‘A gesture filled with a lot of love’: Family helps Greenfield parish prepare for Christmas for more than 50 years

Henry Von Essen, right, poses with members of his extended family last December after they put up a Nativity scene at St. Michael Parish in Greenfield for the 50th consecutive year. Posing with him before the Nativity are, from left, Vanessa, Larry, Joseph and Tony Von Essen, and Tim and Steve Kottlowski. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

Families often have beloved and time-tested traditions around the holidays.

Some families gather each year to worship together at Midnight Mass. Some share meals inspired by recipes passed down from one generation to the next. Other families come together at a grandparent’s house on Christmas Eve to exchange presents.

A special Christmas tradition of the children and grandchildren of Henry Von Essen, a member of St. Michael Parish in Greenfield, can be traced back all the way to New York City, where Henry, 83, grew up in the 1930s and 1940s.

Beginning to raise his family in the late 1950s, Henry decided to move out of New York. But he didn’t exactly know where he wanted to put down roots.

“I got in a car with my brother and we were traveling out west,” said Henry, who still boasts a clear New York accent. “That was in 1957. We got as far as Greenfield. And I said, ‘I don’t want to go out any further.’ ”

When asked why he chose Greenfield, Henry’s answer was simple.

“The people were just beautiful,” he said. “Everybody was so brotherly, you know?”

Henry and his family eventually made the move permanent, moving “lock, stock and barrel” to Greenfield in 1959.

Among his prized possessions that Henry brought to Indiana was a Nativity scene that he used to set up outside his home in New York. But storage space was limited in the home he was renting in Greenfield.

So shortly before Christmas in 1959, Henry called St. Michael’s pastor at the time, Father Daniel Nolan.

“I called up Father Nolan and said, ‘Father, I’ve got a beautiful Nativity set. … Could I put it up for the church?’ ” Henry said. “He said, ‘We’ve never had an outside Nativity. That’d be beautiful.’ ”

So Henry and his 5-year-old son, Larry, went over to the parish and set it up.

Henry’s family has continued to put Nativity sets at the parish now for 51 consecutive years, a tradition old enough that it is on its third crèche scene.

According to Benedictine Father Severin Messick, St. Michael’s current pastor, this tradition is still important.

“It’s a small thing in the life of a parish,” Father Severin said. “It’s a small gesture in the [broader] scheme of things. But it’s a gesture filled with a lot of love and devotion.”

According to Larry, the tradition is also a sign of the deep faith of Henry, a faith that he has worked hard to pass on to his children and grandchildren.

“Your faith is the greatest gift that you can pass on down to your children,” Larry said. “And doing this is a way of showing your faith. It makes you reflect on your grandfather, on your uncle—the previous generations and their faith and how that’s carried on.”

It’s not the only way that Henry passed on the faith.

He taught his grandsons, Steve and Tim Kottlowski, now 20 and 18, how to be altar servers.

“I made the finest altar boys out of them that you’ve ever seen,” Henry said with pride.

And during their middle and high school years, the brothers would work in the summer for their grandfather, who would teach them lessons about the faith during breaks.

“He would read us passages from his little missal book,” Steve said. “He’d tell us to take a break, and he’d read us a passage or have us read it and explain it.”

The hard work that Henry put in to plant seeds of faith in his children and grandchildren must be paying off. Steve has participated in two mission trips and regularly attends Sunday Mass at St. Michael Church.

In recent years, the task of putting up the Nativity set and other Christmas decorations around the parish church has largely been taken on by Larry, Steve and Tim. All are members of St. Michael Parish.

Tim is happy to carry on a family tradition. But he’s also pleased that he makes Christmas better for other families who come to St. Michael Church to celebrate the holiday.

“It’s nice to put a smile on other people’s faces,” he said. “You can always hear people talking in church about the decorations and how nice they are. It’s just nice to know that you’ve affected them in some way and brought them closer either to the Church or just to the spirit of Christmas.”

Now the brothers, who are students at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, are looking forward to carrying on the tradition of putting up the Nativity set at St. Michael Parish well into the future.

“Me and my brother are talking about carrying it on,” Tim said. “We want to be engineers, and try and figure out how we could build a structure that would last a little bit longer and would be easier to move around.”

At the same time, Tim realizes that he might, like his grandfather, move away. Yet wherever he goes, or even if he stays, he’ll take his faith with him.

“Even if I did move,” he said, “I’d probably figure out a way to get involved in another parish somewhere and maybe start my own tradition.” †