Seward Concordia Neighborhood

Memories of Kathy Lange Brakke

2011-04-10T17:04:00.015-05:00

My family moved to Seward, Nebraska, in 1964, the summer of my 11th birthday. We moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, where my father had been a pastor in an old urban congregation, to Seward, where he had accepted a faculty position to teach theology.

I liked Seward from the start. I loved the size because of the tremendous freedom. I could ride my bike from one side of town to the other, which was a huge advantage for making new friends. My first friends were Debi Schipull and Rose Radford who I met in Sunday School at St. John. Having a few weeks to get to know them made starting a new school less scary. I spent a lot of time exploring my new surroundings by bike, which was great exercise.

My sixth grade class was much larger than my Lutheran school class in Cincinnati. I liked being part of it and I liked being able to walk to school. It sure beat the hour-long bus ride I had been accustomed to. As I reflect on those days I see them as an incredible blessing. The adult we become is influenced greatly by all the people who have been part of our lives. For me, Seward was a very safe and secure environment and I will be forever grateful for those individuals who were my peers.

One of the things I remember about 6th grade was that we had to memorize the Six Chief Parts of Luther’s Small Catechism, with meanings, and recite them for our teacher, Mr. Schmeiding. If we could do that with three mistakes or less we were given the privilege of calling our parents from the principal’s office.

I also remember that Mr. Schmeiding liked a quiet classroom. He was often tapping a desk with a ruler saying, “the feet, children, the feet” which meant, Sit Still!!

Many of us ate hot lunches at school. My mom appreciated not having to pack bag lunches so strongly encouraged us to take them. My own children have a very difficult time believing that one of the favorite meals was the St. John Hot Dish. It was a layer of hamburger, a layer of sauerkraut and a layer of mashed potatoes.

Being assigned to St. John’s for student teaching was only for the bravest. As students, we were very accustomed to having student teachers and we did not believe in making life easy. Many a note was passed around to instruct classmates to drop a pencil at 10:06, etc. If an individual survived the St. John experience they were ready for any classroom. I’m sure that environment was part of the reason I never wanted to be a teacher.

My family lived in a beautiful old house owned by the college. Our address was 445 North Second which was on the corner of Moffit, a brick street, and Second. It was located half way between Concordia campus and downtown. Everything in Seward was walking distance and it was nothing to walk downtown. Being a shopper at heart it was a frequent trip for me.

An incentive for spending money in Seward was the practice of retailers giving Movie Money with each purchase. I think it was a penny for every 50 cents spent. It wouldn’t be long before you could buy a 35 cent movie ticket at the Rivoli. Of course any serious shopping was done in Lincoln. My mother, being a city girl, was only too happy to take us on shopping trips to Lincoln during school vacations.

We spent much of our time playing outside especially in the summer. We literally lived at the pool with lessons in the morning, swimming in the afternoon and after supper. Many of our evenings were spent playing Kick the Can with the Blomenbergs, who lived a block from us. Since we didn’t have air-conditioning it was probably pretty easy for the adults to keep track of their kids from the noise we made. I like to think they were happy sounds. Having six kids my parents were probably glad to have it outside. One of my favorite winter activities was ice skating on Plum Creek.

Most of us did not have a lot of material possessions but we didn’t think much of it because everyone was in the same boat. In our family we had what we needed with plenty of love.

We did learn to be self–sufficient, and for a female wanting a bigger wardrobe, that meant learning to sew. I learned much about sewing from Mrs. Middendorf. Her daughter, Marcia, and I made matching sleeveless shifts when we were 12. We wore those dresses with pride and for me, it was the start of many garments to come. Those days of mini skirts allowed me to sew an A-line skirt from a half yard of fabric. Paired with a sweater from the Sears catalog, a new outfit was created. Having five daughters, my dad never really complained about buying fabric. With the help of lessons learned from 4-H, I became a fairly good seamstress, good enough to sew my wedding gown years later.

It has been fun to think about those days in Seward. I could probably write more, given the time. High school would be another story and that too has lots of fond memories. My daughter went to college at Concordia Seward. It was fun to see the town through her eyes. I feel I had the advantage -- living there when I was young. It was a great place to be a child and I am so thankful Seward was part of my life.

Following are some excerpts from messages that Kathy sent to me before she sent the above article:

Just want you to know I enjoyed reading your blog. My brother [David] found it and passed on the info to his sisters.

Recently my mom shared a story about a conversation she had with your dad many, many years ago. We were talking about going to church in Weller Hall. Our family consisted of five girls and one boy so she proposed to your dad one Sunday that he could trade a couple of his boys for a couple of her girls. He replied with a straight face, "You take one, you take them all".

I noticed in your profile that you are involved with home care. You might be interested in our business Indianapolis Senior Living. We've been open about a year and it has been an incredible journey.

My sister Ruth was in [your brother] Steve's class and has retired from teaching.

My sister Mary was in John Luebke's class. I plan to ask her about him. That must have been a class of free spirits. Mary was the most adventurous of our family. She spent two years in the Peace Corp in Africa.

Your blog has generated some interesting discussions among us [in my family]. It is so interesting to see how people take different paths in life. My family is pretty spread out. None of us live in Wisconsin, where my parents live. My own children are in Florida, California and Bogota, Colombia. We all live pretty traditional lives.

I do think Seward gave us strong roots and it is wonderful that you have taken time to record that. Keep it up. Maybe some college student will use it for some kind of sociology paper.

Below is a message that Kathy's brother David Lange sent to me before Kathy contacted me:

I stumbled upon your blog tonight, and now three hours later I just want to thank you for the great effort you've put into it. Very fond memories.

I think you are a year ahead of my sister Kathy, and Ruth was the year younger. Our family was loaded with five girls plus me...sort of the reverse of your family! Your brother Larry was my classmate, and I was in your house way out on Columbia Avenue. seemed like 10 miles out in the boonies when I was a kid. My dad was a theology prof at Concordia from 1963-1977.

I'm currently a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois. My wife Rise and I have three kids, one of whom works at Concordia today. Rise's parents still live in Seward --her maiden name is Sloup.

Kathy and her husband Paul are in Indianapolis. Ruth and her husband Scott are in Loveland, Colorado. My other sisters are Mary, Lois and Ann.

Next Monday, April 4th, Concordia is dedicating a new stained glass window in the Weller auditorium which serves as their chapel. My sisters and I sponsored the window as a gift to Concordia in honor of mom and dad. Mom and dad are attending but none of us kids are able to make it. You can see the window at the Center for Liturgical Art blog.

I did not find the item in the Center for Liturgical Art blog, but I found an article about this window gift on this webpage.

Seated L-R: Ruth Sprain, Mary Zbikowski, Carol & Harvey Lange, Lois Rentschler. Standing L-R: Kathy Brakke, David Lange, Ann Barber.

The Final Resting Place of Mark Lemke

2010-07-26T18:04:00.010-05:00

[The following is a letter that was written by Lee Meyer on October 31,2007, about the funeral of Mark (Gonzo) Lemke, who died on May 14, 2007. Other information about Mark's life and death was provided in an earlier post.]

I thought I would write a short letter here about my recent to trip to South Texas and the funeral of Mark Lemke. As you know he died last spring and the funeral was delayed until this fall because many of his friends were River people like Gonzo and returned to the Terlingua area after a season of leading river rafting trips in other places and rivers in the United States. Please pass this along as you see fit.

[Six photos of the funeral are in Lee Meyer's Picasa album.]

Jeff Taebel and I arrived early enough to allow to two full days of hiking in the Big Bend National park and the adjacent State park. The landscape is high desert with mountains that range up to 8,000 feet. The valleys and plains are covered with desert fauna and the higher altitudes look more pine forest like. It is a wide open area, including deep narrow water cut cannons, distantly remote, (the nearest decent grocery store is a 100 miles away) and a hard and wonderful setting to be in and as I learned a place to live a life.

His name was Gonzo -- with the name Mark and the place of this birth, Seward, unknown to most who knew him in this town. As I mentioned information about his background to some of the friends in Terlingua, they seemed polite but generally uninterested for it seemed it was irreverent to what they knew the person who was Gonzo. It matters more what he was than where he came from. These details and facts were not important to those living in the moment.

He was a powerful personality with a love of fun, the people around him and living fully. I was told about this wild blond hair, his wonderfully colorful sweaters, about adventures and experiences and enthusiastic friendliness toward all. He may have epitomized this place for, in my experience, every conversation and encounter with the people of Terlingua was full of friendliness and kindness. One woman told me how she threw herself at him only to be spurned because he had a girlfriend.

One Buddhist told me he was Buddhist-like, with a strong spirituality. It was a place where some of the assumptions of living in United States -- including organized religion, life as a consumer and a health-insurance-dependent culture -- are to some degree to be thrown asunder prior to settling down here. Other virtues of self-reliance -- the importance of knowledge and doing something well -- are in evidence.

At the same time the attendance at his funeral was a monoculture, for it was completely white, high-tech yet oriented to a low-impact life, heterosexual in its orientation, mostly childless, more than likely at least 2nd or 3rd generation born to the United States, oriented toward marijuana use combined with herbal medicine with the common element of beer. While the area had a large population from Mexico, as we had seen the pervious night at the Friday night dance at the Boathouse, that part of the population was not present for his funeral.

Gonzo lived on the other side of a small range of mountains from the town of Terlingua on a 40-acre tract of land, down a long gravel road adjacent to several of his friends who lived, it seemed, in other single shelters spotted around his local.

His place included a roof-covered parking area that was mainly for rain catchment, a small outbuilding, a covered eating area and a structure that was called a Yurt by those gathered with us, but really appeared to me be a high-tech tent-like structure, 20 feet in diameter and 18 feet tall with a frame of wood and a skin of rubberized fabric that included screened flaps for ventilation. With the inclusion of a solar-panel system, the yurt featured both air conditioning and heating and a refrigerator. The furnishing included a Lemke-family cast-iron frame bed, table, old wonderful dressers and storage units for food and the other essentials. The deck located on the east side included wonderful desert plants and a built-in hot tub. Friday evening out at his land we enjoyed many stories about Gonzo and the life, the setting sun and rising of the full moon.

The service was straightforward and untangled with any religious rituals that are the basis of most funerals. It started around 5 p.m. in front of the Starlight Bar with people gathering on the porch and adjacent parking lot. Gonzo’s cremated remains were placed in a life jacket in the middle of his large rubber raft set on a trailer pulled by his white Toyota truck. His brother John drove. The sound of the tires crunching on the gravel was the only signal beyond the slowly moving truck that the procession was on its way down the main rocky road of the town to the ghost-town cemetery, a five-minute walk from the Starlight Bar.

About 200 folks followed the raft. Once at the gates of the cemetery, his closest friends lifted the raft. I joined in but was feeling more like a representative from the life Gonzo came from than a member of this community. One of the raft carriers was a woman by the name of Kelly who was holding a brilliant display of red roses. In response to my inquiry, she told me with a passion in her voice that she loved Gonzo as so many of us did. I could feel her love and loss.

After John's reading of a few e-mails from friends of Gonzo that recalled events in his life, a few lines of remembrance by others, a reading of Be Here Now from Dama Ras and the singing of a sweet ballad by James Taylor, the assembled group took turns placing handfuls of the rocky clay earth over the created remains, which were placed in a small hole had been dug the pervious day by one of his friends named Taz.

People then moved off to the Boathouse Bar for a potluck dinner with music, Keg beer, fireworks and a personal highlight of a “ring of fire”. A Ring of Fire is a riverboat tradition to entertain your customers at night. It consists of stuffing steel wool in the fat end of a kitchen whisk, attaching a long string to the handle end, soaking the whole thing in lighter fluid, lighting it up and then spinning it to make the ring of fire. In this case there were a dozen or so people doing this at once on the exterior dance floor so that it appeared to be a field of fire all at once. It was a commemoration to Gonzo. A long evening of eating and drinking ensued but ended for us by 10 p.m. since we needed to leave by 5 the next morning so I could be back in the Twin Cities by Tuesday morning.

Gonzo choose a path in life that was completely different than anything I could have remotely imagined. It did seem like that life his father led in Seward, which included a man with a friendly manner, given to good times, lots of puns and jokes and a goal of living life to the fullest.

A Visit from a Concordia Gift Officer

2010-05-16T22:24:00.013-05:00

Last week I was visited by Mike Mettenbrink, who serves as a Major Gift Officer in the Development Department of Concordia University. He had written to me in advance:

I have been sharing your “blogspot” with many friends, alums and supporters of Concordia that have close ties to the university and the Seward area as I travel around the country.

I talked with Mike for about three hours, and I enjoyed the conversation and learned a lot from him. He is one of four members of the Development Department who travel around the USA to tell potential donors about Concordia and to arrange for those who do decide to donate in large or small amounts, as single donations or as periodic donations.

Mike attended Concordia during the 1980s and was one of the first students to graduate with a major in Business Administration. He worked for many years as a sales representative for private industry and then about four years ago accepted an offer to return to Concordia to work as a gift officer for the college.

He lives a short distance north of where my family lived on North Columbia Avenue. His wife manages the university bookstore, and they have three children who attend St John Elementary School, grades two through seven.

Mike said that St John School is growing and improving. The faculty, the families and the university are optimistic about the school's future. Recently one of the teachers departed, and there were 20 applicants who applied to fill the vacancy.

Although Concordia is no longer a teaching college, its Education Department still collaborates with the elementary school. The university still sends its students to observe and to serve as student teachers, just like in the olden days when my Dad managed that program.

Some of St John's graduates continue their Lutheran educations by attending a Lutheran high school in Lincoln. That is not a boarding school, but the commute is reasonable, and the families carpool.

Concordia University's enrollment has grown to 1,700 students and includes graduate students who attend classes in Lincoln. The selection of study majors has become much broader. Many students major in business, science, information technology, mass communications and even forensics.

Many students still are majoring in subjects that prepare them for careers in Christian education and the ministry. The university still offers courses in theology and other religious subjects (including Hebrew and Greek languages), music, art, drama and athletics. About 20 students are preparing to transfer to a seminary after graduation. A larger number are preparing for careers in Christian education and music.

Mike gave me the current issue of the Broadcaster alumni magazine and promised to arrange a subscription (which is free). The magazine has improved since I saw it the last time. In this issue I was interested particularly by the articles about former art professor Reinhold Marxhausen (I babysat his sons), retiring athletic equipment manager Stan Schlueter (older brother of my classmate Jane Schlueter) and journalism professor Toby Beck (my childhood neighbor on Faculty Lane; I never will be able to call him Tobin.)

The concluding two paragraphs in the article about Toby, who came to teach at Concordia after a long career as a journalist, made an impression on me:

I talk [to my journalism students] about what it means to have a Christian world view, dealing with people as Christ would have us deal with them, based on Scripture, and about the various world views that people around the globe may have.

As a journalist I often thought about Martin Luther's explanation of the Eighth Commandment, to "put the best construction on everything". Not to gloss things over inappropriately, but to be honest and fair and make sure in the reporting of stories that all relevant sides were told in a way that was accurate and in proper context.

That kind of thinking is a good example of the education that was and still is instilled by Seward's Lutheran schools.

When I asked Mike Mettenbrink about the donors' motivations, he remarked that several extremely generous individual donors never attended or even visited Seward's schools, but were deeply impressed by some of the school's graduates who had moved to the donor's own towns and "let their lights shine" in the local schools and churches. These graduates were not only smart and effective, they also were moral and inspirational. These donors knew Concordia from its fruits and so they donated a lot of money in order to preserve and develop that educational orchard.

Reunion of the 1970 Class of Concordia High School

2010-05-09T23:00:00.009-05:00

My Concordia High School class, which graduated in 1970, will enjoy a reunion in Seward during July 9-11. The only reunion of that class that I have attended was the one in 1990. I intend to attend this reunion. Contact me if you need details.

Here is a picture the students who attended in 2000. Click the picture to see the Flickr page, which shows the entire photo in different sizes and which names the people in the picture.

The Meaning of the Movie "Doubt"

2010-05-09T22:07:00.010-05:00

The movie Doubt premiered in October 2008, but I watched it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. The movie's story takes place in a Roman Catholic parochial school in about December 1964 and focuses on the eighth-grade class that graduated in 1965. Since I was a student in the eighth-grade class that graduated from a parochial school in 1966, I watched the movie with attention toward similarities from my own experience.

