The construction date of the summer kitchen is unknown and difficult to estimate. It was originally the entrance to the Buffalo Synod church that stood in the area, with two doors, one for women and one for men, leading into a cloak room where coats and other outer garments were changed before entering the church. During Sunday services, women sat on one side of the church and men sat on the other. After the Buffalo Synod church was torn down, the entrance was moved to the teacherage and converted into a summer kitchen. During the summer months, such kitchens were used instead of the kitchen in the house for canning and preserving fruit from orchards and vegetables from the garden, as well as for weekly bread baking and daily meal preparation. Because preserving and canning used heat to cook produce and seal it in jars, keeping this work outside the house helped the main house remain cooler in summer. The summer kitchen was moved to Trinity's historical grounds in the late 1970s.