To God be the Glory (Soli Deo Gloria)

Photograph by versluis © 2011

It’s not everyday you see the Dordt College motto on the roof of a barn. This is the old barn from the Crull homestead located several miles west of Rockford, Illinois near German Valley. Steve Crull, (Dordt alumnus ’72) says that over forty years ago, as a Dordt student, he was back home working on the farm for the summer when his dad had the idea to reroof the barn and cleverly weave the two-color shingles to form the letters. So Steve and his brothers shingled the barn as one of their summer jobs. Interestingly the letter style naturally seems to anticipate bitmapped typography, which would come along a little later with the dot matrix printer.

As a side note: the name “Crull” is of German descent and if you follow US 20 west from Rockford into Iowa you’ll find settlements of Germans who are of the Reformed (Christian) persuasion. Among others, the Iowa towns include Ackley in Hardin County and Wellsburg in Grundy County; in fact, at one time, many of the members of the Christian Reformed denomination in this part of Iowa were Germans and not Dutch. (reference)

Note: I may have seen this story about Crull's barn in the Dordt “Voice” awhile ago.