Tiny bit of Luxembourg lives on in Butler County
Taken from the Norfolk Daily News, Norfolk, Nebraska (November 2002)

(Photo - Don & Irene Medinger, the last members in their parish with pure Luxembourter heritage, pose in front of a wooden "Our Lady of Luxembourg" statue at St. Mary's Presentation Parish south of Bellwood.)

NEAR BELLWOOD (AP) - No spooky old castles surrounded by moats. Nary a royal prince running around in a funny-looking crown.

Heck, even all of the road signs are in English. There's little to tell passing motorists along Nebraska Highways 15 and 64 that this little valley once was the hubbub of the state's Luxembourg community.

It was so entrenched with descendants of the tiny European grand duchy, or constitutional monarchy, that the valley was even locally known for the longest time as Luxembourg.

"The Platte River Valley, it kind of looks like Luxembourg. Maybe that's why they stopped here," said Don Medinger, 73, who still lives on the land settled near the river by his great-great-grandfather from Luxembourg.

Nearly a third of Luxembourg's residents in the early 19th century were driven from the tiny European country - about the size of Nebraska's Dawson County - because of poverty, said Robert E Schaef fer, the honorary consul general of Luxembourg based in Kansas City, Mo.

He says they left a little too soon. "Shortly after they left, we discovered iron ore and began a very well-to-do country," he said in a very thick Luxembourgish accent, a language close to German.

Others from the tiny nation soon found their way to this valley, six miles north of David City and five miles east of Bellwood.

THE CENTER of the Luxembourg farming community was St. Mary's Presentation Parish, a Catholic church that now sits at the intersection of Highways 15 and 64.

The close-knit community extended for a five-mile radius from the church, Medinger said. "They were strictly farmers and liked doing it the hard way," he said. Looking through old photographs of early Luxembourg settlers, Medinger says it's hard to find even one who is smiling. "They were tough people in tough times," he said. The early Luxembourgers also only socialized together.

"They played cards a lot and had dances, barn dances and house dances," Medinger said. "And they liked their whiskey." And they were dedicated to their Catholic faith. In fact, the 110-year-old Presentation Parish has one of only a few Our Lady of Luxembourg statues in the state. It's also known as Our Lady of the Afflicted and is the patronal statue of the European nation.

“Mary is holding the infant Christ in a stylish sort of way, both have crowns,” said the Rev. Leo Kosch, parish pastor. “Jesus’ hand is up in blessing, and Mary is holding a staff with jewels. It’s a stylistic statue of Our Lady looking very regal and Jesus looking regal.”

The statue is dressed throughout the year in four different seasonal dresses. It's not known when the statue was made, but Medinger said he believed it to be soon after the settlers arrived. It was crafted from local wood purchased in Schuyler and skidded across a frozen Platte River to the Luxembourg side, he said. That's because the local ferry was frozen in the middle of the river.

MEDINGER AND his wife, Irene, enjoy a dubious distinction for the parish. They are the last couple in the parish with pure Luxembourger heritage.

Irene Medinger, 76, said they get little recognition for the honor.
“No parades, no nothing,” she joked. “There aren’t that many pure Luxembourgers left,” Kosch said. “Most of them had to go marry some Germans or Czechs.”

Enough Nebraskans claimed Luxembourg ancestry in the 2000 Census that the state ranked 12th nationally. Butler County claimed 109 people of Luxembourger descent.

Only the state’s two most-populated counties, Douglas and Lancaster, cold claim more with 252 and 202, respectively. That’s a pretty impressive representation for a country that only has a population of 441,3000—not excluding 164,7000 foreigners.

And state official may soon become experts on the European nation bounded on the north and west by Belgium, on the south by France and on the east by Germany.

Schaeffer plans to tout the economic opportunities provided by his nation’s businesses in a meeting with the governor on Dec. 3 in Lincoln.