TILIW St. Nicholas in Femme Osage
- Friends of Historic Augusta
- 8 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Nick & Rupert_Simple Gifts_She did not like me_Game show host_Gold mine of history_Tecklenburg_Top shelf
Gentle readers, it all started when I saw an ad flyer in the Boone Country Connection. It was the December 2025 issue, in which I learned of an event in Femme Osage at the old stone schoolhouse. Here, let me show it to you…
How could I resist? I love stone buildings (but not stone facades ☹) …and once upon a time I was hired to repair the bell tower you see atop the schoolhouse…so I was kinda invested already. And besides, I get a little tired of Santa Claus, but I figured I could get along with Nick and Rupert. However, I don’t jump into anything…so, I called 3 Femme Osage residents, Justin Sincox, Max Bade, and finally, Pastor Willey, just to see if I should go into Tell It Like It Was mode on Saturday evening, Dec. 20. All 3 conversations convinced me to drop by.
So, I parked on the church side of the Femme Osage Creek and made the pilgrimage to the schoolhouse in the chilly darkness. Just as I was entering the old school, I encountered a friend, Judy Prager, a long-time member of the UCC Church. Now I knew I had made the right decision by coming.
I made my way to the head of the dimly lit one-room-classroom where St. Nicholas (aka Reverend Dr. Jeffrey Willey) was seated. He wasn’t holding audience with anyone at that moment, so, I introduced myself in case he didn’t remember me.
Nick immediately asked if I had been a good boy, and as proof, I was asked to sing or dance. The first song that popped into mind was the beautiful Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts. I sang it. Nick was satisfied, and he gave me a gold (chocolate) coin as a reward…I ate it the next day with a dark beer.
I thought it would be inappropriate to sit on St. Nick’s lap, so I sat on a nearby chair, and I complimented him for organizing this anachronistic event and for creating an incredible atmosphere. Then I asked Pastor Willey to submit to a phone interview. We agreed on December 26, at 9am. About this time, Nick’s assistant, Knecht Ruprecht (Farmhand Rupert), seemingly was starting to doubt Nick’s judgment regarding me. He menacingly approached us with his bag of whipping sticks, but Nick quickly intervened and introduced us. All good; peace on earth.
Thus, it came to pass that I interviewed Reverend Willey on the day after Christmas, 12/26/25.
paulO: I’m going to do something slightly different today. Before I ask you even one question, I’m going to give you the option of asking me a question.
Dr. Willey: (Laughs.) I wouldn’t know what to ask! Well…you do a lot of this. What is going to be the outcome of all this?
pO: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question…because I just started reading a book about how to interview better. And that’s one of the things you’re supposed to know…in advance…like, what’s the point of this? And the point of it, in all my interviews, has been to just see what bubbles up. I usually don’t enter with an agenda. But I pick people because they seem interesting…and this time it’s a topic that people around this area could stand to know more about. However, I’m going to try to limit myself to just St. Nicholas.
DW: Oh, okay.
pO: (And like a bad interviewer I blustered onward.) I can tell you’re certainly worthy of a long interview. (I hear laughter.) Here’s my impression of you: you’re a bit of an extrovert…possibly…and you’re a showman. (I hear more laughter!) I don’t know if I’m jumping to conclusions… Some ministers are all reserved and in-the-background, and others are showmen…and I think you’re the latter. (More laughter.)
DW: I was told in my first…I used to be a church planter; I’d start congregations. And an Air Force family started coming…it was a brand-new church start…and it gathered all sorts of different people…and she…did…not…like me. I wondered, why does she keep coming if she doesn’t like me? She told me after one particular service, “You know, if you don’t make it as a pastor, you’d be a great game show host.” (We both laugh.)
pO: Sounds ‘bout right.
DW: 35 years later in ministry, I’m still preaching, but I have never hosted a game show. So…I grew up with a grandfather who insisted we…in a little Iowa farm town of not even 100 people…we’d go to visit…all the farmers would go down in the afternoon for a beer and a bump, in between chores…and we had to introduce ourselves to the entire bar and go shake all their hands. And then we’d sit up at the bar with a shot glass of orange soda pop.
DW: My mother always said that he trained us to enjoy people, introduce yourself, and be more extroverted. I credit my grandfather with my enjoying people and doing things with them. And that evolved into the ministry. I don’t have a problem with being out front, helping other people learn about their Lord, and have that relationship with Him. And you have to model that…not just model the good things. You’ve got to model when you’ve made a mistake…and repentance…and humility…and admit that you’re wrong. That is all a part of it too.
pO: Okay.
DW: And I think too…I was only here…what…5 or 6 months? …And I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rather than keep it to myself, we just made that part of the ministry here…okay, how do we minister to terminally ill people? My life’s an open book, my friend. Ask away!
pO: Alright. So, you’re still living with this cancer?
DW: I was diagnosed in May of 2020, and January 2021, it went into remission, and then…in May of 2022, I was diagnosed with a second terminal cancer…very rare…there’s only 200 known cases, called dedifferentiated liposarcoma. And it’s 95% lethal in the first year, and no one had lived past 36 months. And August 12 of 2025 was my 36th month mark so I’m the longest living survivor of that cancer.
pO: Just like I said, you never know where these interviews are going. Good grief!