The story includes a mention that the assassination of President Kennnedy (November 22, 1963) had happened in the previous year and includes some mentions that the school now was preparing for its annual Christmas pageant, so the story takes place in about December 1964.

I noticed some details of the story, set, props and costumes that reminded me of my own experiences at St John. There were a few scenes showing the students preparing for the Christmas pageant. The classrooms, desks, school books and various items were familiar to me from that time. There is a scene where the boys are practicing basketball, and the gym shorts looked like what we wore at St. John.

Since the faculty of the school in the movie were Roman Catholic priests and nuns, their clothing and celibacy made them different from St John's faculty in obvious ways, but I perceived that both faculties were devoted similarly to religious education of children.

On a higher level, I perceived that the movie dealt with the experience of doubt, which is an important concept in religion and perhaps especially in the Christian religion as it was taught to me. Doubts about one's religion are a natural and common experience, but they are suppressed and so cause private anxiety.

I thought that Doubt was a superb movie. This essay reveals the entire plot, including the surprise ending, but I do not think that reading this essay would spoil the experience of watching the movie for the first time afterwards.

Several critics placed Doubt in their lists of the best ten movies of 2008.

James Berardinelli, ReelViews - 2nd best

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News - 2nd best

Kyle Smith, New York Post - 8th best

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone - 8th best

David Edelstein, New York - 9th best

Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter - 10th best

Shawn Levy, The Oregonian - 10th best

All four of the movie's main actors were nominated for Academy Awards:

Meryl Streep for Best Actress

Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Supporting Actor

Amy Adams for Best Supporting Actress

Viola Davis also for Best Supporting Actress

Also, the screenplay writer John Patrick Shanley was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. None of those actors receive an Oscar for this film, but the Critics Choice Award contest gave its award for Best Actress to Meryl Streep.

The movie depicts a situation where a Roman Catholic priest is suspected of sexually molesting a boy, but the movie is not anti-Christian or anti-Catholic. All the characters are intelligent, admirable people, whose religious beliefs and motivations are depicted in a respectful manner.

The Plot

The movie takes place in a Roman Catholic parochial school in The Bronx, New York, in the year 1964 and focuses on the eighth-grade class, which is taught by a young nun, Sister James (Amy Adams). The school's principal is an old nun, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), who is subordinate to the parish's young priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Practically all the school's students are of Irish or Italian ancestry. During the middle of this school year, however, an African-American boy, Donald Miller, joins the eighth-grade class and becomes the first such child to attend the school.

In addition to being African-American, Donald is also homosexual. The movie does not show him to be effeminate, but his mother Mrs. Miller (Viola Davis) eventually tells Sister Aloysius that she had transfered Donald to the Catholic school from a public school where he had been beaten frequently -- mostly by other African-American students -- because they perceived that he was homosexual. At home, Donald is frequently beaten by his own father for the same reason.

Father Flynn gives special attention and friendship to Donald and makes him an altar boy. Donald admires Father Flynn and tells him he would like to become a priest. Sister Aloysius notices this close relationship and suspects that Father Flynn is seducing Donald.

One day while Sister James is teaching her eighth-grade class, she receives a note telling her to send Donald immediately from the class to the office of Father Flynn. When Donald returns to the class, he seems to be upset, and Sister James smells alcohol on Donald's breath. Sister James reports this incident to Sister Aloysius.

Sister Aloysius invites Sister James and Father Flynn into her office to confront Father Flynn about his relationship with Donald. At first Father Flynn refuses to discuss the matter with the two nuns, but eventually he explains that the janitor Mr. McGinn had caught Donald drinking Communion wine and reported the offense to Father Flynn. Therefore Father Flynn had called Donald out of class in order question and reprimand him. According to Father Flynn, Donald confessed to drinking the wine, but Father Flynn decided to forgive Donald and remain silent about the offense, so that Donald could continue to serve as an altar boy. Since the two nuns had compelled Father Flynn to tell this incident, however, Donald now would have to be removed from the position of altar boy.

Sister Aloysius does not accept Father Flynn's explanation. She still suspects that Father Flynn called Donald out of class in order to give him some alcohol to drink and to molest him. Father Flynn challenges Sister Aloysius to question Mr. McGinn and thus to confirm the truth of Father Flynn's account.

Father Flynn leaves Sister Aloysius' office, and Sister Aloysius and Sister James talk some more. Sister James says she believes Father Flynn's explanation. Sister Aloysius indicates that it would not be worthwhile to question Mr. McGinn, because she would not believe him either. Sister Aloysius says she is certain that Father Flynn is molesting Donald and that she intends to get rid of him from the parish and school.

Sister Aloysius invites Mrs. Miller to her office, and Mrs. Miller explains that she realizes that Donald is homosexual. Mrs. Miller does not care much that Father Flynn might be sexually molesting Donald. She is grateful that at least Father Flynn is being nice to Donald. She figures that if Donald graduates from this school's eighth grade, then he can get into a good high school and then later get into a good college.

The hostility betwen Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn grows, and eventually they meet again in Sister Aloysius' office to argue about the situation. She tells him that she phoned a nun in the previous parish where he had served as a priest, and the other nun had informed her that he had been compelled to leave that parish because of some sexual misbehavior. He denies this accusation, but he avoids answering several direct questions that Sister Aloysius asks. He says that everyone has sinned, but he does not specify any sins that he committed in this regard.

Although Father Flynn continues to deny that he molested Donald, he himself asks his church superiors to remove him from his assignment in the parish and school. He tells his congregation that he is departing to a new assignment, and then he does depart immediately.

Afterwards, Sister Aloysius and Sister James have a conversation in which Sister James says that she still believes Father Flynn's explanation completely and believes that he was innocent in the matter. Sister Aloysius admits that she had not really phoned any nun at Father Flynn's previous parish. She had made up that story, but she considered Father Flynn's immediate resignation from the parish to be proof that he indeed did have a history of homosexual molestation.

Then in a suprise ending, Sister Aloysius breaks down and weeps and admits that she has doubts about the matter.

The movie's plot is described in much more detail on this webpage and on this webpage.

The Meaning

Father Flynn's evasive answers in his last argument with Sister Aloysius and his immediate resignation indicated to me that he indeed did have a history of molesting male students. I think, though, that he was trying to control himself in this parish and that he had not molested Donald. Father Flynn's experiences with his own homosexuality had given him a special sympathy for Donald, and so he sincerely wanted to protect and help Donald and did not intend to seduce him.

The mystery of whether or not Father Flynn had sexually molested Donald was not, however, the major question that the movie raised for the viewers. Rather, the major question is how anyone should deal with a situation in which he doubts that he is following a proper path in life.

At the beginning of the movie, Father Flynn gives a sermon to his congregation about that very theme. He points out that in the previous year President Kennedy had been assassinated, and afterwards the entire population of our country shared common doubts about whether we were following a proper path. Father Flynn then contrasted that feeling of a shared doubt with the feeling that an individual feels when he is suffering severe problems and thinks he might be following a wrong path in life. Father Flynn ends his sermon by reassuring his congregation that in those situations of individual doubt, they never are really alone. He implies that such doubts are shared by other people and also that God accompanies and is available to every individual in such a situation.

If Father Flynn did have a history of homosexual misbehavior in his previous church assignments, then he was aware that his special relationship with Donald might lead to trouble. On one hand he intended to help Donald, but on the other hand he might become involved in a sexual relationship with the boy.

Then when Father Flynn was confronted and accused by Sister Aloysius, he had to decide whether to continue to dispute her accusations, which still were false, or to give up and quit the parish and the school. He felt that if he stayed, then he could modernize the school over the old-fashioned, strict discipline and mindless, arbitrary rules that were imposed by Sister Aloysius. On the other hand, he feared that if he continued to resist the accusations of Sister Aloysius, then he as a modernizing priest eventually would be discredited in an embarrassing scandal. In the end, he decided to leave this assignment so that he could try anew in a different assignment.

These were decisions that Father Flynn had to make alone. Perhaps he confessed to and consulted with his superior priest, but ultimately he himself decided first to develop a close relationship with Donald and then to quit the parish and the school. Father Flynn essentially was alone in this doubt and in his decisions.

Likewise, Sister Aloysius was alone in her doubt and decisions. Early in the movie, she remarked that in previous years the church had a senior priest who had dealt with a similar situation where a junior priest was molesting students. Now, however, the nuns themseves had to deal with this situation, and she was the only nun with the insight, experience and personality who was capable of dealing with the situation.

I was surprised at the end when she broke down and wept under the strain of dealing with her own doubt about the situation. This seemed to end the movie with a false note, but afterwards as I thought about it, I felt a richer appreciation of her personal mental and spiritual struggles with the situation.

Likewise, Sister James was alone in her doubts and decisions. She admired Father Flynn, and it surely was a very difficult for her to report her suspicions to Sister Aloysius. Then, as she changed her mind to thinking that he was innocent, she had to deal with the disapproval and contempt of Sister Aloysius and with the resentment of Father Flynn.

Likewise, Mrs. Miller was alone in her doubts and decisions. Her husband added to her difficulties in dealing with the problems caused by her son Donald's homosexuality. Her husband beat and rejected Donald, so she alone made the decisions and efforts to help her son try to succeed in life.

These four characters each struggled alone with their doubts and decisions. Their paths crossed in this situation, but there was practically no helpful cooperation among them, and their was no happy ending for any of them.

Nevertheless, each of them found the inner resolve to make important, thoughtful decisions and to accept the consequences.

Father Flynn had ended his sermon by reminding his congregation that when they as individuals suffered through doubtful situations, they were not alone. He did not mean, though, that they always would receive advice and help from other people or even from God. He meant only that they were not alone in such suffering, because we all suffer through such situations. We always should appreciate at least that consolation.

--------

In a religious context, the concept of doubt usually applies to doubt about the religion itself. The person doubts that God exists or doubts that God is good or doubts that his religion is true.

That kind of doubt did not appear in this movie. None of the characters expressed any doubts about their religious beliefs.

However, people who are suffering profound doubts about their religion probably will relate the movie to that concern. When Father Flynn preaches that each of us suffers doubts individually that we are on a proper path, many viewers of the movie will think about their own doubts that they are wasting their lives on a religion that might be foolish and false. Father Flynn's assurance, at the beginning of the movie, that they are not alone in such individual doubts should engage them in the further story of the movie.

For those viewers who are suffering severe doubts about their religion, I think that the movie at least gives a good impression about people who have committed themselves to very religious lives. All the characters have admirable qualities and deal with their problems in an intelligent manner. They all are comfortable in their religious lives. They all are striving to raise children to become religious adults. The movie brings the viewers into the lives of these religious people and develops the viewers' sympathies toward them.

Michael Stelmachowicz, RIP

2010-04-14T20:47:00.005-05:00

I learned recently that Michael Stelmachowicz died on December 30, 2009. His family lived next-door to my Sylwester family for four years, from 1964 to 1968, on North Columbia Avenue. Before that, they lived for a couple of years in a house that was six houses away from our house on Faculty Lane.

My Mom and Michael's wife Betty became best friends when our family's lived nearby on Faculty Lane, and that close friendship lasted during the years that we lived on North Columbia. They liked to go to auctions together, and I think they took some classes at Concordia at the same time. I remember that Betty was a very vivacious, extroverted woman, while my Mom was much more quiet and reserved. I think that Betty helped my Mom engage socially with adults again after spending many years at home raising children,

The Sylwester family had six boys and one girl, and the Stelmachowicz famiy had four girls and one boy. My sister Tricia played with the Stelmachowicz girls a lot, and the Stelmachowicz boy Cary played with our family a lot.

All the Stelmachowicz girls, beginning with Betty, were extraordinarily pretty and vivacious. Candy and Cheryl were cheerleaders, and I assume that Crystal eventually became one too.

Michael Stelmachowicz was not bad looking, but he was not extraordinarily handsome either. Also, he was rather quiet and mild-mannered. So, I wondered how he had managed to get Betty to be his girlfriend and then even his wife. His success in that area of his life gave me hope that even I might at least think about getting the very prettiest girl.

Anyway, Michael Stelmachowicz apparently was a good leader and manager of other people. He rose up through the ranks of the College's and Synod's administration. He became the Dean while he was our neighbor, and then he left and held some other positions in other places and returned to serve as the College's President from 1978 to 1984.

Even though my family was living in Oregon during the latter period, I was aware that he had risen to that position, and I was very impressed. I knew he was not a pushy, aggressive personality, and so I figured that he had risen to that top position because he was an extraordinarily effective manager and leader.

I have placed his obituary on this blog's page for the Stelmachowicz family.

I intend to write some more about the Stelmachowicz family in future articles in this blog.

Website for Concordia High School Class of 1961

2010-03-05T21:12:00.005-06:00

Concordia High School's class of 1961 will celebrate its 50th re-union in 2011. Someone (I think Dan Seim) has established a great website for that class.

The website includes a webpage with pictures of old buildings. My favorite picture in that set shows the swimming pool being constructed.

Another webpage shows old photographs of Seward that were new to me.

Other webpages show athletic teams, coed-dormitory scenes, faculty photos and 1961-class photos. The whole website is great.

The best picture on the website is the school mascot, Raider. The photo was scanned by Dan Seim from the 1961 CHS Homecoming Booklet.

Singing "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"

2010-01-24T02:43:00.003-06:00

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit,
Into every troubled breast!
Let us all in Thee inherit;
Let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its Beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all Thy life receive;
Suddenly return and never,
Never more Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
Pray and praise Thee without ceasing,
Glory in Thy perfect love.

Finish, then, Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

My brother Steve wrote to me:

"Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" just wrings me out with emotion. It makes me cry, and smile, and be joyful, and just be broken as a redeemed sinner forgiven by God. I love singing it, but I can barely sing it, yet I sing it with everything I can possibly muster whenever I am given the chance in church.

Hymns like that hymn just dumbfound me when I am confronted by lack of faith in others. That hymn makes faith — the gift of faith, the desire for faith, and the reward of faith — so very real, so very humbling, and so very blessed. God gifted me with faith. I believe. I have no doubts.

And Steve liked the following videos of performances.

St. Olaf's Choir

Crystal Cathedral Choir

Jubilate Reunion

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Singing "Angels We Have Heard On High"

2010-01-17T15:42:00.014-06:00

Angels we have heard on high,
Sweetly singing o'er the plains,
And the mountains in reply,
Echoing their joyous strains.

[Refrain]
Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be,
Which inspire your heavenly song?

Come to Bethlehem and see
Christ Whose birth the angels sing;
Come, adore on bended knee,
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.

See Him in a manger laid,
Whom the choirs of angels praise;
Mary, Joseph, lend your aid,
While our hearts in love we raise.

This song fits well with Christmas Eve programs, because the Christmas story told in the Gospel of Luke is read aloud, and that story features the incident when the angels sang to the shepherds.

The first verse depicts a rich image. The point of view is a person who had been traveling along the floor of a valley that has a mountain range on each side. As the person traveled, he occasionally heard angels singing from the mountain range on one side, and this singing echoed from the other mountain range.

The second verse expresses the person's wondering about why the angels were singing.

The third and fourth verses are a different point of view, another person answering and explaining to the traveler. This other person already has been in Bethlehem and is traveling away from Bethlehem, and on his way he has met the first person, who heard the angels on his own journey.

Apparently the first person has heard the angels singing but does not know about the birth in Bethlehem. The second person knows about the birth in Bethlehem, but still has not heard the angels, but he will hear them soon because he is traveling into the valley. Thus, information about these marvelous events is being shared and spread.

The Gloria in Excelsis refrain is fun, fun, fun to sing.

Here is a rather standard performance of the song by the University of Wisconsin's Superior Acappella Choir.

Here is an interesting performance by Liberty High School. The tempo seemed too fast to me at first, but I liked it more and more as I listened to it. Parts of this performance evoke another Christmas carol, The Little Drummer Boy.

Here is a performance by the Ohlone Chamber Singers. Here too the tempo seemed too fast to me at first, but I liked it more and more as I listened to it.

One attractive feature of this song is the mention of angels. Here is a video that shows a lot of sappy pictures of angels.

Here is a heavy-metal performance by someone who calls himself Pastor Brad. It is illustrated by a roller-coaster ride, which evokes the image of the valley and mountains.

Here is a rock-and-roll performance by what seems to be a Christian youth group in Singapore.

This is a performance by a Christian youth group in what appears to be the Philippines. I liked this performance because of its unusual emphasis on the percussion over the melody.

