Long-time Kasson pastor recalls years of ministry

Rev. Clint Patterson grew up on a farm near Burt, Iowa, 130 miles southwest of Kasson, in the 1950’s and 60’s with three sisters. His farm work included herding sheep, feeding cattle, walking beans, baling hay, grinding corn for cattle feed and driving farm machinery. 

He was in 4-H for seven years showing Hereford cattle at the county fair. 

Clint met his first wife while a senior in high school and they were married before he graduated from Iowa State University. Clint majored in history and had a minor in speech. 

He said his calling from God to become a minister was not a dramatic event as it was a gradual falling in love with the Lord. As a child his family went to church every Sunday and took part in many church activities so religion was a natural part of his life. His first experience of considering the ministry was in high school when his speech teacher, who was an elder in the church, told the pastor that Clint should be asked to give a sermon during youth Sunday.  

He did this and people started telling him that he should be a minister. He helped with Bible School, served as a camp counselor at church camp and became a regular lay reader at the Burt Church. In college he was active in the Campus Ministry of the Presbyterian Church. Together these activities helped him decide to become a minister, he said.

While attending the University of Dubuque Seminary, there was an announcement about an interview to become a pastor at a small country church near Manchester, Iowa. He signed up along with other students.  

When it was his turn to be interviewed, he walked into the room and was surprised to see a student friend from Iowa State that had lived in the same dorm. He was on the church call committee and they were both very surprised to see each other. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” that made a difference in getting his first church pastorate, he said.

When Clint gave his trial Sunday Sermon at Golden Church, he thought he had done a good job of leading the entire worship service. After the church service, they voted Clint to be their pastor and then said, “We are going to like you, as you don’t take offerings!” He had forgotten to take the offerings but he never forgot that again for the rest of his career!  

His daughter Angela was born while serving at this church and the congregation gave them special attention as a young family. As a young father, part time pastor, and full time seminary student, Clint was very busy. Fortunately the seminary encouraged the class papers to be written in the form of a sermon so he used those papers as his Sunday sermons.   The family lived in the country house beside the church and Clint commuted to Dubuque for classes for two years.

May 1974 was a big month for Clint. He graduated from seminary, was ordained a Presbyterian minister and moved to Princeton, Iowa to become their full time pastor for the next seven years. Princeton is a Mississippi River town and he could see the river from their house window and enjoyed watching many kinds of boats travel on the river. 

He took the teen age youth groups canoeing on the river with picnics and devotions on a sandy island at times. The church grew in membership and built a large addition while they were there.  Their son, Aaron, was born while living in Princeton.

The call to become pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Lake Crystal, was truly an act of God, Clint said.  He said he was busy and happy in Princeton and not looking to move.  A pastor friend phoned him one day to say that Lake Crystal, was looking for a pastor and thought it would be a great fit for them.  He wrote up his dossier, mailed it to the Lake Crystal church and received a phone call right away asking for an interview. The interview went well, they liked the church and the town so he accepted their call and started on May 1, 1981. He would be their pastor for the next 20 years and he has lived in Lake Crystal longer than any place so far.

While in Lake Crystal, Clint suffered a divorce, making it the worst time of his life, he said, and his wife moved back to Iowa. 

The church was very supportive of Clint and his children. He said he learned that “good comes out of bad.” They taught Christian love by their actions and he  learned to be more compassionate with people in their troubles.  

After five years of “batching it” he met his wife, Judy, at the grand opening of her Crystal View Eye Clinic and they were married at his church in Lake Crystal. 

They realized they couldn’t just invite some people from the church for their wedding so they put an announcement in the church bulletin. They had a filled church plus the church choir also sang at the ceremony. 

He later officiated at the weddings of his daughter and son in the same church. When his daughter took a job at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, it became clear that if he wanted to see this daughter and new grandson very much it would mean a move to be close to Rochester. 

As he thought about it, he saw an advertisement in the Presbyterian Life Magazine from the Kasson church seeking a pastor. He applied and was given the call. They moved to Kasson August 2001 and bought the house where they continue to live and they consider Kasson as their home.

Clint mentioned that while preaching at one of his former churches the audience was really watching him very intently. Even the dairy farmer who would dose off at times after coming from his early milking chores was wide awake. Clint thought he really must have given an inspiring sermon that morning but was told after the service that a wasp was flying near his head and the parishioners were nervous it was going to sting him but he was unaware of the situation at the time!

Clint said he never knew how some of his sermons might affect people but in one of his churches he talked about living with faith and a young church couple decided to build a new house. They didn’t have a lot of money but they and their friends did much of the building work and finished the house.  

They told him that Clint had mentioned in a sermon if you believe enough, you can do it and they did.   He dedicated their new home when they were ready to move in.  

Clint retired from the First Presbyterian Church on Oct. 1, 2016 and that was a big change in his life after 44 years as a pastor. He said he has many fond memories of his 15 years as pastor in Kasson including teaching adult Sunday School, church administration, hospital calling, weddings and funerals. He is a member of the KM Lions, Masonic Lodge #11 in Mantorville, Habitat for Humanity and the Friends of the Library as it is a good way to meet people and make friends.

His mother died in March 2003 and his father needed more help with his daily living so dad moved to Prairie Meadows and attended the Presbyterian Church. His dad had attended Bible Study every week all his life so Clint started a Bible Study at Prairie Meadows. That also brought him closer to many residents and their families.

Clint said he misses seeing people after retiring but also enjoys the time writing family history, reading books, watching movies and going to the family farm on a regular basis.

He has been interested in stamp collecting since he was a young boy on the farm. His mother was a stamp collector and got him a book to put stamps in which he still has. She also taught him how to soak the stamps so they could be placed in the stamp book. The new self-sticking stamps do not work as well to remove from letters, he said.  

He said one time he went up to their farm house attic and found a box full of old letters and started to soak the envelopes to remove the stamps. When his mother found out what he was doing she was not very happy as those were a collection of her “love letters” so he never touched that box again! He said he would ride his bike to the Burt Post Office to get some of the new stamps on occasion and the postmaster would work with him to add to his collections and he has also done this with the Kasson postmaster getting new stamps.  

This year it is the 400^th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage to American and it was commemorated with a special stamp and Clint has a sheet of those stamps. It is especially meaningful to him, he said, as he has an ancestor that made that voyage in 1620.   

He said every stamp is the work of an artist that starts with a contest two years in advance of the release and the winner is then selected for the new stamp. Clint is a member of stamp Collecting Organizations but he said it really is a private hobby and done at your home.

Clint has done some fill in preaching at Pleasant Corners United Methodist Church and co-teaches adult Sunday School plus has done some pulpit supply to some area churches. He said even though he has a cabinet full of his old sermons he doesn’t use them as illustrations change over time. Not sure if he can ever use some of those old sermons to help him sleep at night?

His wife, Judy, continues her Eye Care Clinic in Lake Crystal and travels there each week. His daughter and family live in Rochester while his son and wife lives in South Carolina. 

Clint said he really cherished his friends and enjoys making new friends as he feels Kasson is a great community to live in. Since Clint is a real fan of his Alma Mater, Iowa State, you might see him wearing the Cardinal and Gold colors including his ISU face mask!