The soul of Silvana

SILVANA — When Army Spc. Justin Hebert's parents were deciding where their son should be laid to rest, they chose a small church cemetery that's overlooked this village for more than a century.

"We wanted him close," said Robin Hebert, the mother of the first Snohomish County soldier to die in Iraq, killed Aug. 1. "He has a friend buried up there. It's gorgeous."

The church, in addition to its picturesque setting, is on the state register of historic places and known as the Little White Church on the Hill.

To residents of this quiet, rural patch of land, the church is as much a spiritual center as it is a local landmark. For generations, it has been a constant that has hosted weddings, burials and other ceremonies.

"The Little Church on the Hill is what everyone knows," said Joan Beals, who was Silvana's postmaster for 14 years.

Built in 1890, the church serves as a reminder of solidity and change, a link to the past and yet reflecting the varying fortunes of a place that once was a bustling settlement.

"It's a very important part of Silvana," said Willow Payne, an owner of Willow & Jim's Country Cafe, the only restaurant in Silvana. "It's been there forever."

The Little White Church was built when Silvana had hotels, taverns, a railroad station and a bank. Now there's mainly a post office, an off-road-vehicle business, Willow & Jim's, a few homes and the 25-year-old Peace Lutheran Church building.

For Barb Vandenbrink, a member of nearby Peace Lutheran Church for 18 years, the Little White Church is the soul of the community. The Peace Lutheran congregation holds summer services at the old church.

"It has a lot of memories," Vandenbrink said. "Every summer we go there. It shows our traditions. We had the church's 100th-anniversary celebration there. It's beautiful up there on a summer Sunday; you can see the whole valley."

Al Noel, a retired Seattle resident who says he's been coming to the Silvana area for more than 20 years, drives up nearly daily to visit friends.

"I go to two places," he said, naming Willow & Jim's and the Little White Church.

The Little White Church's congregation was organized in February 1884 as Zion Lutheran Church, and the building hosted its first service in December 1890. Now the structure is used mostly for weddings and other special occasions, except for the summer services in July and August.

A history of the church published for its 1984 centennial describes how settlers arrived in the valley between 1872 and 1884 and had to fight logjams on the Stillaguamish River to get around.

"The seven miles to Stanwood constituted a day's journey down and back, for in places the forest was so thick they had to crawl through on hands and knees," the history notes.

Nineteen people attended an 1884 organizational meeting of the church, with the session presided over by the Rev. Christian Joergenson, who was pastor of the Stillaguamish Lutheran Church in Stanwood, now Our Saviour's Lutheran Church.

The history notes that Joergenson's assigned mission covered all of the western parts of Washington Territory, Oregon and British Columbia.

But one Lutheran church wasn't sufficient for Silvana, the history says, and in 1894, 13 families met to organize a second church.

That church adopted the name of the Salem congregation and initially met in a storehouse along the river.

After separating from the Zion congregation, the history notes, Salem remained an independent congregation until 1897, when it voted to join the new Lutheran Free Church of America. Norwegian was spoken at meetings and worship services, and the language difference is believed to have been one reason for the split, says Debra Compton, the parish administrator for Peace Lutheran Church.

In 1898, a Salem church building was built along what is now the Pioneer Highway at Larson Road in Silvana.

The two churches existed separately for decades, but in 1963 they agreed to merge and adopt a new name, Peace Lutheran.

"Thus ... the second, third and fourth generations of the original church founders joined to become one Holy Body working for the Kingdom of Christ," the history notes.

The last services in the old Salem church building were held in 1978, and the new Peace Lutheran Church, 1717 Larson Road, was dedicated in September of that year.

The Little White Church stands on the north side of the Stillaguamish River and is reached by a short dirt road immediately north of a bridge on the Pioneer Highway. A plaque notes it was designated a state historic place in 1972.

Next to the church is a small cemetery with graves dating to the late 1800s. It's here that Justin Hebert was buried with full military honors Aug. 16.

The gate to the church is generally open, although the site has been troubled by sporadic vandalism, including one occasion when parish administrator Compton found 54 tombstones tipped over.

But Compton recalls how she once locked the gate and then found that an elderly woman using a walker had been forced to park her car at the gate to visit the gravesides.

The gates now are kept open.

Robin and Jason Villa, who got married at the Little White Church in 2000, are among those who treasure its tradition.

"We got married there because his grandfather is buried there," Robin Villa said. "That was our only choice."

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com