DW: (Laughs.) Well, I actually had a chemo treatment on Monday so if my thoughts are a little disjunct…because I do have what the Mayo Clinic calls chemo brain. Sometimes it’s hard to keep a coherent thought…
pO: We may be operating more on the same level then. 😊
pO: Say, how old are you?
DW: 64. I turn 65 in April.
pO: Well, I was looking up some of your creds…and I see you went to the Covenant Theological Seminary…and you have a doctorate in God-knows-what-all. So, you’re highly educated…yeah, what’s my question? Well, did you somehow seek out Femme Osage because it is a historic location? (It’s the oldest Evangelical Church west of the Mississippi, founded 1833, by Hermann Garlichs.)
DW: No…no…I was in the music recording industry. My bachelor’s degree is in Music Business. I graduated from Belmont College in Nashville. And then the Lord took me to the seminary. I simply wanted to know the Lord deeper, better; I did not want to be a pastor. I came to Covenant Seminary…and I went into church planting. I started congregations. I had a 15-year career starting or revitalizing churches.
DW: Then about 10 years ago, the Lord called me back into the pulpit ministry, and that’s when I came across the UCC…and found out that that was my heritage. My ancestors were founding families in 3 of the 4 major traditions that formed the UCC.
Gentle readers, Pastor Willey is very passionate about his occupation, and we went pretty deep into the theological weeds, and he pretty much lost me. But he finally circled back to how he heard about the opening in Femme Osage for a pastor…and his wife approved…and so he applied, and it was a good fit. And it was only then that he learned the historical significance. As Pastor Willey said, “This place is a goldmine of history!”
pO: It’s always amazing how complex things are, not only in the story you just told me, but also…UCC is, in my mind, is much more complex than… Well, I was raised Catholic, and there’s a system you can look at and understand…it’s just one system, but you’re saying that with UCC you can belong to other organizations. And then there’s that history of what all came together earlier in Prussia to unite the Protestants.
DW: A good way to understand UCC is… If you think of the Catholic Church as a pyramid…on the top you’ve got the pope, then you’ve got the cardinals, the bishops, down to the local priest. The authority flows downward. Now take that pyramid and flip it upside down. The UCC is a congregational organization…the authority rests within the individual congregation. Nobody can tell a congregation what to do. The congregation gathers together and they say what do we want to do? How do we do it? And they pass that information down to the association, down to the conference…the national synod…and those bodies are supposed to help fulfill…
But what about St. Nicholas and his sidekick, Knecht Ruprecht?
pO: Tell me about your inspiration for the event last Saturday night.
DW: The people that created Femme Osage Church back in the 1830s were from Tecklenburg, and that was in northern Prussia, near the border with Holland. …over a period of time they settled this valley. And being the Pietist historian that I am…I wanted to revitalize a lot of the family traditions we have in this church. These country churches are so rich with family heritage and memories... I wanted to give the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren that are now in the congregation, some of those memories of the Christmas and the Easter…that you don’t get in the megachurches.
DW: I didn’t want to perpetuate the mythical Santa Claus that comes down the chimney and rides the reindeer that has nothing to do with Christ. Let’s go back in history… What did our founding families here…how did they celebrate Christmas in this valley?
DW: Well, I did a sermon on Nicholas of Myra…in Turkey. He was born in Greece; sometimes he is known as Nicholas of Greece. And he was a very godly man: leader of the church… I think he was born around 270 A.D. And he just did these things to minister to the needs of the children and the people that developed into many of our Christmas traditions. His fame had so spread that he was naturally sainted; they called him Saint Nicholas. And as Christianity spread through the fall of the Roman Empire, so did his fame spread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
DW: So, we started researching…what would those Tecklenburgers have done in the 1830s? And we came across St. Nicholas. And Ruprecht, his helper, had many, many names…
pO: Before I forget to ask…that night, who was doing the part of Farmhand Rupert?
DW: That was Tom Bognar; he’s a member of the congregation. The farm woman was his wife, Carol…she helped organize getting cookies made, she had hot apple cider, and she would greet people.
DW: We began researching costumes…what did they wear? Modern day Germans…back to the 1900s…there’s quite a variety of what Nicholas and Rupert wore. They have Nicholas in…all sorts of colors: gold to red to yellows to green…okay, let’s go with the green Santa. And Rupert was a challenge because I’ve seen him, anywhere from almost demonic to a simple farmhand…someone that’s just going to help Nicholas get the job done…just some genuine people…a godly man. He wasn’t magical...there was no Rudolph the reindeer that could fly.
DW: The response was fantastic. People loved it. I heard nothing but positive comments. We were hoping maybe 5 or 6 people would come…it exceeded my expectations. Frankly, I was just stunned by the response. It went from children to teenagers to adults. Everybody wanted to participate.
pO: Well, send me any pictures you think are interesting.
DW: Here’s one, Nicholas and a little boy. (We were both on cell phones, and the pictures started coming.)
DW: Here’s Judy (Prager) and Nicholas.
Doctor Willey: It was a good first year. That room got packed…3 times…solid…standing room only! There was a man at the very end; he just kept hanging around, looking, looking, watching, watching, and he was the last to leave. He turned to me and smiled, and he said to me, “Top shelf, absolutely top shelf.”
Sincerely curious,
paulO
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