Carson Male Chorus

The Carson Mennonite Brethren Male Chorus, known for singing gospel songs in four-part harmony, performed together for thirty years and managed a radio ministry through radio station KWOA in Worthington, Minnesota, from October 12, 1947, until December 8, 1963.

The Carson Mennonite Brethren Church Male Chorus has its roots in the vision and passion of Jacob D. Wiebe’s love for music. In June 1921, at the age of sixteen, Wiebe attended the dedication ceremony of Mountain Lake Hospital and heard the Bethel Mennonite Male Chorus sing. Deeply impacted by the music, he soon invited his friends Pete Ewert, Frank Woyke, and Ben Friesen into his home to sing. The vigorous choral singing of the German Mennonite Congregation had instinctively taught them four-part harmony, and they formed a quartet. Jacob H. Bartsch later replaced Woyke.

Rev. Henry H. Flaming invited the Wiebe Quartet to sing at American Sunday School Union meetings. Other singing engagements included a community Sunday School rally and annual meetings of the Bingham Lake Shipping Association and the Farm Bureau Association. A year later, the Bingham Lake Mennonite Brethren Church (later known as the Carson Mennonite Brethren Church) asked them to sing at a Sunday evening Christian Endeavor program.

After several years of singing with the quartet, Wiebe organized a glee club that included about twenty community men. They purchased eight copies of the Clover Leaf Quartet at thirty-five cents per copy and had regular ninety-minute practices. Area churches and organizations invited them to sing. Initially, they sang in German; after younger, non-German speakers joined the group, they sang in English.

Wiebe’s community glee club merged with the Bingham Lake MB Church’s male chorus in 1928, and Wiebe was then elected their director. Ben B. Klaassen accompanied them, first on the church pump-organ and then on a piano the men purchased for the church in 1934. The merged male chorus took the name Carson Male Chorus, named after the township where most of them lived.

J. D. Wiebe, as he was often called, studied music at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, and sang in both the college choir and a male quartet. This prepared him for thirty years of choral leadership in both the Carson Male Chorus and the church choir he directed.

Lydia Kienitz and Jake Wiebe married on September 2, 1931, in the Bingham Lake MB church with Rev. Jacob H. Ewert and Rev. H. F. Wiens as officiants. The church choir and male chorus, now both directed by Wiebe, sang at the wedding celebrations.

During a visit to Reedley, California, the Wiebes attended a local radio station’s live broadcast that inspired them to arrange a similar event in Minnesota. When KWOA Worthington started in 1947, Wiebe visited the manager, Mr. Shephard, requesting a broadcast for the Carson Male Chorus. KWOA invited the singers to broadcast weekly at 4:00 p.m. at a cost of $20 per week, granting one free Sunday each month.

October 12, 1947, marked the first of seventeen consecutive years of weekly programming under the name Faith, Hope and Cheer. It included a brief meditation by John A. Wiebe, brother to Jake Wiebe and missionary to India. Subsequent programs included a six-minute meditation by the pastor at the time of broadcast. For several years, the entire chorus group drove to Worthington on Sunday afternoons to record a live program. The Carson Male Chorus’ signature song, “Serve Ye the Lord with Gladness,” opened every broadcast. Every program concluded with the song, “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.”

When the Bingham Lake Mennonite Brethren Church moved into a new building in Delft, the congregation officially changed their name to Carson Mennonite Brethren Church. The choir loft area, designed with a recording studio to accommodate the weekly radio broadcasts, allowed for recordings to be made in the church and driven to Worthington at a convenient time.

Wiebe mentored young adults in the chorus. As a result of Wiebe’s influence, chorus member Larry Feil became a band instructor at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, as well as an academic dean.

Wiebe continued to lead the chorus until he moved to Hillsboro, Kansas, in 1967. No one replaced him as director and the chorus disbanded. Its final broadcast was held on December 8, 1963.