This seems to be a Japanese version illustrated by scenes from non-Christian fantasy stories. I think the singing is very pretty.

Finally, here is a jazz instrumental performance. The musicians are Marshall McDonald, Steven Sharp Nelson, Kevin Dee Davis, Alex Rowley and Camille Nelson.

My brother Steve likes this performance by Andrea Bocelli:

And Steve recommended this performance by the College Of the Sequoias Concert Choir:

The Second-Grade Class in 1955

2010-01-16T14:54:00.009-06:00

Lois (Meyer) Voeltz sent me this picture of her second-grade class in 1955.

If you click on the picture, you will go to the Flickr page, where you can see larger sizes of the picture.

The class teacher was Miss Groteluschen, and the class room is to the right in the picture.

Lois was able to match following names to faces:

Back row: Connie Pollock, Patsy Ahrens, Kathy Brinkmeyer, Lois Meyer, Pam Bock, Patty Bangert, Liz Ocken, Bevery Boeka, Cheryl Ficken

Front row: Dick Hans, ? Kassabaum, Bob Schlueter, Jon Vogel, Marvin Brauer, Doug Zimmerman, Ron Beckman, Ron Pfeiffer

Below is a list of this class's members when they were in eighth grade in 1961: Patricia Ahrens Patricia Bangert Ronald Beckmann Beverly Boeka Marvin Brauer Kathrine Brinkmeyer Melvin Churchill Cheryl Ficken Jacquie Folkerts Richard Hans Bonnie Ihde Frank Janzow Jerry Kahler Terry Kahler Patricia Kolb Karen Lindner Thomas Mantey Lois Meyer Ronald Pfeiffer Connie Pollock Robert Schlueter Diane Schultz Annetta Stork Edward Uhlig Jonathan Vogel Kenneth Voss Douglas Zimmerman Nancy Deremer Carla Kirch

The Students of St John School, 1952-53

2010-01-16T13:08:00.044-06:00

In an earlier article I introduced a booklet that was published in 1952 to celebrate the 75th anniversary (1877-1952) of St John Lutheran Church. The book belongs to Lee Meyer, and he scanned some of the pages and e-mailed them to me.

Two of the scanned pages seem to show the students of St John Lutheran School (on Columbia Ave) posing for class photographs. (The photographs were taken on the steps of Weller Hall.) There are five such photographs: 1) the Kindergarten, 2) grades 1-2, 3)grades 3-4, 4) grades 5-6 and 5) grades 7-8. The 2nd picture cropped.

Lois (Meyer) Voeltz recognized herself and her own classmates in the kindergarten class. Since her class graduated from the eighth grade in 1961, that class graduated from kindergarten in 1953, which means that all these photographs must have been taken in the first part of the 1952-53 school year (I assume the booklet was published before the end of 1952).

Below I will provide each photograph and also a list of students in each class. Each list of students is the eighth-grade list of students of that class, as compiled for the 2009 anniversary of St John School. This list was described in a previous article of this blog. So, for example, the first picture shows the students in the kindergarten class in the 1952-53, but the name list shows the students of that same group of students when they were in eighth grade in the 1960-1961 school year. Of course, during the intermediate years some of the students stopped attending St John School and some other students began attending the school, in that class.

I will appreciate any help from people who can clarify these pictures and can match faces to names. To provide me such information, add a comment under this article or send me an e-mail to MikeSylwester@gmail.com.

You can click on any of the pictures below to go to the picture's Flickr page, where you can see the picture in larger sizes.

The teachers in 1952-53: Mr. Herb Kaiser, grades 7-8 and principal, Mr. Herman Schmieding, grades 5-6, Miss Lucinda Bartels, grades 3-4, Miss Edna Grotelueschen, grades 1-2, and Miss Martha Maehr, kindergarten. "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

The Kindergarten in 1952-53 (Graduated in 1961)

Back row: Patsy Ahrens, Bev Boeka, Pam Bock, Lois Meyer, Connie Pollock, Kathy Brinkmeyer, Ron Beckman

Front row: Jon Vogel, Cheryl Ficken, Dick Hans, Doug Zimmerman, Bob Schlueter, Pat Bangert.

Grades 1 and 2 in 1952-53 (Graduated in 1960 and 1959)

Front Row: Phil Rosel, ?, Candyce Reiling, Patty Kolb, Sue Westerhoff, Lorraine Eicher , Judy Justice, Terry Wied, ? , Ann Cannon, Virginia Tonniges, Wally Cannon,?, Rusty Darold Schulz

2nd Row: ?,?,?, Linda Meyer, Mark Brandhorst, Phil Griesse, ?,?,?, Mary Ann Schmeiding, Elizabeth Werth, ?

3rd Row: ?, ?, ?, ?, Iomo Jean Zillig, ?, Jim Wake, ?, Ruth Riggert, ?, Elvin Ahrens

Class of 1960: Kenneth Brauer, Annetta Cannon, Loraine Eicher, Judy Fosler, Gene Gehle, Alice Gehle, Nancy Hans, Gary Heinicke, Gerald Hillmann, Lynda Johnson, Judith Justice, Linda Meyer, Ronald Neujahr, Candyce Reiling, Dickie Rhodes, Philip Rosel, Mary Schmieding, Donald Schrader, Darold Schulz, Virginia Tonniges, Phyllis Warnsholz, Mary Westerberg, Sue Westerhoff, Terrence Wied

Class of 1959: Elvin Ahrens, Sandra Beckman, Mark Brandhorst, Walter Cannon, Roger Dankert, James Ehlers, John Eicher, Donald Erks, Bette Garber, Earl Graves, Terry Ihde, Carol Ihde, Jon Kruse, Kenneth Luebbe, Richard Mailand, Marilyn Prochnow, Franklin Reynolds, Ruth Riggert, Kathryn Rolfsmeier, Stanley Schlueter, Leon Schneberger, Shirley Schulz, Rodney Tonniges, Lawrence Uhlig, James Wake, Elizabeth Werth, Imo Zillig, Karmin Zimmerman

Grades 3 and 4 in 1952-53 (Graduated in 1958 and 1957)

Front Row: ?, ?, ?, Dean Hackbart, ?, ?, Ivan Ficken, Jim Vogel, Roleen Brinkmeyer, ?

2nd Row: ?, ?, Evelyn Kroeger, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?

3rd Row: Danny Juergensen, Donn Kaiser, ? Kathy Vogel, ?, Carol Pieper, Barry Kolb, ? , ?, Gerald Buls

Class of 1958: Betty Beckman, Charlotte Brinkmeyer, Rolene Brinkmeyer, Gerald Buls, Donna Erks, Sandra Gruenewald, Dean Hackbart, Nancy Hackbart, Linda Hans Ehrlich, Glenn Hillhouse, Susan Imig, Judy Jacobson, Daniel Juergensen, Donna Kaiser, Brian Katt, Barry Kolb, Evelyn Kroger, Gloria Ost, Steward Pflughaupt, Gary Reiling, Roger Rhodes, Jeannette Rusch, Thomas Schlueter, Ken Schmieding, Robert Schott, Gerald Uhlig, James Vogel

Class of 1957 Philip Beck, James Diers, Roger Ehlers, Ivan Ficken, James Garber, Gordon Goldsmith, Roger Graves, Judy Hans, Dean Hillhouse, Robert Johnson, Marcia Kirch, Larry Luebbe, Linda Luebbe, Wayne Mueller, Dennis Otte, Carolyn Petersen, Carol Pieper, Alice Reynolds, Katherine Rosel, Maureen Schlueter, Joanne Schultz, Diane Sies, Ronald Suhr, Karen Sundermann, Kathleen Vogel, Eva Walsh, Gerald Werth

Grades 5 and 6 in 1952-53 (Graduated in 1956 and 1955)

Front Row: ?, ?, ?, ?, Paul Griesse, ?, Julie Westerhoff, ?

2nd Row: ?, ?, ?, Kathy Rosel, ?, ?, Sally Westerhoff, ?, ?

Back Row: ?, Gordon Bredow, ?, Philip Zillig, ? ?, John Schmieding, ? ?

Class of 1956 Gordon Ahlschwede, Gerhard Backhus, Wayne Buls, Jerry Hackbart, C.Frederick Kroger, Jochen Landre, Stanley Litty, Lousie Meyer, Bernice Meyer, Rosalie Mueller, Leora Mueller, Jeanne Pfeiffer, Roger Pflughaupt, David Rolfsmeier, Don Schlueter, Harold Walker

Class of 1955 Margaret Beckmann, Robert Brauer, Gordon Bredow, Orval Buls, Charles Fenster, William Imig, Ann Johnson, Darold Kassebaum, Leonard Lamberty, Gerald Lehr, Richard Reinmiller, Diane Riggert, John Schmieding, Gerald Schultz, Lois Schulz, Thomas Wake II, A. Eugene Wendland, Sally Westerhoff, Julie Westerhoff, Carol Yauk, Philip Zillig

Grades 7 and 8 in 1952-53 (Graduated in 1954 and 1953)

Front Row: Janie Griesse, ?, ?, Dennis Werling, ? ?, ?

2nd Row:?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Merlin Ziellig, ? ?, ?, ?

3rd Row: ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Dave Kroeger, ?, ?, ?, ?,

4th Row: ?, ?, Jim Juergensen, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?

Class of 1954 Floyd Abele, Keith Brose, Barbara Gade, Gary Hackbart, LaRue Hackbart, James Juergensen, Wilma Kassebaum, David Kroger, Louis Lamberty, Roger Mailand, Ronnie Mueller, Dale Pieper, David Reynolds, Beverly Jo Rolfsmeier, Susan Sahn, Karen Schaeffer, Jerold Schlueter, James Schultz, Barbara Splittgerber, Jerold Varner, Dennis Werling, Sandra Westbrook, Merlin Zillig

Class of 1953 Nancy Kay Aegerter, Maureen Ahlschwede, Richard Chloupek, Roger Duerr, Sylvia Fritz, Dean Gade, Larry Goldsmith, Janice Griesse, Kenneth Hackbart, Marjorie Hans, Marilyn Imig, Rodney Imig, Roger Lindner, Harvey Mueller, Dwayne Otte, Dorothy Pleines, Lorrence Pleines, James Schmieding, Wayne Schulz, Shirley Siebe, Linda Kay Sies, Doris Walker, Euleen Werth, Margaret Whittrock, Margaret Yauk

More Memories of the Christmas Program

2010-01-14T23:13:00.021-06:00

[Lois (Meyer) Voeltz provided the following memories and photographs.]

I [Lois] thoroughly enjoyed the memories of the St. John Christmas programs and finally, this week, found some pictures of the kindergarten angels that did have wings -- my class, 1952-53 and Alan's class, 1954-55. I remember the kindergarten made a 'curtain' with the Mary & Joseph moving in behind the angels. Arms were linked and then opened up.

Flickr page

Flickr page
[The Flickr pages show larger sizes of the images.]

Also, I do remember practicing on that one day in the Seward High gym -- long and a bit "boring" -- don't like using that word but it was so repetitious. And we all know Luke 2 in the King James Version, I'm sure! I loved singing "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come", all 70 zillion verses, ending with "Ah dearest Jesus holy child...."

Lower grades wore white gowns with big red bows. Upper grades wore black undergown and white overgown. A big deal to have grown to Mr. Schmeiding's upper grades.

When in 8th grade, Larry Peterson brought cinammon sticks for all of us to enjoy. (Mike S, so appreciated your story about our cousin, John Garmatz, and how he 'introduced' cinammon sticks. I remember getting the vial of cimammon at Brockhoff Drug Store. We loved it!!)

I can smell the brown paper bags and see the big orange and apple and hard candy that was passed out to each of us as we recessed. And hurrying home to open presents.

I was saddened when St John decided to forego the traditional (as we knew it!) Christmas Eve service ritual but also appreciated the creative services that followed the traditional 'recitations and singing.'

Jody, I, too am thankful to have learned to sing in 4 part harmony in 5th grade. I also sing the 'parts' I know from the ones Mr. Schmeiding wrote. "Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah" and "Rock of Ages". We are the folks that Garrison Kiellor talks/writes about -- that know HOW to sing 4 part harmony, without music! A gift of training that we didn't realize was happening.

[Lois provided some other old, non-Christmas photographs that I will upload in the next couple of days.]

Tobin Beck sent these remarks:

Your notes bring back a lot of memories.

When the three of us kids were little Mom started the tradition of Jesus birthday cake on Christmas Eve. We’d go to the children’s service at the Seward High gym and then come home. Dad would read the Christmas story, we’d open presents, and then we’d go into the kitchen to sing happy birthday and have Jesus birthday cake before going to bed.

Mom and Dad took a lot of photos and slides at Christmas, which helps with the memories.

This week’s blizzard (we got about 14 inches of snow, with winds of 30-45 mph) reminded me too of some of the big winter storms we had on Faculty Lane, how we’d make snow forts in some of the big drifts – and how we’d sled down the hill by Sylwester’s house. When Kevin, Tedi and I were little Dad would take us one at a time and sit behind us on the sled as we went down the hill.

St John Church's Christmas Eve Service

2009-12-23T23:21:00.029-06:00

Every year, St John Church put on a huge Christmas Eve service in Seward High School's gymnasium. The entire congregation (and, I think, a lot of Seward citizens who did not usually attend our church) attended the one Christmas Eve service.

At one end of this gymnasium was a stage, on which the Christmas story was enacted. The students who sang badly were assigned to play the roles of Joseph and Mary, the angels, the shepherds, and so forth. (This would have been my own fate if I had not received individual, remedial singing lessons from Ms. Bartels in fourth grade.)

At the foot of the stage, there was a brass band, and some of the singing was accompanied by students playing trumpets, trombones, etc. (In the picture below, I am the trombonist on the right.)

The entire gymnasium floor was covered by canvas, and folding chairs were set up. The St John School students sat on the bleachers on one side of the gymnasium (on the right side, as you looked at the stage), and the congregation sat on the folding chairs on the gymnasium floor and on the bleachers on the other side of the gymnasium. I would guess that total number of people participating in the service in the gymnasium was more than a thousand.

The students on the bleachers were arrayed by class. The lowest classes were closest to the stage, and the older classes were progressively farther from the stage. All the students were dressed in choir robes. The younger classes wore white robes with big, red bow ties ...

... and the oldest classes wore black and white robes. (The above picture of the brass band shows those robes.)

During my years at St John (1960-1966), the student body numbered about 350. The Seward kids who did not attend St John School but who were enrolled in confirmation classes also participated in the service, so the total number of students participating in the service approached 400. Practically all of these students sat on the bleachers and sang in the choirs; only a few played roles on the stage.

The service lasted for about an hour, probably from about 8 to 9 o'clock. The largest portion of that time was spent on choir singing. The Christmas story was read aloud from the Bible, and songs were sung between portions of the story. The pastor's sermon was quite short, and the service did not include communion.

The songs were sung by groups of classes. I don't remember exactly, but some songs were sung by grades 1-3, some by grades 4-6 and some by grades 7-8. A few of the songs were accompanied by the brass band.

St John School provided an excellent music education -- especially in choral singing -- and the students rehearsed the program's Christmas songs during the four Advent weeks that preceeded Christmas Eve. Basically the same songs were sung every year, so the students knew and sang all the songs very well. The program included a couple dozen songs.

One song that I remember in particular was The Drummer Boy, which was sung by the seventh and eighth grades. The boys whose voice had deepened were grouped to sing the pa-rumpa-pa-pa part at lower tones, so essentially the boys were grouped by their puberty progress -- and that was embarrassing for me.

The costumes were issued to the students several days before Christmas eve. I think this was done on in the St John School gymnasium on a school day. Each student was given a costume that fit his size, and the student took the costume home and then wore it to the program. We never rehearsed in the Seward High School gymnasium; we went to that gymnasium only for the Christmas Eve program itself.

After the service ended and as we were exiting the gymnasium, every student received a paper bag full of peanuts, popcorn balls, candy and an orange. Then our parents would torment their children by driving all around Seward looking at Christmas lights and displays instead of rushing home to open their Christmas presents as soon as possible.

I always enjoyed participating in this Christmas Eve program, and I remember it as an impressive performance. All the Christmas Eve programs that I have attended since I left Seward have been far below that performance standard. I also imagine that the Christmas Eve programs that are performed now are below the performance standard that we experienced in the 1960s.

