There's a church in the valley by the wildwood,
No lovelier spot in the dale;
No place is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale.
Come to the church in the wildwood,
Oh, come to the church in the vale;
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale.
Since the song first made it famous about 70 years ago, more than 53,000 couples have trooped to the Little Brown Church in the Vale outside Nashua, Iowa to exchange wedding vows. There was no church there at all in 1857, when a Wisconsin music teacher named William Pitts stopped off at the bucolic spot en route to meet his future bride. Inspired by the setting, Pitts wrote the tune and then stashed it away. Years later, he returned to find a simple log and clapboard church on the site and broke out his hymn for the congregation to sing.
These days the nuptials conducted by the Little Brown Church's 29th pastor, John Christy, are of necessity short. With an average of a dozen rites scheduled on any given Saturday (the record, set on St. Valentine's Day in 1981, is 21 weddings; all those pictured here took place on September 18), Pastor Christy begins his day at 9:30 and ends at 7 p.m. The standard $60 ceremony is strictly no frills and ends with the couple symbolically "pulling together" on a rope to ring the church bell. Despite the close scheduling, Rev. Christy insists, "They come for the tranquillity and serenity of this place."
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