KLAUDT INDIAN FAMILY

CHURCH OF GOD

BY CORKY ALEXANDER

named “Little Soldier” among his scouts. Little Soldier was a son of Chief Sitting Bull, spiritual leader of the Lakota Sioux, and went on to survive the historic 1876 “Battle of Little Big Horn.” In 1882, Dr. Charles Hall and his wife came from New York to the Fort Berthold Indian Reserva- tion and began missionary ministry in the Nishu area of North Dakota. One of his first converts was Wil- lena Perkins, an Indian woman. She later married Little Soldier’s son, Clar- ence Little Soldier, and they named their first child Lillian “White Corn” Little Soldier.

D

Lillian met Reinhold Klaudt, the son of Russian German homesteaders,

during a revival preached by evangelists from the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles. Under the power of the Holy Spirit and without previous training, these evangelists preached the gospel in the Indians’ languages. Reinhold Klaudt and Lillian Little Soldier were married Septem- ber 13, 1929. The couple was ordained into the ministry of the Church of God and in the early 1930s attended Bible Training School in Sevierville, Tennessee.

trombone. They held outdoor meetings in the warmer months and rented dance halls in the colder months.

Despite persecution, poverty, illness, and severe injury, the family planted Church of God congregations in Mon- tana, Wyoming, Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Louisiana. They eventually returned to Tennessee, where all five children were educated at Lee College. The oldest child,

URING THE tumultuous events of the Plains Indian Wars, General George Custer enlisted an Arikara Indian

Evangelism, church planting, and music characterized the Klaudt family’s ministry. Reinhold and Lillian had five children: Vernon, Ramona, Melvin, Ray- mond, and Kenneth. Once able to speak, each child was instructed in singing and could harmonize by third grade. The ministry entourage moved from town to town, accompanying vocals with accordi- on, banjo, Hawaiian guitar, trumpet, and

CHRONICLES

The Evangelistic Legacy of the

Vernon, continued his education at Can- dler Theological Seminary in Atlanta. In Atlanta the Klaudt family was intro- duced to Southern gospel music by the LeFevre Trio. The Klaudts’ ministry on the last night of a revival at Hemphill Avenue Church of God (now Mount Paran) resulted in an invitation to sing at Wally Fowler’s All Night Singing at the Atlanta City Auditorium. This catapulted the Klaudts into a Southern gos- pel music ministry in 1951. Their distinct stage presence was marked by Native Ameri- can regalia.

Today, the surviving

members of the Klaudt Indian Family continue to perpetu- ate their parents’ evangelistic vision. The Klaudt Memorial Foundation provides scholar- ships to Lee University and produces coloring books that minister to Native children by correlating traditional Native American stories with stories of Scripture. Melvin Klaudt, member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Bert-

hold Indian Reservation, administers the Klaudt Memorial Foundation (www. klaudtmemorial.com). He can be contacted at klaudtmemorial@bellsouth.net.

Dr. Corky Alexander

is director of instruction for Bradley/Cleveland Services and adjunct faculty at Patten Univer- sity (Oakland, CA) and Pente-

costal Theological Seminary (Cleveland, TN).

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