During the first three decades that followed my departure from Seward, I had recurring dreams about those Christmas Eve services in the Seward High School gymnasium. The common element of these dreams was I was standing on the canvas-covered gymnasium floor during the program, and then suddenly the building turned upside down, so that I was suspended upside-down from the floor that had become the ceiling. Somehow my feet stuck to this ceiling, and so I did not fall down, but I was terrified of falling down onto my head. At this point in my dream, I would wake up, and so I would remember the dream clearly.

I don't know the cause or meaning of this dream. I suppose that as an elementary-school student I had felt some anxiety about going to that unfamiliar gymnasium to participate in that service. I had felt that something might go wrong and that the unfamilar surroundings would compound the problem. Then this dream became symbolic for other anxieties that I felt in later situations, and so the dream recurred for many years. I suppose the last time I remember the dream happening was about 15 years ago.

Steve Sylwester added:

Mike has forgotten about the Christmas Eve morning rehearsal at the Seward Public School gym, and he has failed to mention the unison recitations of Bible verse passages done by the different St. John's Lutheran School grades at times throughout the program.

Also, Koe and I remember that the school choirs were in the bleachers on both sides of the gym, not just one side. Lastly, I think Mike exaggerates in his imagination of how the stage actors were selected.

Jody (Schwich) Marquardt added:

I remember kids throwing up down in those “tunnels” (hallways, I guess) while we waited in our white robes (it was hot and stuffy!). That was probably 4th or 5th grade in the old Seward High gym —- 1959 or 1960.

I think Steven is right that students sat almost to the top on both sides.

I also remember the paper bags of candy, peanuts, and an apple or orange.

Gene Meyer added:

Watching the 7th/8th grade rehearsing in the St John gym, singing “Carol of the Bells” or “Drummer Boy”, in harmony. Mr Peter was the director. I liked it. Every other choir sang only in unison.

Grades combined were 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th, 5th/6th and 7th/8th.

Eating red/green jello with whipped cream at home on Christmas Eve before hand ... nothing to throw up.

Putting gowns on in the Seward public school and looking at how different their classrooms were.

Teachers constantly “susshing” everybody.

The brown/grey powder the janitor would spread on top of the vomit in the hallway.

Marching in to “O Come All Ye Faithful”, marching out to “Joy to the World”

Miss Maehr singing “Jesus loves me” or “Away in the Manger” as loud as most of the kintergarteners.

Little kids (kindergarten) wearing wings made out of wood and feathers

Teachers “directing” the recitation of key Bible verses

How dark the gym was when the lights went down.

People picked for the stage were the right size, not necessarily bad singers.

Jody, Steve and Mike are right ... some years all on one side, other years split. I don’t remember Sat morning rehearsal at the Seward Gym ... maybe I skipped them?

Bags of peanuts and hard candy. Men smoking in the hallways afterwards.

Getting out of the gown quickly, waiting by the car to go home, talking to Stan Procnow about how many presents were waiting at home. We compared numbers.

David Heinicke added:

You are right about kids on both sides of the bleachers. We played from heaven above to earth...on our recorders in 4th grade (1965).

One thing that I remember was dressing in the public school classrooms and seeing this strange other world; a parallel universe that was the same, but different. This is the kind of thing that occupied my mind when I was a kid, wondering what went on in this other world.

Thanks for helping me remember on this cold blizzarding day with no church service due to the weather.

Don Sylwester added:

You may be interested to know that the St John Children's Christmas Eve Service is no more. This year it was moved to Sunday evening, December 20. There are several services at St John this afternoon and evening (today is December 24) but they are regular services, one with communion liturgy, with no special music or decorations or other special components. The theme today was "Missionaries".

Times change. Sometimes sadly.

Ronda (Kirch) Konst added:

I don't recall any morning rehearsals either. And grades were paired just like we were for church 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8. I only remember being on both sides -- but I don't recall those early years.

Actually, some of the Christmas programs I attended as an adult were pretty impressive. I will always remember the big birthday cake made for Jesus out of cupcakes and all of us getting one. I know I liked this because the Kirches always celebrated Christmas as Jesus' birthday party. And there was also the year with the live nativity scene.

Merry Christmas all! Memory lane is fun.

Jody (Schwich) Marquardt added:

One small addendum to Gene’s remembrances: When I was in 5th grade (1960-61), Mr. Schmieding directed the 5th & 6th grade choir, which also sang in three-part harmony, probably not as beautifully as Mr. Peter’s 7th and 8th graders, though. To this day, I remember both lower parts to “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” (learned in 5th grade choir) and still alternate singing them when that hymn is sung in church. I don’t remember any 3-part Christmas songs, however.

The processional -- O, Come, All Ye Faithful: I always thought the rest of the world didn’t sing the right words to that one (they sang “joyful and triumphant”). It turns out that the 1941 LCMS hymnal, whose version we marched into, is the one that had the different words. In subsequent LCMS hymnals, we now sing the words everyone else does (no more “triumphantly sing” and “to Bethlehem hasten, with joyful accord”).

Christmas Shopping

2009-12-20T22:04:00.008-06:00

During the mid-1960s, Seward did not have any large stores (maybe it still doesn't have any, for all I know), so it was not possible for a family to do much Christmas shopping in Seward.

I remember that I did buy some presents in the Kolterman family's "dime store", which also was called "Ben Franklin's". There, I remember, I bought some house decorations as presents for my Mom, and I bought model kits (model cars, model airplanes, etc.) for some of my brothers.

There was also the House of Davidson's, where I bought record albums. And there was the college bookstore, which was managed by Steve Roettjer's dad. The bookstore did not have much selection, but it was possible to special-order items from some catalogues that Mr. Roettjer had.

I remember also that I bought some Christmas presents through mail-order. I ordered comic books from Mad Magazine and gave them as presents. There were various other magazines that kids read (Boy's Life comes immediately to mind, but there were others too), and they had lots of advertisements for stuff you could order by mail.

Paperboys always could win prizes for selling subscriptions. There was a catalogue that illustrated and described the various prizes. If you sold two subscriptions, you could get such and such prizes, if you sold three subscriptions, you could get such and such prizes, etc. Anyway, I think there was an occasion when I got some such prize and gave it to someone else as a Christmas present.

In Seward in those days, people bought quite a lot of stuff by mail from companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward. Our family always had several big catalogues from such companies, and as Christmas approached we would look through those catalogues for present ideas and then often actually ordered the presents by mail.

A couple of times every Christmas-shopping season, our family also drove to Linclon and spent an evening shopping. Lincoln had two big department stores. One was Gold's

and the other was Miller and Paine.

Besides these department stores, Lincoln had a variety of specialty stores that sold books, records, musical instruments, toys, sports equipment, and so forth. There were no such stores in Seward.

Our family had nine members -- the two parents and seven kids. We drew names for giving presents, so each kid bought presents only for one or two siblings. Our parents gave each of us some money to buy presents, and we older siblings who had paper routes also added some of our own earned money to buying presents. (I liked to buy presents and was glad to use some of my own money for that purpose.) Dad would give us some money to buy presents for Mom, and Mom would give us some money to buy presents for Dad.

We all would get into our station wagon and drive to Lincoln and park in the center of town. Each family member had a little bit of money. We would split up, with instructions to meet back at the car at a certain time. As I remember, it was OK for me (I was the oldest) and Steve (the second oldest) to walk around by ourselves. The younger siblings had to stay in groups -- some of the kids with Dad and some with Mom. We would spend two or three hours shopping in an area that was about three square blocks in the town center. Eventually we would meet, loaded with shopping bags, back at our car.

Many of our trips to Lincoln included a dinner at King's Restaurant. In this restaurant, the customers sat in booths, and each both had a telephone. The customers sitting in a booth would read their menu, decide what they wanted to eat, and then use the telephone to call their order to the kitchen. I thought that was a great way to run a restaurant, but I never saw another restaurant that was run that way.

Below is an interesting remembrance of the stores in downtown Lincoln during that period.

There was real shopping in downtown [Lincoln].

The State Theater was a popular movie place on the south side between 15th and 14th street. Dick’s Hobby was right across the street and carried models, trains, crafts and archery supplies.

Hested’s department store was on the SW corner of 14th and O, the building later had an Ardan’s Jewelry store before a record store.

Between 14th and 13th on the south side was the Toy Castle, a drug store, Lincoln’s first Little King sandwich shop and a jewelry store plus the ever-present Walgreens. On the north side was JC Penny’s (NE corner of 13th and O) and Hardy Furniture (mid block).

On the SW corner of 13th and O was Miller & Paine Department Store. Magee’s clothing was at the SE corner of 12th and O. Across the street were the National Bank of Commerce (now Wells Fargo) and Hovland-Swanson ladies’ clothing.

On the SW corner of 12th and O was an old SS Kresge’s dime store with FW Woolworth further down the block near 11th Street. Dietze Music was/is at 12th and O and Latsch’s Office Supply was between 11th and 12th. For many years there was a Lawlor’s Sporting Goods between 11th and 12th on the north side of O street.

The classic dinosaur of a department store – Gold’s (later Brandeis, then back to Golds), with WT Grant store (later St. George and the Dragon restaurant) and the 1st National Bank was at 10th and O. To the north across O Street was Kuhl’s restaurant.

On the SW corner of 10th and O in the Terminal Building which was home to both the Selective Service System offices and KFMQ radio.

A Blog About Reinhold Marxhausen

2009-12-20T21:35:00.006-06:00

Somebody (I don't know who) has started a blog entirely about Reinhold Marxhausen. Below are three pictures from that blog. The third is a Marxhausen drawing of Concordia University's first president George Weller.

I had forgotten about the unicycle. The odd vehicle I remember Mr. Marxhausen riding was a motor scooter.

Dorris Marxhausen

2009-12-20T14:22:00.008-06:00

Karl Marxhausen, in his own blog, has an article about the humor that characterized his family and in particular about his mother Dorris and her sense of humor. Below is part of Karl's article, with a few of the pictures. Read the whole article.

Growing up under the Marxhausen roof has been a dance with literature. This was where I learned to love reading. My mother introduced me to Sam And The Firefly, an adventure about an owl and his friend, whose tail light filled the night sky with illuminated words. She read books to me when I was young.

She loved to read newspapers and worked in the library at St. John's Elementary School. She loved to compose her thoughts on her royal typewriter with its carbon papers. Letters came to me the summer I worked in Galena, Illinois, bringing me up to speed on all the family news. She wrote letters to the editor and tried her hand at politics as well. Simply put, my love words came from her. Much thanks to Dorris Marxhausen.

(This is Mike again.) I remember Dorris mostly as she looks in the third photograph.

I remember Dorris Marxhausen as someone who laughed a lot.

She was also a rather serious person, though. She was very interested and active in Nebraska politics, which was unusual for a woman in those years. She was a Republican, but in Nebraska in those years, the Republicans were the liberal party.

Here is a picture of the Marxhausen family now:

Seated (left to right): Reinhold Marxhausen and Jerry Lodwig.
Standing: Kim Marxhausen, Paul Marxhausen, Karl Marxhausen, Dorris Marxhausen and Marie Lodwig.

Reinhold Marxhausen's Sound-Making Sculptures

2009-12-20T13:52:00.006-06:00

Some guy named Ramon Galvan has a blog named Outer Tumbolia. I looked through the blog for a while, and I must say that I do not get the blog's theme or direction. Maybe he is writing articles about sound.

Anyway, the blog includes an interesting article about how Reinhold Marxhausen began to make sculptures that make sounds. Whenever I visited Marxhausen's studio, he would show me some sound-making sculpture he was developing.

The relevant part of the blog article follows:

Reinhold Marxhausen grew up in the 1920's and 1930's, the son of a pastor and one of eight children in Vergas Minnesota. He played the musical saw, he played water-tuned bottles, and he found piano lessons boring. He carried stardust in his pocket.

After military service, followed by degrees in art and biology, Marxhausen took a teaching position at Concordia College in Seward Nebraska, where he remained until his retirement in 1990.

It was in 1962 that he first began to work with sound objects. "It was a boring Saturday at the sculpture studio; no plans for the day," he recalls. "I found a door knob on the table and welded some wires on one end just for the fun of it. I placed the door knob to my ear and strummed the wire on the opposite end."

"WOW."

Since his discovery, Marx has made a wide variety of sound sculptural forms, and he has developed the door-knob idea in two main directions. One form consists of objects with exposed, external spines. some of the most successful have been his manual walkmans, (below) made like a pair of headphones, with spines sticking out from the metal ear pieces and sometimes rising from the over-the-head connecting piece. They make a stereo concert of lovely sounds, on a minuscule one person scale.

The other form is a small, chunky, metal object, fully enclosed, with no hint of what is inside. Sound comes from within when you shake or rock it, audible only when you hold it close to your ear. What is in there? Marx is not telling.

The objects are just pocket-sized and, recalling the meteor of his childhood, Marxhausen has given them the name Stardust. He makes them as plain in appearance as can be; they look like worn and dirty stones. There's a Marxhausen message in his having put so lovely a sound in such a homely thing.

The Order of Concordia Presidents

2009-12-08T21:29:00.004-06:00

J. George Weller Before becoming the director of the "Lutheran Seminary" in Seward in 1894, Weller was pastor of a congregation in Marysville, Nebraska. He relinquished the presidency in 1914 after two decades in that position but continued to serve as a professor at Concordia for ten more years.

F.W.C. Jesse President Jesse has just resigned the presidency of a Lutheran College in Clifton, Texas, when he received the call to suceed Weller in 1914. After almost ten years as Concordia's president, he accepted a call into parish ministry in Atchison, Kansas, in 1923.

C.F. Brommer President Brommer initially declined the call to be president of Concordia. He was sent the call a second time, whereupon he accepted. Before coming to Seward in 1924, he was pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Hampton, Nebraska, and the Southern Nebraska District president. Following his retirement for the presidency in 1941, he continued to teach at Concordia until 1944. He spent his remaining years in San Diego, California.

A.O. Fuerbringer President Fuerbringer, having a broad background in Synod ministries, was serving as pastor to a small mission congregation in western Kansas before becoming president of the college in 1941. He left Concordia, Seward, in 1953 to become the president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He held that position until his retirement.

Paul A. Zimmermann President Zimmermann, though having had pastoral training, had been serving as a science professor on the Seward campus when he was called to the presidency in 1954. He left Concordia in 1961 to become president of the newly organized Concordia College at Ann Arbor, Michigan. He later became president of Concordia College, River Forest, Illinois.

W. Theophil Janzow Janzow had been a parish pastor and president of the Southern Illinios District. He then came to Seward to teach sociology before accepting the call to be Concordia's president in 1963. He presided over the school's largest enrollments before resigning in 1977. He then became president at Concordia Seminary Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Michael J. Stelmachowicz After years of teaching and administration in Lutheran elementary and secondary schools in St. Louis, Stelmachowicz became Concordia's director of secondary education in 1961 and later dean of students. He left Seward in 1968 to become superintendent of Lutheran high schools in Detroit, Michigan. Next, he became president of St. John's College, Winfield, Kansas. He was called back to Seward in 1978 to become president. He left Seward in 1984 to become the executive secretary of the Synod's Board for Higher Education Services until his retirement.

Ralph L. Reinke President Reinke, Concordia's only non-pastor president, taught in Lutheran elementary schools and at Concordia College in River Forest, Illinois. Eventually he became president of Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis. After leaving that position, he was called to the presidency in Seward in 1986. He served until his retirement in 1990.

Orville C. Walz After teaching in Lutheran elementary schools, Walz served for a number of years as registrar and assistant academic dean at Concordia, Seward. After entering the pastoral ministry, he became president of Concordia College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was called to become president of Seward in 1990.

Source

An Old Article About Alfred Ottomar Fuerbringer

2009-12-07T07:08:00.005-06:00

My brother Steve Sylwester found an article in an old Time magazine about Alfred Ottomar Fuerbringer, a former President of Concordia Teachers College in Seward, Nebraska. When the article was published (April 27, 1953), Fuerbringer had recently been promoted from that position to the position of President of Concordia Theological Seminary in Clayton, Missouri.

I assume that the Fuerbringer family lived on Faculty Lane in Seward. This article provides some interesting details about him and his ancestry and about campus life while Fuerbringer was CTC President. The article's complete text follows:

The largest Lutheran theological seminary in the U.S. (enrollment 778) is the Missouri Synod's Concordia Seminary—a well-planned scattering of college-gothic buildings and faculty homes on 71 green acres in Clayton, on the western edge of St. Louis. Last week the synod's board of electors announced that they had selected a new seminary president: the Rev. Alfred Ottomar Fuerbringer, 49. Big (6 ft. 3 in.), even-tempered Pastor Fuerbringer and Concordia will not have much trouble getting to know each other—his father headed the school and his grandfather helped found it.

