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This year has been emotionally hard on the Kenneth community with several residents passing away and with the social distancing imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
To ease the hurt for area residents, Kenneth Mayor Keith Hoven erected a Christmas tree inside the gazebo at the city park.
He said it’s a way to remember lost loved ones.
“My inspiration for that tree and gazebo is Clare Vande Velde,” he said.
Vande Velde was a longtime resident, spent a short time serving on the city council, and was unofficial town historian.
She’d often journal detailed town celebrations and fundraisers, noting the dollars raised and where the money was spent.
“She was just a plain asset to Kenneth,” Hoven said.
Vande Velde died in May 2019.
The gazebo, centrally located in the town’s city park, was one of Vande Velde’s projects.
The structure sat rotting at the town’s former ball fields until Vande Velde convinced family members to make repairs.
The Christmas tree is one that Hoven’s daughter, Jennifer Moody, was going to discard.
Instead, it became the tree to remember loved ones through holiday ornaments.
Hoven and his wife, Doris, placed the first two ornaments on the tree last week in remembrance of their parents, Byron Halverson and Joyce and Avis Hoven.
Inside a cooler located next to the tree, Hoven placed a book to record the donating family’s name, the loved one’s name, and a description of the ornament.
“Next year we’re going to pick a day where they can pick up the ornament and they can place it on the tree,” he said.
Surrounding the gazebo are holiday decorations from former Kenneth resident and business owner Dave Groen, who died in February.
Candy canes, a turkey, and a manger scene made from PVC piping and outlined with lights are Groen’s creations.
His family left the decorations to the city. Groen typically placed the decorations in front of his repair shops.
Now they are included in the community park and the remembrance tree.
“We just changed his blueprint,” Hoven said.
Rural Kenneth residents John and Rachel Kroontje passed away in the past 15 months, and their daughters said they’re encouraged by the town’s efforts to memorialize community members.
“The Kenneth group of friends were an important part of my parents’ lives,” said Lori (Kroontje) Sorenson. “This is a wonderful way to honor those friends and those friendships.”