the Church basement. It costs twenty cents a month to belong to the Society. The organization has about thirty members at present.

The Women's Missionary Society of the Ebenezer Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church of Chicago was organized May 19, 1932, by Mrs. C. M. Videbeck. Mrs. H. P. Petersen was elected president pro tem, and Mrs. Arnold Petersen, secretary pro tem. The constitution of the Society was approved by the Church council January 16, 1933.

The meetings are held in the homes of the members. The attendance has been from forty to fifty.

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At a meeting in July, 1934, it was decided to join the Synodical Women's Mission Society, which then was only three years old, and included a total of fifty-three societies with a membership of 1,674.

The Ebenezer Junior Choir was formed in 1933. It now consists of twenty-five boys and girls. They sing at every morning service; as they grow older they pass into the senior choir. At the beginning of the fall of 1935, when the Church introduced the double service system, it became necessary to form an exclusively Danish choir for the Danish morning services.

The Ebenezer Lutheran Brotherhood was organized in 1933. The aim of the organization is to get the men of the Church better acquainted, to cultivate Christian fellowship, and to have more co-operative action in certain branches of the church work.

The painting of the church on the outside and the cleaning inside preparatory 9to the recent district convention in 1935 was initiated and carried out by the Brotherhood, with no expense to the Church except the cost of materials.