Faith of the Fathers. Grandfather Ottomar Fuerbringer left his German homeland in 1838 with a group of some 700 Saxony Lutherans for whom German Lutheranism was getting too liberal and rationalistic, and too closely bound up with the state. He and three fellow ministers built the original Concordia—a log-cabin schoolhouse in Missouri's Perry County—and set out to train a New World breed of pastors in the strict, Bible-centered Lutheranism of their conviction.

Concordia and Missouri Synod Lutheranism grew and prospered with the times, but they never let go of the stern Reformation theology of their founding fathers. Under the leadership of Ottomar's theologian son, Dr. Ludwig Ernst Fuerbringer, who died in 1947, Concordia's serious-minded seminarians continued to master both Hebrew and Greek. Almost as intensively as their work in Bible, Concordia's students study The Book of Concord of 1580, in which their church's doctrines are explicitly set forth. Added to courses in history, philosophy and pastoral care, this kind of work leaves little time for wool gathering; classes begin at 7:40 a.m.

Lutheran System. President-elect Fuerbringer attended Concordia himself (his red hair, now vestigial, won him the nickname "Kelly"). After graduate studies in the late '20s, he went into pastoral work. In 1941 came his first summons to a Lutheran education post: the presidency of Concordia Teachers College in Seward, Nebraska.

Missouri Synod Lutherans maintain their own parochial school system of 1,400 schools (which has grown by 6,000 rooms in the last six years), and the training of teachers is therefore a major concern. Coeducational Concordia Teachers' College combines both college and high school; when Fuerbringer took over, it had 83 college students and some 50 in high school. Today these figures stand at 296 and 135.

"Discipline was quite rigid when I came," says Alfred Fuerbringer. From Monday through Thursday no one was permitted off the campus after supper, movies were forbidden except on weekends, and the college choir was permitted brief excursions within Nebraska, but no farther. Popular President Fuerbringer soon changed all that. His students now can get overnight leaves and go to the movies any time they want, and the choir is just back from a tour through Texas and Louisiana.

"Ninety-five per cent of our student body," says Fuerbringer, "are youngsters who intend to enter the church, and do. They know exactly why they're in school, and exactly where they're going. I should guess that in a nonsectarian college it's the other way around: 95% don't know why they're there, or where they're going."

The Faculty of St John School in 1952

2009-12-01T06:44:00.004-06:00

The photograph below is included in the booklet published in 1952 for the 75th anniversary (1877-1952) of St John Church. The booklet was described in a previous blog post.

This picture shows the faculty of St John School. From left to right are Herbert Kaiser (principal, grades 7-8), Martha Maehr (kindergarten), Lucinda Bartels (grades 3-4),Edna Grotelueschen (grades 1-2) and Herman Schmieding (grades 5-6).

The Flickr page shows the entire photo.

A Photo of the Construction of St John Church in 1877

2009-12-01T06:20:00.007-06:00

The photograph below is included in the booklet published in 1952 for the 75th anniversary (1877-1952) of St John Church. The booklet was described in a previous blog post. The photograph shows the construction of the church in 1877.

Flickr page

A Photo of the Construction of St John School in 1929

2009-12-01T00:34:00.005-06:00

This photo is included in the booklet published in 1952 for the 75th anniversary (1877-1952) of St John Church. The booklet was described in a previous blog post.

According to a previous blog article about the school's history, this school building was built in 1929, so this photo must be from that year.

This Flickr page shows the photo in its full size.

Numerical Growth of St John Church

2009-11-29T23:18:00.016-06:00

Below is a table that was included in a booklet that was published in 1952 for the 75th anniversary (1877-1952) of St John Church. (The booklet belongs to Lee Meyer and was described in the previous blog post.)

The image can be viewed and downloaded in larger sizes at this Flickr webpage.

The columns are labeled, from left to right, as follows:

Pastor

Year

Members Baptized

Members Communicant

Members Voting

Members in Armed Forces

Children Baptized

Juniors Confirmed

Adults Confirmed or Baptized

Total Gain From Without

Communed

Marriages

Burials

Language Used

Parochial School Pupils

Parochial School Teachers

Sunday School Pupils

Sunday School Teachers

Bible Classes Enrollment

Property Value in Thousands

Contributions - Work at Home

Contributions - Work At Large

Below are the 2nd through 13th columns (Year through Burials) for the successive pastors.

Pastor Grube (1877-1880) and Pastor Bode (1881-1883):

Pastor Koenig (1884-1890):

Pastor Mueller (1891-1894):

Pastor Becker (1895-1914):

[...continued...] Pastor Becker (1915-1934):

Pastor Heinicke (1935-1945):

Pastor Heinicke with Pastor Yauk (1946-1948):

Pastor Yauk and Pastor Spitz (1949-1951):

Photographs of St John Church in 1952

2009-11-29T22:43:00.009-06:00

Lee Meyer has provided photographs from a booklet that he owns and that was published in 1952 for the 75th anniversary (1877-1952) of St John Church. Below are six of the booklet's pictures of the church. (I think that the last shows the church basement -- correct me if I am wrong.)

All the images that I have from this booklet are in this Flickr set, where you can view and download them in larger sizes.

The booklet has some other old photographs that I will show in future blog articles.

Flickr page

Singing the Hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy"

2009-11-10T23:23:00.028-06:00

The lyrics of the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy were written as a poem in 1826 by Reginald Heber, an English pastor. The music was composed in 1861 by another English pastor, John Bacchus Dykes.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

The first, third and fourth verses compose a rather intellectual meditation on the mystery of the Divine Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The third verse emphasizes the inability of humans to comprehend the Trinity's mystery -- Though the darkness hide Thee / Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see.

The second verse presents odd, dramatic, bizarre images -- saints casting down their crowns around a sea, and cherubim and seraphim falling down. This second verse is omitted from many performances of the song. Without the second verse, the hymn is rather meditative and intellectual; with the second verse, the hymn is rather esctatic and emotional.

The Trinity is emphasized lyrically by other triple concepts -- was, is and shall be -- power, love and purity -- earth, sky and sea.

Below is a conventional performance by Cristy Lane, which omits the second verse:

Below is an extremely meditative version by a choir called Master of the Chant, which sings only the first verse:

Below is an energetic performance by Mahalia Jackson, which includes the second verse:

Below the song is sung by a gospel-music group, The Kurt Carr Singers. The second verse is sung as a solo by the tallest, male singer.

The link below (I cannot embed the clip into my blog) features Judith Christie McAllister singing only the second verse as a solo. The rest of the performance is sung by her entire choir:

Judith Christie McAllister singing Holy, Holy, Holy.

Below is a zany video clip, sung by Steve Green, accompanied with a Celtic folk arrangement and illustrated with scenes from the 1956 movie The Ten Commandments.

Below is an amazing clip that shows an ecstatic sermon by evangelist Reinhard Bonnke at a huge religious service in Africa -- the audience numbers in many tens of thousands. The hymn is sung at the clip's very end.

Steve Sylwester sent me the following explanation.

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty was Hymn 246 in the The Lutheran Hymnal, Copyright 1941, which was used by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod while we were growing up. The lyric is based on Revelation 4:1-11:

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in Heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."

At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne.

Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.

Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings.

Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship Him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

The "living creatures" are the "Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee" mentioned in the hymn's second verse. See the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_angelic_hierarchy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherub
http://www.osl.cc/believe/rev2visi.htm

A Couple Video Clips of Concordia University

2009-11-10T23:04:00.004-06:00

The following video is, in my opinion, an extremely attractive video about Concordia University for prospective students. Whoever did the clip deserves some praise.

And below is a video clip showing some scenes of the 2009 Commencement ceremony. It includes our star Faculty Lane kid, Jenny Mueller-Roebke.

The Commencement clip put the idea into my head that I should assemble some clips featuring the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy.

The 75th Birthday of the Seward Bandshell

2009-11-10T22:44:00.003-06:00

On August 2,2009, Seward celebrated the 75th birthday of its bandshell.

Below is the Seward Municipal Band playing the Washington Post March at that birthday celebration.

Search for "Seward Municipal Band" on YouTube to find other performances in the bandshell.

George Weller at Concordia in Seward

2009-11-08T23:52:00.023-06:00

Below, after some introductory remarks, is the fourth group of excerpts of Clara Alvina Koenig's manuscript An Afterglow of Yesterday. The manuscript was described in this earlier blog article.

The first group of excerpts, about J. George Weller's mother, was in this blog article.

The second group of excerpts, about the Weller family's move from Louisiana to Indiana, was in this blog article.

The third group of excerpts, about the migration of German Lutherans from the area of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Staplehust, Nebraska, was in this blog article.

The fourth group of excerpts, about the Weller family's move from Fort Wayne to Staplehurst, is in this blog article.

In 1882, J. George Weller graduated from the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, married Louise Katharina Clara Eirich in New Minden, Illinois, and then moved to Marysville (now part of Staplehurst), Nebraska, where he began serving as a Lutheran pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church.

(Flickr page)

In 1894 he moved to Seward to become the first director of the The Evangelical Lutheran School Teachers Seminary, which now has become Concordia University. He served in that position until he died in 1924.

The following passages are excerpted from Ms. Koenig's manuscript:

Now let us consider various factors which led to the founding of Concordia Teachers College at Seward. Here is a passage from the book The Story of Concordia, by Professor H. O. A. Keinath:

“At the back of these events there lay years of planning by which the dream of the pioneers of Lutheranism in Nebraska had at last come true. At that time the number of Missouri Synod congregations in Nebraska was growing by leaps and bounds. The liberal land policy of the United States Government in the preceding decades had attracted many settlers, especially of German descent. The homesteading privileges offered an opportunity to many poor immigrants for acquiring a sizable tract of land. Thus a promising field beckoned the Missouri Synod to send laborers into the harvest. Congregations sprang up everywhere.

Led by that pioneer of Nebraska Lutheranism, President J. Hilgendorf, an energetic group of pastors was active in organizing the scattered Lutherans into congregations. By 1894 the Nebraska District numbered one hundred pastors and twenty-one teachers who together served one hundred fifty congregations and eighty preaching stations. This represented a three hundred percent increase within the previous twelve years.

Due to this remarkable expansion, the thought of having a synodical institution within the boundaries of Nebraska seemed entirely justified. The initial steps in this direction were taken by the Nebraska District. At its session in 1889 this district seriously considered the question of founding a new institution. ...

After further discussion by the Nebraska District, the project was placed before the meeting of Missouri Synod in 1893, and this body decided that a new teachers seminary be founded ‘somewhere in Nebraska.’

Several towns of Nebraska were eager to harbor the new school in their midst. Blue Hill offered $100,000; Lincoln was ready with an offer of a 160-acre tract of land; Norfolk made several attempts to get the new institution. From Seward came a unique offer which was finally considered the best and was accepted. Four members of the Seward congregation had developed a plan by which the new school was not only to have a plot of ground but also sufficient funds to erect the first building. The names of these energetic planners deserve to be mentioned here: Messrs. O.E. Bernbecker, H. Diers, J.F. Goehner, and P. Goehner. These men bought a plot of undeveloped land on the outskirts of Seward, laid it out in lots, provided for some improvements, and then offered them for sale. From the profits of the sale the institution received a twenty-acre tract of land and $8,000 for the erection of a building. The lots were sold rather quickly and thus the land and the first building were acquired without any cost to Synod.”

Small wonder that Synod accepted the offer from Seward when we consider the economic disturbances of the “Nineties,” especially in our own state; due to a shortage of rainfall from 1880 to 1894, crops failed and many people left their farms in western Nebraska to return to the East while others had to depend on charity. The Nebraska legislature and sympathetic citizens in all parts of the country came to the rescue. In 1891, nearly 8,000 families in thirty-seven counties were in need of help. The panic of 1893 caused a scarcity of money, unemployment, low wages, strikes, and low-priced farm products. All of these tended to make conditions worse in an agricultural state. In 1895, about 30,000 families in two out of every three Nebraska counties would have suffered starvation and exposure if they had not been assisted by the State and by county boards. Food and clothing for the people, seed to plant crops, and feed for the livestock were distributed in sixty-one counties that year.

Keeping in mind “the hard times of the Nineties,” let us continue with The Story of Concordia by H.O.A. Keinath:

On August 29, 1894, a number of men who had attended the session of the Nebraska District at Hampton stepped off the Burlington train at Seward and trudged their way to the northeastern outskirts of the city where preparations had been made to lay the cornerstone of the new teachers seminary. A foundation wall of 44 by 44 feet placed in the middle of a cornfield may not have been a very inspiring sight, but the pioneer vision which characterized the inhabitant of the Middle West of those days could easily picture the growth of a stately plant from such a small beginning.

A little less than three months later, November 18, 1894, a large number of Nebraska people braved the cold and blustery wind and assembled again at Seward to dedicate the completed building to the service of the Lord. Since the first gathering, a three-story structure, now the southern half of the ‘Old Dormitory,’ had risen and proudly lifted its head above the prairie.

President J. Hilgendorf, remembered by all Nebraska Lutherans as the pioneer worker for the church in this territory, delivered the main sermon at this dedication, and, basing his words on the text of that Sunday, preached on this theme: ‘How the Lord Jesus on the last day will say also concerning this institution: ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Pastor H. Frincke of Lincoln preached an English sermon, and Judge Holland of Seward gave a secular address and in polished English spoke of the cultural benefits of this institution of learning.

One of the first students remembered that: “The day of the dedication was a dark, gloomy day, but the hearts of the participants were full of light and joy. The Arlington, Nebraska Band under the direction of Teacher Bernthal, furnished the music at the dedication.

The following is from an article that Professor Keinath wrote for the June 1934 issue of Concordia's magazine The Broadcaster.

The beginnings were small; thirteen students were willing to cast their lot with the new venture. The one building served as dormitory, administration building, music hall, dining hall, gymnasium, director’s residence, faculty residence, housekeeper’s residence, etc. etc., for there was only one building and the whole administrative personnel was composed of Professor G. Weller and his faithful wife, although the teacher of the local congregation, Mr. Herman Martin, gave some assistance in music.

How that undaunted spirit of so many of our synodical pioneers again and again steps before us in the records of their undertakings! When they needed a school, they started one; when they needed a Lehrerseminar [teachers seminary], they started one.

Were times economically auspicious in 1894? In the same issue of the Lutheraner in which the coming dedication of the new institution is announced, there is an appeal for the drought-stricken brethren of Nebraska. And a new Lehrerseminar in such times! One feels like hanging his head in shame when we, forty years later, incline to yield to defeatism that wails: ‘We can’t."

One of those first students wrote an article about his experiences during the first year at the seminary. The following are a few paragraphs of that article, which was published in the 40th Anniversary Edition of The Broadcaster:

The year 1894 was an important year for me. It was the year in which the seminary at Seward was built and dedicated. Rev. George Weller, from the Zion Congregation at Marysville, Nebraska, was elected as professor of the new institution. I came from the same congregation and Prof. Weller had been my teacher and minister.

Both, Prof. Weller and I, entered college on the same day; he as my professor and I as his pupil...

After dinner Prof. Weller entered and said to me: ‘Ed, du bist Seminar Aeldester!’ [Ed, you are the Seminar Elder.] What this meant I did not know, but soon found out, and kept on finding out for the next three years for every night Prof. Weller would give me an order to get the bread and meat for the following day. So every night I would trudge to town with a cart and get the necessary supplies...

We never had to go hungry. Prof. Weller would often come in at mealtime and ask; ‘Boys, what would you like for tomorrow?’ and if a young student would voice his wish he would say” ‘Ed, get that for tomorrow.’ ...

Did we have pillow fights? I should say yes! The next morning Prof. Weller (he and his family lived on part of the first floor) would buttonhole me and say: ‘Did you have a good time last night? Ed it is all right once in a while, but do not overdo it! See to that!’...

One more word about Prof. Weller. He was a real sport and enjoyed a humorous act. One of our boys found a dried up biscuit in the basement and threw it out the door, hitting Prof. Weller in the head. We all expected a reprimand but Prof. Weller just said, ‘That is all right’, and had a good laugh with us. Prof. Weller was a prince.

