St. Joder Day...Next Saturday the 16th! >From an Article by Rachel Kreider: ------ In 1978 when we too visited the chapel, we found in a window-well of the little building an eight-pagebrochure, protected with plastic, entitled: Die Kapelle St. Joder muss restauriert werden. Dated September 1970. It was a supplement to the Nidwainer Volksblatt and it was apparently a publication to generate enthusiasm for one more attempt to restore the chapel, a project that seems to have been spearheaded by Karl Joder of Germany. A whole series of efforts had preceded this one. In 1601 an earthquake twisted the tower and made new foundations necessary. Further repairs were made in 1727, in 1799, and 1877. In 1963 a heavy southwest wind again blew down the tower. Now in this latest appeal, because the local population could not finance the refurbishing, it was hoped that a wider circle of friends and patrons could raise enough money so that work could begin by 1972. >From this brochure we pass on to you some bits of information you might like to knowbefore you go up the mountain to this romantic spot. This community of Altzellen takes in about fifty farmsteads, with a population of approximately 450, who are still devoutly Roman Catholic although they have not been organized into a particular parish. The earliest document extant about the region comes from 1267. Even by then it had been settled for a long time. However, in reading through the names of the earliest inhabitants known to have cleared the forest and made the fields, we cannot find the name of Joder or any name we know associated with it (with the conceivable exception of Baumgartner). Before this date there were Joders across the mountains in the Canton of Bern, but so far we have found no evidence that Altzellen was ever considered a Joder "heimat". One of Karl Joder's maps shows a Joder farmstead that might have been within twenty miles. An anonymous writer at the end of the brochure makes an interesting and plausible speculation. There is general agreement that that the chapel was built in 1482, and he notes that on December 22, 1481, a special meeting of the Diet was held in Stans. not far away: "After the Confederates had thoughly conquered Duke Karl the Brave, they returned as great victors to their homes, but after the victory over the enemy they began to quarrel about the division of the booty and the claim of the tribes that had joined in the fight (Freiburg and Solothurn). The more impossible a peaceful solution seemed, the more both sides put this tangled ball before Brother Klaus..."(a monk "on the border" of the area). There were those who believe that by the time of the Diet meeting, drafts of a contract had already been made up, but because of their common trust in Brother Klaus, he was able to bring about the signing of the document to the satisfaction of all concerned--no mean feat. "Bells were rung everywhere". "The mayor and the aldermen from Solothurn wrote to him: 'We have been informed that you through the grace of the Almighty God and His dear Mother have created peace, quiet, and union in the whole confederacy through your good advice and instruction." The writer continues: "Wouldn't you expect that somewhere the Confederates would have put up a memorial to remember this day...to the peace that had come out of gratitude that they had been saved from a civil war...?" Elsewhere he referred to a tradition that every evening a strip of light would appear on this height "under the Eggiligrat", which was the deciding factor in locating the chapel at that place. Thus in November of 1482 the new chapel was dedicated by the Bishop of Constanz to "St. Joder and the God Mother", and a decision was made by the mountain population to hold a memorial annually. Brother Klaus was among the most noted of the benefactors. A mass robe he gave is still preserved in the church in nearby Wolfenschiessen. Various relatives of families in Alzellen contributed, foremost among them the Flue family of Saxony, with whom the mother of Brother Klaus seems to have had connections. Their patron saint back in Saxony was St. Theodulus (St. Joder), a logical choice therefore for the patron of the new chapel. In conclusion there is a quotation from the treatise on Brother Klaus by Robert Durrer: "In Nidwalden and beyond, worship of the saint had been unknown so that the influence of the Saxons in the face of such genealogical relations must be almost certain." We thus have better explanations about the origin of the chapel that the speculations and fun guesses made by our earlier American visitors. The chapel did not come about because of any sacrificial grass- roots effort of a local clan (like Joders:). Probably from the beginning the symbolism may have meant more to the upper echelons of power than to the farmers around it. Support for it probably came from some places rather far away and in spasmodic fashion. It did not fall into periodic neglect because some clan (like Joders) had turned Protestant and moved away; the chapel has always been in Catholic care. Although local people may not have been able to explain much about the chapel twenty years ago, they were willing to put up a sign promptly to tell the fascinated American visitors where to find it.