E.W. Gradoske

Excerpts from an interview with Mrs. George Weller (by Prof. Keinath) enlarge our picture of “campus” life during the first years:

Yes, we did live a rather unusual life that first year. We lived right with the boys; our rooms were on the first and second floors of the building, and the boys occupied the remaining rooms. In the basement we had a kitchen and dining room; classrooms were right among the other rooms.

The boys came to me with all kinds of troubles. When they cut their fingers they came to me just like to mother. I mended their clothes, cooked and baked for them, and did many other things. Of course, I had some help. Miss Bertram and Miss Fuerniss helped me during those early times. As the boys became more, there was surely a lot of work. But those girls were good workers. Why they baked as high as seventy-five loaves of bread a day. It seemed that during the first year we had such terrible dust storms; we sometimes could not put the dishes on the table until the boys were ready to eat, because the dust would settle so.

We had to get along as best we could. There were some plank sidewalks and many a time I walked around on them with one of my youngsters in my arms. There were no electric lights and no steam heat.

You know in those days every room had its own stove for heating and my husband would worry so about fires. He often stayed up very late just to make sure that all the fires had burned out before he retired. In the morning he often got up to build fires rather than have the boys do it. He was more or less of a janitor around the place, too.

One boy came to the institution with a hat that simply was impossible; we just could not let him be seen in that way. So Director Weller bought him a hat before he went to church the first time.

In the first year we had one real tall fellow who came in a suit that was too small from the start; and when he just kept growing and growing during the year he at last was just a sight. At one time the ladies aid had bought a suit for a very poor boy and the first time he wore it he fell over something and a long rip was the result. What was I to do? For the ladies wanted to see their new suit on the boy. So I patched it up as carefully as I could and presented him.

I remember that in one of the early years we had a baseball team, and they beat Germantown in a game. It made me feel so proud of them that I treated them to bananas for supper.

Things happened in those days. I got a great scare one day when one boy was rushed to me with blood spurting from three badly mutilated fingers. He with some others had found one of those torpedoes which the railroads use, took it to his desk, played with it, and it exploded in his hands. I immediately tried to stop the flow of blood and ordered some boys to hitch up the buggy. My husband was not at home and we had no telephones in those days. But we got the boy to the doctor, and everything turned out all right.

In closing, Prof. Heinath says:

It was time to leave. When the door had closed behind us we thought of Tabitha of The Book of Acts. She had plied her needle and thread in the interest of the kingdom of God. Here we had met another Tabitha who had done things that are small in the eyes of the world, but great in the building of God’s Kingdom.

And the words of the poet came to mind:

The healing of the world is in its nameless saints.

Each separate star seems nothing; but a myriad scattered stars

Break up the night and make it beautiful.

During the first years, the college students at Seward paid forty eight dollars a year for board and two dollars for fuel and oil. Each desk was equipped with an oil lamp to supply light for the evening study-periods. There was no hired janitor, but Prof. Weller and his students cleaned the various rooms. They also beautified the grounds, removing the debris left by the builders, leveling the ground wherever necessary, and planting trees. Each student planted one tree and watered it faithfully until it grew.

Shortly after the first building was completed, a barn was built “on the campus” to provide shelter for several cows and the professor’s horses and buggy. Some of the early students tied ribbons and flowers on the horns of the collegiate cows. One day, some of the students secretly interchanged the front and rear wheels of Prof. Weller’s buggy. Evidently Prof. Weller had more important things on his mind when he hitched his horses to the buggy. Although he thought it strange that he always seemed to be going uphill, the professor did not discover the joke until he had driven several miles.

When thirty students enrolled for the second year, a professorial house became a necessity. The Nebraska District furnished $2,300 for which a house was built in the fall of 1895. A second class was organized that year and Teacher F. Hackstedde of Omaha was engaged as assistant professor. The next year, Synod made him a regular professor.

As time went on, the institution was enlarged by a class being added every year until the classes numbered three. After completing three years of work at Seward, the students were expected to migrate to Addison for the remaining two years of study. In those days the teacher’s course in the Missouri Synod extended over five years, an arrangement which was terminated in 1908 when both Addison and Seward were enlarged to six-year schools./p>
But the plan of having Seward function only as a preparatory institution for Addison proved a failure. In its report to Synod the Board of Control found reasons to complain about the fact that too many students who finished the courses at Seward refused to go to Addison and discontinued their studies. It became evident that the only solution would be an enlargement of the institution so that the graduates might go directly into office...

By 1903 another professor was needed and Prof. G. Ritzmann was called. Thus there was a three-man faculty until the expansion of 1905 when the institution was elevated to the rank of a full teachers seminary.

A man who was to give almost twenty-five years of his life to the institution was then called in the person of Professor E. Strieter. He had been one of the candidates for the professorship to which Professor Weller was elected, and now was called from Cleveland to fill the vacancy created by the fact that Professor Hackstedde had resigned on account of ill health. Professor Strieter will be remembered by all who came into contact with him. His cheerful disposition, democracy of manners in his association with the students, his unfailing willingness to assume the manifold duties which the position of a professor of those pioneer days brought with it are traditions that will long remain alive...

By 1905 the institution could boast of an enrollment of seventy-eight students.

Professor Keinath continues:

By 1905 the delegates at the meeting of the Missouri Synod were convinced that this synodical child at Seward would live and should be adorned in slightly more expensive clothes. Properly urged by the Nebraska District and the local Board of Control, Synod decided that the institution should become a volles Lehrerseminar [full teachers seminary].

That meant a building program and the calling of more professors. The sum of $20,000 was granted for the erection of a new administration building, (now called the ‘Old Ad’), and another $6,000 for a service building, (now serving as a hospital). We may smile at these figures as we think of the $150,000 that were needed to erect our beautiful administration building twenty years later, but in those times this represented a real outlay, and the new buildings were appreciated as much as the more elaborate structures which came later.

But this building program could not be carried out immediately, since Synod demanded that two-thirds of the appropriated sums must be collected before building operations can be undertaken. So Professor Weller found himself with ninety-five students on his hands, and space enough for about half that number. The old dormitory to which an addition had been built some years before was packed with students, pianos, organs, classrooms, bedrooms, and the many facilities necessary for student life, and the first art which the newcomer had to acquire was to study under such conditions...

A decided increase in the number of faculty was demanded by the fact that the institution became a five-year school in 1906. During this year three men were added to the staff. Professors Karl Haase, H.B. Fehner, August Schuelke. Prof. Haase was called to take charge of the instruction in music in the various branches, a capacity in which he serves to this day. Prof. Fehner became the critic in the training school for a number of years but taught also in the institution. Professor Schuelke was active in a number of fields but as time offered more opportunity he gave most of his time to the sciences, and continued in this field up to his sudden death in 1932.

From Prof. Fehner’s reminiscences in the same issue of the college paper we gather that the service building was completed in 1906:

Our Concordia Teachers College at Seward experienced its first scholastic year as volles Lehrerseminar from 1906 to 1907. The local congregation had kindly consented to have one of its school-buildings, a small one-room frame structure, transported to the College Campus, where it was somewhat altered and then dedicated as the New Training School of the Concordia Teachers College. The enrollment of pupils increased from 35 to 110. The staunch supporter of our institution, the Reverend C.H. Becker, for many years chairman of the local Board, was often seen with a yardstick, measuring and planning how more room might be obtained without causing Synod any burdensome outlay. Small additions were made to the original structure, which served as training school for more than twenty-three years, when in 1929 the present adequate and spacious building was erected.

Other institutional buildings were equally primitive in 1906. Such a luxury as an administration building was then unheard of. The old dormitory, the first building erected, and the old refectory, now serving as hospital, contained respectively three and two so-called classrooms, which were in reality so many of the larger living-rooms. They contained enough benches for a small class of students, and besides a table and a chair for the instructor. Blackboards, maps, charts, etc., were not in evidence. As the lack of such teaching aids was keenly felt, a few modest purchases were undertaken. It was not an uncommon sight in those early days to see an instructor carry under his arm a two by four hyloplate blackboard in passing from one room to another.

The music department was equally hampered. Due to lack of space, several pianos were placed in one large basement room of the old dormitory. Here various students would simultaneously practice their pieces, classical and modern. When it was discovered that this condition was not particularly conducive to the best type of ear-training, several partitions were installed.

Since these pioneer days some remarkable improvements have been made in the physical equipment of the CTC. Yet, in glancing over the field, one will find relatively many outstanding Lutheran educators that received their early training under these primitive conditions. This seems to be proof conclusive, that it is not primarily the physical equipment of a college, but rather the mental equipment, the Christian character and the proper attitude of the student that makes for success in later life. Our sainted Professor Weller often stated: Aus Nickels lassen sich keine Dimes machen [Dimes can't be made from nickels.]

Although the pioneer professor and director of Concordia Teachers College did not reach his sixty-fifth birthday, he spent thirty of those years on the campus. During that time he saw the original building enlarged and surrounded by three other buildings, a service building, an administration building, and a music hall; he experienced the visible protection of the merciful Father in Heaven when a tornado missed the college buildings by a narrow margin; he saw the institution develop to such an extent, during twenty-five years of existence, that it received legal power to issue certificates of the same scope and value as those issued by the State’s normal schools; he attended faculty meetings with the two men who succeeded him as director of the institution; and he thanked God for all of these benefits.

The Weller Family's Move From Indiana to Nebraska

2009-11-08T20:47:00.020-06:00

Below, after some introductory remarks, is the fourth group of excerpts of Clara Alvina Koenig's manuscript An Afterglow of Yesterday. The manuscript was described in this earlier blog article.

The first group of excerpts, about J. George Weller's mother, was in this blog article.

The second group of excerpts, about the Weller family's move from Louisiana to Indiana, was in this blog article.

The third group of excerpts, about the migration of German Lutherans from the area of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Staplehust, Nebraska, was in this blog article.

J. George Weller's parents -- Johann George Weller and Katerina Regina (Meyer) Lehnberg -- were born in Germany. They met in New Orleans, Louisiana, and eventually married there in 1854.

Two sons survived to adulthood. The older was Johann George (J. George, born in 1860), who eventually became a Lutheran pastor and then the Concordia president. The younger was Heinrich Herman (born in 1862), who eventually became a merchant.

The family moved from Louisiana to Indiana in about 1866. In 1873, when J. George Weller was 13 years old, he entered a preparatory school at Fort Wayne, Indiana, to begin his education to become a Lutheran pastor.

In 1882, J. George graduated from the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, married Louise Katharina Clara Eirich in New Minden, Illinois, and then moved to Marysville (now part of Staplehurst), Nebraska, where he began serving as a Lutheran pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church.

George and Clara Weller
(Flickr page)

J. George Weller's brother and parents also moved from Fort Wayne to Marysville.

J. George Weller remained in Marysville until 1894, when he moved to Seward to become the first teacher at the new seminary there.

The following passages are excerpted from the manuscript:

In the early 1880s we find Johann Georg and Katerina Weller still living on “the college farm” -- their son Henry helping with the farm work and their son George just home from college after completing his ministerial studies.

During the hard years following the Civil War, which caused the panic of 1873 and the inflation that lasted till 1879, George had attended the preparatory college at Fort Wayne.Thus there was no room-and-board bill to pay until George went to Saint Louis in the fall of 1879.

Times were still hard, so George could not go home for Christmas; in fact, he did not even return to his home in the summertime, but worked on a farm near Saint Louis. It so happened that a son of Willie Fruehe lived on a farm near the city. The younger Fruehe and his wife (who was one of Reverend Eirich’s daughters) welcomed George into their home and family just as Willie Fruehe had befriended George’s mother in New Orleans. Clara Eirich helped her sister during the busy summer months -- soon a friendship, which changed to love, developed between the girl and the student.

After three years of instruction by Dr. Walther and other famous theologians, George was graduated from the Seminary in the spring of 1882, and received a call from the country congregation at Marysville, Nebraska. During the early summer, Reverend Eirich performed the wedding ceremony that changed his daughter Clara’s name to Weller. Then the young couple proceeded to their future field of labor in Nebraska.

The people of Indiana and Illinois considered Nebraska rather wild and unsafe; but Reverend Weller's letters to his parents and his brother convinced them that both people and climate were agreeable. Best of all, George no longer suffered attacks of ague since coming to Nebraska. The change of climate from damp, swampy country to rolling, sunkist fields proved a better remedy than pills and tonics. Hoping that he, too, might overcome the chills, the fever, and the sweating which torment the ague sufferers, Henry visited his brother and sister-in-law in the fall of the year. Railroad fares had been reduced: “30-day permits” were reasonably priced because many people were going west to buy land.

Although the town was laid out in 1880, Staplehurst is not definitely mentioned in our story until now. The following is a copy of a legal document now in the possession of James Hartmann of Staplehurst (a grandson of Friedrich Hartmann). Besides being the founder of Staplehurst, Loui Niels was also one of the charter members of Zion Congregation.

In the late spring of 1883, the Weller family of Fort Wayne decided to seek a new home in the West. They traveled by rail, as Henry had done on his visit to Nebraska the preceding fall.

George and Clara were waiting at the little station in Staplehurst. They welcomed Father, Mother, and Henry, who had come to enjoy the golden sunshine and clear atmosphere of Nebraska. Reunited, the family drove to the parsonage at Marysville where the five members lived together for a while. Henry (at this time twenty-one years old) found employment in Henry Hartmann’s general store at Marysville.

Reverend Weller served as teacher during the week and delivered two sermons on Sunday: at Marysville in the morning and at Millerton in the afternoon. Zion Congregation bought a reed organ to furnish music for its services and the pastor’s wife served as organist. (After the birth of their first child, she taught the pastor to play the organ---then he became organist.)

The congregation at Millerton had no organ, but depended on a few good voices to lead the singing. Reverend Weller asked his brother “Hank” to accompany him to Millerton to help lead the singing. On one such occasion while riding together on their wagon, “Hank” inquired, “Say, George, who was that tall and rather pale-faced girl at church? She must be about eighteen or nineteen, and always sits with her mother and a sister of twelve, or so. Today, they were just across the aisle from us.”

“Oh, yes, you mean Lisette Scheumann. Mrs. Henry Hegeholz is her older sister. They have five brothers.”

“That’s good! What are their names?”

“Julius, the youngest, is going on eight -- I have him and Minnie in school. Then there is Chris, a boy of fourteen, and Henry, who is about two years older. Charlie is about my age and Bill is in the late twenties.

"There was another brother by the name of Fred. He died only a few months before you came here. The family took it awfully hard: he had been such a sturdy young man, but after suffering so long his body was a mere skeleton when he died. In spite of the terrible, lingering death, Fred’s faith remained unshaken to the very end.”

Eventually Charlie Scheumann and Hank Weller became friends, and Charlie brought his new friend home to dinner, occasionally.

After a few months, Mother and Father Weller decided that they would be happier in a house of their own: they had never before lived with anyone else. In Staplehurst, they found a suitable place consisting of a four-room house and a barn, surrounded by a garden and trees. A certain Eric Jacobs owned the place. His terms proved acceptable, and soon the older Wellers moved to their new home. (Six more rooms were added later. H. H. Weller still [in 1941] lives in that house.)

Henry, or “Hank” as he was usually called, came with his parents. He worked at Herman Meyer’s store in Staplehurst for a while and then became an insurance agent.

Under Reverend Weller's guidance and leadership, Zion Congregation grew by leaps and bounds. Within two years the school enrollment had increased to such an extent that the old building would not accommodate all of the pupils; so a new building, size 22 by 32 feet, was erected in 1884. The following year, a wing was added to the parsonage (which is the front part of the present parsonage).

After working in Nebraska for three or four years, Wilhelm Zwick felt himself in a position to establish his own household. He had rented Mr. Katt’s farm and was living with the Friedrich Scheumann family, but he longed for his fiancee in Indiana. So the young man went to Fort Wayne and married Sophie Mailand, a daughter of Fritz Mailand who always had been Sophie Scheumann’s favorite brother. Shortly after their wedding, the young couple came to Nebraska bringing the bride’s brother, Wilhelm Mailand, with them. Wilhelm, or “Bill” as he was usually called, was twenty years old at that time, and found employment as hired man on the Baermann farm.

While driving through the country as agent for the Nebraska-Iowa Insurance Company, Henry Weller often “happened to be near” the Scheumann home when evening came. He stopped to talk to his pal Charlie -- but I’m inclined to believe he was more interested in Charlie’s tall and rather good looking sister. Of course, Henry was invited to supper. On several occasions, when the night was very dark or even stormy (and the horse happened to be a shying one), Mother Scheumann insisted that the young man stay overnight.

The insurance business did not fill its agents’ pockets with money. They earned their pay, and often it was not so much at that. When Henry was offered the position of clerk in Herman Diers store, he gladly accepted it. With the combined income, he could contemplate marriage besides supporting his parents.

On October 14, 1886, Mother Scheumann and her family were all a’flutter over the last-minute details of the wedding. Large sprays of yellow, brown, and wine-colored chrysanthemums were brought in from the garden and arranged on the tables.

Already dressed for their role as attendants, Wilhelm Mailand and Charlie Scheumann helped Henry Weller so that he might be a well-groomed bridegroom. “Little Minnie” (just 15 since September) admired herself in the new yellow dress in which she was to be bridesmaid for her sister. The other bridesmaid, Elizabeth Mailand, was also dressed in yellow. She adjusted the wreath of wax flowers with which the plain silk veil was fastened to Lisette's lovely hair. The bride wore a light grey, silk-and-wool dress, trimmed with pleating and buttons and a single flower at the high neckline. The “over skirt” was fashioned into a bustle. There was no shower-bouquet in sight; in fact, there was no bridal bouquet of any kind.

The ceremony was performed in church by Rev. Weller. A reception followed, at the Scheumann home.

The newlyweds lived in town, with Henry’s folks. Shortly before the wedding, Henry had added a fifth room to the house: a large kitchen, complete with pantry and a small porch.

Everything looked rosy for nearly a year: “Hank” had a good job, Lisette enjoyed living in town, and Mother and Father Weller were well pleased with their daughter-in-law. Then misfortune befell the happy household. Through circumstances not under his control, Henry lost his job at Diers’ store. A baby daughter had arrived just before this, so there were five mouths to feed and not a single bread-winner. There was nothing but a few fruits and vegetables in the garden and eggs from the small flock of chickens. The cow, on which they had depended for a supply of milk and butter, died very suddenly. Unable to get work in town, “Hank” drove to the country and helped his brothers-in-law dig potatoes in exchange for hay and grain, with which to feed the horse and the chickens. Mother Scheumann came to the rescue with various other farm products.

Father Weller went to town every day, thinking he could find a little work of some kind. Finally, one day, he brought home good news: “Hichmann’s are selling out -- they only want $700 for the store -- if only we can raise that much!” After hurried consultation, everything was planned: Mr. Helmsdoerfer could return the five hundred dollars that he had borrowed from Henry Weller during better times, while Charlie Scheumann furnished the rest, as a loan without security. The plan worked well and everybody was happy once more.

Again in 1888, Zion Congregation found that it had outgrown the small church building; but, instead of erecting an entirely new church, the congregation decided to build an addition. Enough space was added to the west end to provide a vestry, an altar-niche, and room for an organ; at the east end, a hall was added. The small tower was replaced by a 75-foot steeple in which the new bell was hung.

During the early summer of 1888, those members of Zion Congregation who lived in and near Staplehurst decided to build a small church in town. With Reverend Weller’s help, “Immanuel Evangelical Congregation at Staplehurst” was organized on July 30, 1888. The first voting members were:

John Bartels

Wilhelm Bertram

C. Bieberich

H. Bieberich

F. Hartmann

Eric Jacobs

J. Jacobs

Herman Meyer

Chris Niemann

Jens Ocken

Lorenz Ocken

H. Porthun

Andreas Schultz

Henry Weller

Johann Georg Weller

The dimensions of the church in town were 24 by 40 by 14 feet; the new house of worship was dedicated August 13, 1888. Services were conducted by Rev. Weller.

A parsonage was built early in 1889, and Immanuel Congregation called its own minister, Rev. M. Leimer of Texas. The pastor was installed May 12, 1889.

Rev. Leimer organized a Christian day-school in the fall of 1889. The congregation bought a public-school building to house the pupils and their “teacher.”

The year was 1890 and the month was June -- that month in which flower gardens are at the height of their beauty, the air is heavy with the humming of bees and the perfume of blossoms, the days are long and mellow and the nights are refreshing.

After walking together in the yard, the three-year-old and her grandfather returned to the house: the old man sat in his arm chair and the little girl sat on the footstool at his feet. After a while, Johann Georg Weller called his daughter-in-law: “Lisette, can you come and put our little girl to bed? She fell asleep with her head on my knee.”

The mother lifted the sleeping child and carried her to the bedroom where Baby Henry slept peacefully.

A wagon stopped by the side of the house. Soon Rev. Weller and his son “Hans” stood in the doorway. The pastor spoke, “Hello, Father! How are you feeling?”

To which Father Weller replied: “Not very well, George,” and his head dropped forward on his bosom. Death came suddenly and silently to this devout man.

When the enrollment of the Christian Day School at Marysville increased to more than 80 children in 1892, it was considered necessary to build a larger school (26x40x12) and to call a teacher. Henry Hillman, a graduate of the Teachers’ Seminary at Addison, Illinois, was installed by Rev. Weller on the 28th day of August, 1892. The new school was dedicated on the same day. After that, the old building was used partly as a meeting place for the confirmation class and partly as a temporary home for the teacher.

During the same year, a new school and a teacher’s house were built one-half mile east and three-and-one-half miles north of Marysville. A “schoolclub” had been organized of members who lived a considerable distance north of the church. The children living in the North District attended this school. The teachers were Carl Hofman, W.H. Binder, and H.W. Hoeman -- succeeding each other in the order given, during a period of twenty-four years.

In 1894 a house was built for the teacher of Zion School.

If anyone wonders why Lutheran congregations build their own schools, hire their own teachers, and help support the teacher’s seminaries of their Synod, while paying taxes to help support public schools, he ought to find a satisfactory answer in the following resolutions of the Missouri Synod which were adopted in 1890, after an attempt had been made in Wisconsin and Illinois to compel all children of school age to attend public schools

1. Whereas the Word of God, our rule of life enjoins upon all Christian parents the duty of bringing up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, therefore all Christian who educate their children in schools are duty bound to entrust their children who are not yet confirmed in Christian truth, to such schools only as secure the education of children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, while at the same time it is with us self-understood that we are willing to make good citizens of our children, to the utmost of our ability, and that we also endeavor to give them the best possible schooling in the use of the English language.

2. Whereas in the non-religious public schools, wherever they are conducted in the sense of the non-religious state, not only Christian education is excluded, but also, as a rule, things not in harmony with the Word of God are by way of instruction and discipline inculcated on the children, and the spiritual life of Christian children is thus endangered and impaired; therefore we as Christians are in conscience bound to submit to no law of the state which is directed or may be used toward forcing our children into such public schools.

3. In accordance with our daily prayer, ‘Thy kingdom come!’ it is our duty to preserve and extend the orthodox Evangelical Lutheran Church in this our country, and we are, therefore, in conscience bound to combat each and every law which is directed or may be used to the detriment or damage of the Lutheran parochial schools, which are effective means of extending and perpetuating the kingdom of God.

4. Forasmuch as our Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ and ‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’ the separation of Church and State is for all times to be acknowledged as in accordance with the Word of God; and since God has in this country vouchsafed unto us the precious boon of religious liberty, we may not as faithful stewards approve of any legislation which tends toward a confusion of spiritual and secular affairs and endangers our religious liberty, and we most cordially approve of combating with legitimate means such laws as have been enacted to the detriment and damage of the parochial schools in the States of Wisconsin and Illinois during the past year, while on the other hand we, for the same reason, condemn all demands upon the public funds for the erection or maintenance of parochial schools.”

While plans were being made for the erection of a college building at Seward, the board of control was looking for a suitable man to serve as professor and director. For the first there was to be a one-man faculty and Reverend Weller of Marysville was chosen.

On October 4, 1894, he placed his resignation before Zion Congregation. After accepting the resignation, the congregation wished Prof. Weller God’s continued blessing in his new field of labor. Then the congregation at Marysville called Reverend John Catenhausen of Louisville, Nebraska, to fill the vacancy. He accepted and was installed by Prof. Weller about six weeks later.

From 1889 to 1898 the pastors of Immanuel Congregation taught the pupils of the parochial school at Staplehurst. The enrollment increased rapidly during those nine years.

After teaching school for six years, besides giving special attention to the confirmation classes and performing the various duties of a pastor, Rev. Miessler asked the congregation to relieve him of the school in 1898. By that time, the number of pupils had increased to 56. Although Immanuel Congregation consisted of only 28 voting members, a graduate of Addison Teachers Seminary (now River Forest) was called for the next schoolterm. William Koenig, a member of the class of 1898 was installed by Rev. Miessler on September 4th, 1898.

On October 22nd, 1899 Rev. Miessler accepted a call to Batavia, Illinois and resigned as pastor of Immanuel Congregation.

On April 1st, 1900, Rev. G. Rademacher became the next pastor at Staplehurst. He stayed until the end of September 1902 and was succeeded by Rev. Henry Koester the following April.

Again, no events pertaining to this story and worthy of mention until July 16th, 1905. On that day, after long years of suffering, “Grandmother" Weller was called to the Eternal Rest at the age of eighty-six years. Already during childhood, her right hand was crippled; then at forty when her third child was born, Mother Weller’s left leg was weakened by an attack of milk leg and she became a semi-invalid. At seventy-three, a paralytic stroke made her a bed-ridden invalid; two more such strokes left Grandmother Weller completely paralyzed. For five years she was unable to move or even lift a small portion of her weight (about 240 pounds;) but the internal organs and the mental faculties of the paralyzed woman served her to the last. Many long hours were shortened by recounting youthful experiences to the devoted granddaughter who cared for her.

Zion Congregation again found itself without a pastor during three months of 1906. Rev. Catenhusen's health had failed during the winter and he died on March 18th, 1906. His grave is on Zion Cemetery.

Rev. Koester of Staplehurst served both his congregation and Zion until June 17th, 1906, when Rev. W.F. Rittamel of Falls City, Nebraska, was installed in his office as minister of Zion Congregation by Prof. Weller of Seward.

During the summer of 1905, Immanuel Congregation at Staplehurst sold its first school building, which stood just west of the church. The old school building was moved into the country and changed into a granary. Then the church was moved across the street, so that it stood west of the parsonage and a new church was built on the old site.

The dimensions of the second church are 34 by 60 by 18 feet and of the steeple 12 by 12 by 90 feet. The spire is crowned with a cross covered with gold leaf. Art glass windows and a white altar, and a white pulpit, both trimmed in gold and hung with purple and gold paraments (a gift of the Ladies Aid), and two gilded chandeliers added to the beauty of the new church. The cost of the church, including altar, pulpit, benches and bell, was five-thousand-six-hundred-sixty-four dollars ($5,664.00).

On the tenth of December 1905, the new house of worship was dedicated to the service of the Triune God. The old church was used exclusively as a school after that. As soon as sufficient funds ($900) were raised, a pipe organ was bought and installed. The organ was dedicated on February 4th, 1906. Immanuel Congregation rejoiced that it was well equipped with a substantial school building and a lovely new church.

“Grandmother” Weller did not live until the new building was completed and, because of her condition, could not have been taken to the dedication had she lived; but the privilege of hearing about the progress and growth of the congregation brought much happiness into the last months of the aged shut-in’s life.

The Settlement of German Lutherans in Seward County

2009-11-07T22:10:00.029-06:00

Below, after some introductory remarks, is the third group of excerpts of Clara Alvina Koenig's manuscript An Afterglow of Yesterday. The manuscript was described in this earlier blog article.

The first excerpts, about J. George Weller's mother, was in this blog article.

The second excerpts, about the Weller family's move from Louisiana to Indiana, was in this blog article.

J. George Weller's parents -- Johann George Weller and Katerina Regina (Meyer) Lehnberg -- were born in Germany. They met in New Orleans, Louisiana, and eventually married there in 1854.

In 1882, J. George graduated from the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, married Louise Katharina Clara Eirich in New Minden, Illinois, and then moved to Marysville, Nebraska, where he began serving as a Lutheran pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church. He remained there until 1894, when he moved to Seward to become the first teacher at the new seminary there.

Marysville, Nebraska, which was located along Lincoln Creek, has been incorporated into the town of Staplehurst, which was about three miles east. Staplehurst is about seven miles northwest of Seward, Nebraska.

Another website provides the following information about the church.

Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1870. The congregation shared its first pastor, the Rev. Theodore Gruber, with the Immanuel Lutheran Church of Middle Creek. In 1873, Zion was received into membership in the Missouri Synod joining the Western District. The following year the Rev. Jacob Seidel became the first resident pastor, and a church and parsonage were built. A school was added in 1884.

Since many of Zion's members came from near Staplehurst, a sister congregation, Immanuel Lutheran Church, was organized there in 1888. Although Zion had two other sister congregations, Immanuel of Gresham and Immanuel of Rising City, Zion continued to grow in Marysville.

When the Marysville mill burned down in 1915, the town began to decline. However, Zion maintained its membership and erected its present church building that same year. In 1966, Zion and Immanuel of Staplehurst merged forming Our Redeemer Lutheran Church of Staplehurst, which meets in the old Immanuel church building.

The manuscript excerpts in this blog article describe the migration of German Lutherans from the area of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to the area of Marysville, Nebraska. These excerpts revolve around a family that was formed by the marriage of Friedrich Scheumann and Sophia Mailand near Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1853.

Sophia Mailand's sister-in-law Wilhelmina Mailand (widow of Sophia's brother William Mailand) lived to the age of 96 and eventually became acquainted with Clara Alvina Koenig, the manuscript's author. Koenig acknowledges Wilhelmina as a major source of information for the manuscript.

The following passages are excerpted from the manuscript:

The Scheumann family, consisting of the father, two grown sons and a daughter, the stepmother and several younger children, came to Adams County, Indiana, in about 1844. Friedrich, the oldest son, was nearly seventeen years of age when the family left Germany. ....

Dietrich Brandt with his father and an older brother migrated to the United States in 1845 (Frau Brandt had died in 1841.) Conrad Brandt and his two sons settled in Adams County, Indiana.

Friedrich Hartmann (a cousin to Friedrich Scheumann) and his wife, Caroline Aroline, left Prussia in 1845. An infant son, little Fred, braved the perilous ocean voyage with them. The Hartmanns found a home in Allen County, Indiana. Adams and Allen are neighboring counties in Indiana.

The Scheumanns, the Brandts and the Hartmanns soon became well acquainted. The Conrad Grotz and the Louis Leibrock families lived in the same vicinity and knew the other families well.

On December 1, 1853, Friedrich Scheumannn and Sophia Mailand stood before Pastor W. Kolb as he pronounced them husband and wife. The newly-weds moved to a sixty-acre clearing in Allen County, about fifteen miles from Fort Wayne.

Various pieces of furniture were added to the household effects, thanks to Friedrich’s ability in carpentry and to Sophia’s knack of painting. Friedrich even built a cutter, which Sophia painted and decorated. Christian Mailand often took Louisa Mailand riding in that cutter. (Christian was a half-brother to Friedrich and Louisa, or “Leeza”, was Sophia’s youngest sister.) In due time, Christian and Louisa were married. They lived just across the road from Friedrich and Sophia, but in Adams County, because the road divided the two counties.

On September 21, 1854, a son gladdened the hearts of the Friedrich Scheumanns: the baby was named Friedrich, in honor of its father and its uncle. Within six weeks joy was turned to sorrow when the child died. Another son was born May 14, 1856. He was named Wilhelm, in honor of his Grandfather Mailand.

William Mailand spent about twenty-five years of his life in this country. After her bereavement, Wilhelmina Mailand stayed with Friedrich and Sophia most of the time.

Reports of “the land of promise” [Nebraska] had reached Indiana, and so we find several Indiana families on their way to Nebraska in 1868.

With a covered wagon and a team of oxen, Dietrich Brandt and his family joined the tide that swept westward. Arriving at Nebraska City, Dietrich left his wife and three children there while he, together with Conrad Grotz, Conrad Brandt and Louis Leibrock, went further into the interior of the state. After locating his claim in the precinct of Seward county, Mr. Brandt returned to bring his family to their new home. For three weeks they were obliged to live in their covered wagon until the dug-out could be completed. Every evening, they could hear the sound of the deer and the antelope, mingled with the howling of wolves and the yelling of Indians.

In the fall of the year, Ferdinand Mailand and his family packed their household effects into a covered wagon, and said “good-bye” to their relatives and friends in Indiana. Mother, father and the younger children rode in the wagon while Henry, the oldest son, followed on a horse. It was the boy’s duty to watch the cows as they plodded along behind the wagon or grazed by the wayside. At the end of a long weary journey, the Ferdinand Mailand family settled on a suitable homestead in Seward County, Nebraska.

In the fall of 1868, the two Scheumann brothers went to look at prairie land in Nebraska. After Friedrich selected a homestead they returned to Indiana.

On the 29th of November, another son was born to Sophie and Friedrich. He was named Dietrich Friedrich Heinrich Christian. The last name was used, in preference to the others.

The following spring (in March) Grandmother Mailand went to live with her youngest daughter, Mrs. Christian Scheumann. The Friedrich Scheumann family and the Hockmeyers bade friends and relatives farewell and boarded the train which was to carry them across Illinois and Iowa. There was no bridge across the Missouri River at that place. Passengers, mail, covered wagons, livestock, and household goods were taken from the train and transported, by ferryboat, to Nebraska City, on the opposite bank of the river.

There the Scheumanns and the Hockmeyers were welcomed by the Hartmann boys who had come for supplies. They asked Bill Scheumann to ride with them. Since there was safety in numbers, the three wagons proceeded in file. They followed “the Fort Kearney and Nebraska City Road” -- not a paved highway, but a trail winding across the prairie to Fort Kearney. At night, the younger children and their mothers slept in the wagons. Bill Hartmann and Bill Scheumann fought over possession of the spring seat of their wagon. They were both thirteen years of age and each one felt he was entitled to sleep in the seat. One of the men acted as sentinel while the others slept near the wagons. Their trusty guns, a faithful dog, and, above all, fervent family prayers kept them safe from Indians and wild animals.

After having been on the hot and dusty road nearly a week, our pioneers came to the village of Lincoln. This frontier town, which then had a population of thirty-two, was named in honor of the beloved President who gave his life to preserve the Union.

The following day Hockmeyers and Scheumanns stopped to visit the Dietrich Brandt and the Conrad Grotz families, who lived along Middle Creek. After a short visit, the journey was continued toward Lincoln Creek, where the Ferdinand Mailand, the Friedrich Hartmann and the Bill Meyer families lived. All these were happy to see their relatives from Indiana. Since Mrs. Hockemeyer was a sister to Bill Meyer, the Hockemeyers stayed with Sophia and Bill for a while.

The Scheumanns proceeded to the homestead that Friedrich had selected the preceding fall. The 160-acre tract of land was located about four miles south of Ulysses, along the Big Blue River. After arriving at their destination, Sophie Scheumann felt safe in ripping the hem of her petticoat to get the money she had tucked there when the family left Indiana. It was all safe -- $2,700.00 in paper money.

The original homesteaders, Mr. and Mrs. Pitt, did not leave immediately after selling their land to the Scheumanns. They lived together in the one-room dug-out (about 16 by 20 feet in size) which had only one door and two windows. The Pitts moved their few furnishings, a bed, a stove, and a small table, toward one end of the room and the Scheumanns occupied the other. Two full-sized beds and a trundle-bed (a low bed that was pushed under the other beds during the day) furnished sleeping quarters for the nine Scheumanns. A large wooden packing box that had served as a trunk on the westward trip, was used to enlarge the small table so it would accommodate ten people -- the baby did not yet sit at the table.

After about six weeks, Mr. and Mrs. Pitt bought a new homestead several miles down the Blue River, near the place where five houses and a small store marked the beginning of Seward.

In June 1868 Beaty and Davis opened a dry goods and grocery store in Seward; another general store was opened in 1869 by Herman Diers. Money was scarce, so farm products and wood were bartered for things that could not be produced at home.

Having been accustomed to regular Sunday services and daily instructions while in Indiana, the pioneers made provisions for these in their new homes. Each family had its daily devotion including a Scripture reading, songs, and prayers; on Sundays, the largest cabins or dugouts served as houses of worship for the neighborhood. The people came afoot, in wagons, or on horseback, in “Sunday best” or in calico, during the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Many of the early Sunday meetings were held in Friedrich Hartmann's dugout or in his log shed, and at Scheumann's -- first in the dugout, then in the new cabin. In their respective homes, “Hartmann’s Vater” (as he was often called) and Friedrich Scheumann led the singing and read the sermons out of an old “Predigsbuch” which had been brought from the old country.

On one of his missionary trips into the state, Rev. Kuegele of Omaha heard of these meetings and made it a point to contact the scattered families. Baptisms and weddings were postponed, for weeks or even months, until the pastor could return to this part of the country. On one occasion several children were to be baptized. The families met the pastor at the home of Bill and Sophia Meyer, who lived in a dugout near Father Hartmann. After services, preparations were made for serving the guests before they started homeward. Very unexpectedly, a piece of sod fell on the table. The women looked up to see a hoof and part of a shaggy leg protruding from the ceiling. The men folks rushed through the door to find the intruder: one of the oxen had stepped through the roof and the weight of the animal threatened to break all beams and supports. As quickly as possible, the ox was removed and the table was cleaned and set once more.

Sometimes Cupid attended the Sunday meetings. As the various families were returning to their wagons, Herr Yauch asked Friedrich Scheumann’s aid. Yauch had just recently come from Germany and wondered whether courting was done in the same way among his new friends as he had seen it in his native land. The young man was very bashful and wanted “Scheumann’s Vater” to introduce him to the Kirshner girl. The contrast was striking: Yauch was dressed in his best clothes -- a white shirt, white vest and trousers, a black Prince Albert coat and a tall silk hat -- while the girl looked as though she were Maud Muller in her gingham gown and with bare feet. But their story did not end with “it might have been” because the couple was married after only one month of courtship. Bill Meyer sold them a table, a bed, and several smaller pieces of furniture, for only four dollars. A storm door, laid over several barrels served the Meyers as table until another one could be constructed.

One day during their first year in Nebraska, Friedrich Scheumann and his son Bill were driving to Lincoln. They watched the storm as it swept eastward before them. At a distance the dark blue clouds and the silver flashes of lightning appeared strangely beautiful, but father and son had learned the dangers of thunderstorms on the open prairie and were thankful for being safe. After some time, the two Scheumanns arrived at the Grotz cabin, along Middle Creek. As the man and the boy descended from the wagon and knocked at the door, they could hear sobbing and anxious conversation.

Gradually the visitors learned what had happened: Mr. Grotz and two of his sons had been at the barn, the only daughter had gone to see about the chickens, while Mrs. Grotz and the youngest son had been in the cabin, as the storm broke. The mother asked “little brother” to close the windows in the garret; one of the older boys had hurried to the cabin with the milk and had just set his pail on the table as a bolt of lightning struck the chimney. When the daughter rushed to the cabin for shelter, she found her mother temporarily paralyzed and unable to speak, with one boy’s body lying at her feet, and the faithful dog behind the stove also dead. The girl called her father and brother from the barn. Their search for “little brother” ended in the garret where another limp body added to their grief.

Friedrich Scheumann helped Conrad Grotz construct rude coffins for the two boys and the men dug a large grave. Friedrich read words of comfort out of the family Bible and besought the Heavenly Father to help this family bear their great sorrow. After the funeral, the Scheumanns continued their journey to Lincoln and returned to their own home. Sophie met her husband and her son with anxious questioning. The sad reason for their delay was soon told.

In going from place to place the pioneers drove across the prairie without roads to guide them. A bend in the river, or a large tree, served as a landmark in many places. There were no bridges. A spot was selected where the banks sloped gently and the water was comparatively shallow. This was called a ford and the spot was marked by blazing the tree trunks on each side of the river. Whenever possible, traveling was done in the daytime so that it was easier to find blazed trees and other landmarks. When driving to Lincoln Creek, the Scheumanns were guided by a lone cottonwood tree that stood on the prairie.

One Sunday after services had been conducted at the Hartmanns, the Scheumann family stayed to visit a while because of a shower. Twilight shadows were falling as the family started homeward. Because of the fading daylight they could not see their lone-tree landmark in the distance. They drove on and on, not knowing where they were going but hoping the horses would find the right trail. Seeing a light in the distance, they headed toward it.

Father Scheumann went to the cabin to inquire which way he ought to go. It was Mr. Gillbank who opened the door. He was very much surprised to see his neighbor on such a dark, damp night. Friedrich Scheumann was relieved to find that they were within four miles of home. Even four miles proved to be a long way for a tired family, in an open wagon, on such a night. A strong wind added to their discomfort, but at the same time, the clouds were being blown away and the friendly stars appeared.

At last, the Scheumanns came to their own place, but they could not find the ford because the river had risen and the banks were slippery. Father Scheumann climbed from the wagon and led his horses to a fairly level spot. Getting into the seat again, he spoke gently and firmly to the horses. They started across the river. The water was so deep that the horses were compelled to swim and the bottom of the wagon-box was flooded. In the darkness anxious prayers were whispered as the children clung to their parents. Minutes seemed like days but finally they were safe on the other bank of the river.

After a few years, the Scheumanns constructed a rude bridge by laying three stout logs across the river, nailing crosspieces on these, covering the top with branches and finally with sod. Heavy rains often damaged this bridge or the rising current would wash it downstream.

Luke Agur built a flour mill along Lincoln Creek in 1870. At about the same time John Specht built a store near the mill. Both the mill and the general store were greatly appreciated by the whole neighborhood. If only they could add a church, their fondest dream would be realized.

Memories of their churches in Indiana lingered in the minds of the homesteaders, but Indiana was older country and was thickly populated. How could they afford a church and a resident pastor out here in Nebraska where nearly everyone was poor?

Although other people attended the reading services, it was mainly Friedrich Hartmann and his son-in-law, Wilhelm Meyer, Friedrich Scheumann and his brother-in-law, Ferdinand Mailand who were concerned about a church. When six more families moved to the immediate neighborhood, “Zion Evangelical Lutheran Congregation on Lincoln Creek” was organized--in the fall of 1870. The constitution was signed by the following:

Jakob Bertram

Claus Boehnen

Wilhelm Burgenger

August Daehling

Henry Daehling

Wilhelm Daehling

Friedrich Hartmann

Valentin Hartmann

Erhard Kaufmann

John Luetke

John Maack

Ferdinand Mailand

Wilhelm Meyer

Heinrich Neujahr

Loui Niels

Heinrich Reiling

Friedrich Scheumann

John Shoepf

Christian Templin

[A member of the Daehling family -- Alice Daehling, who married Charles Scheumann -- was one of Ms. Koenig's main sources of oral information for the manuscript. The manuscript included information about the Daehling family that I have not included here.]

This new congregation, together with the congregation at Middle Creek, called the Reverend Theodore Gruber of Hampton, Illinois.

The pastor was installed during November 1870. Besides Middle Creek and Zion, he served small mission congregations in Lincoln Creek Valley as far west as Hampton, Nebraska.

During the winter of 1870 and early spring of 1871, Rev. Gruber conducted services at Hartmanns or at Scheumanns. A church was built as soon as the weather permitted in the spring. Although most of the members were quite poor as far as money was concerned yet everyone donated time and labor. Friedrich Scheumann gave a portion of his land for the building site, (later he donated more land for a cemetery.) Trees were chopped in “Scheumann’s woods” along the Blue River. The logs were trimmed and hauled to the sawmill at Ulysses to be sawed into boards and slabs. Then the building material was taken to the church grounds.

Wilhelm Meyer and Friedrich Scheumann were handy with wood-working tools so they were chosen as carpenters. The walls of the church were built of slabs and the the roof of clapboards, which had to be split by hand with a broadax. The boards were used for a floor and for benches. Two legs were “pegged in” at each end of the board to make a substantial, though not a very comfortable, bench. A simple altar and a heating stove completed the furnishings of the church.

Rev. Gruber lived at Middle Creek and came to the little log church on Lincoln Creek about every other Sunday. The pastor hitched his faithful horse “Nancy” to the two-seated spring wagon and drove across the prairie toward the Scheumann homestead where he usually lodged while serving the little flock on Lincoln Creek. Part of the time, Rev. Gruber also taught school there; meanwhile his oldest daughter taught at home. Most of the schoolchildren lived near the log church. The Scheumann children lived seven miles away and rode to and from school with Rev. Gruber.

School was not the matter-of-fact institution it is today, neither was the equipment elaborate. The little log church served also as a school. The same benches, that had served as pews on Sunday, were used by the pupils during the week. The small table, which was both altar and lecturn, was used as a desk by the teacher who was none other than the pastor himself. Writing material consisted of slates and one blackboard. The Bible was the most important textbook: out of it the children learned to read the wonderful stories about their Savior, and memorized psalms. A thorough study of Luther’s Catechism supplemented the Bible lesson, so that the children might be able to understand the doctrines of the Church. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion were the main subjects taught. The children were instructed also in singing: their youthful voices joined the congregation during Sunday services.

Freckle-faced boys, dressed in coarse shirts and home-made knickerbockers, and gingham-gowned girls, wearing pinafores and pigtails, skipped off to school three days each week; three days were spent at home helping father and mother in field and home; while Sundays were reserved for church attendance, resting and visiting.

Sometime during those early years a post office was established in Mr. Specht’s general store and the name chosen for the postal address of that vicinity was “Marysville”. In spite of a great deal of inquiry, I found no definite date for the establishment of the post office, or why it was named thus. W.C. Hartmann remembers that there was a post office in 1872 when, at the age of sixteen, he hauled groceries for Mr. Specht from Raymond Brothers in Lincoln.

Early in 1873, Reverend Gruber accepted a call to another parish; Zion Congregation had “reading services” or, on rare occasions, a visiting pastor filled the pulpit. On the 30th of March, 1873, the Reverend Henry Klockemeyer baptized six children at the home of Ferdinand Mailand. Marie Mailand and Alice Daehling were two of those children.

Late in the summer, the congregation called a student of theology, a certain Mr. Huber. He arrived on the 14th of September and began his duties, as teacher for three and one half days a week, and as a student pastor during the other half of the week. Mr. Huber stayed about nine months, then returned to his theological studies.

In 1874, Zion Congregation on Lincoln Creek built its first parsonage, the dimensions of which were 16 by 28 feet. The house was constructed of boards, rather than logs; some of the building material was brought from Grand Island. (This structure is still in use today [in 1941]. It is the back part of the present parsonage. The old log church is used as a garage for the minister’s car.)

During the same year, Reverend J. Seidel of Illinois was called to serve Zion. The pastor had been forced to change climate because of his health and was staying with friends in Zion Congregation. Reverend Seidel’s salary consisted of $400.00 in cash and a free house.

After Reverend Seidel changed his field of activity, the congregation at Marysville was again without a resident pastor, but the training of the children was not neglected. From November 20, 1876 until March 1, 1877, Mr. Elfert Katt taught school five days each week. As the pastors had done before him, Mr. Katt instructed both secular and religious branches. He was paid $12.00 a month and received free board and lodging.

Zion Congregation at Marysville called Reverend Haessler of Cramer (near Crete) Nebraska, on December 10, 1877. The pastor served also Immanuel Congregation along Lincoln Creek and the congregation at Millerton in Butler County. Besides taking charge of the various pastoral duties in three churches, Reverend Haessler taught 130 days of school each year.

One of the older girls of that school (who is now a great-grandmother) remembers that Reverend Haessler often asked the girls to sing while the boys worked on their arithmetic problems. He considered it more important for girls to have a good voice, so that they could sing lullabies in later years, than to possess a thorough knowledge of arithmetic because their husbands could transact all important business transactions.

There are other memories regarding school days: an occasional chance to go to the little store, kept by Mr. Specht, for a nickel’s worth of slate pencils and a penny’s worth of white gum, which was a sort of flavored paraffin -- and the promises of silence at home concerning any punishment inflicted at school for misconduct, because the parents only added their punishment to that of the teacher’s. Parents in those days believed the old adage, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

To accommodate the growth of the congregation, a second church was begun in 1878. The dimensions of the frame building were 24 by 40 by 14 feet, there were four windows on each side, and a door at one end. A small tower distinguished the building as a church.

After the dedication of the new church, the old log-cabin was used exclusively as a school. No exact date is available, but the year is listed as “1879.”

Members of the original Scheumann family remember that the new church was the scene of “the first weddin’ in the family” on May 28th, 1879. Charlie Scheumann, Sophia Suhr, Lisette Scheumann, and Henry Mailand were the attendants. Louise Scheumann, who had celebrated her twenty-first birthday in April, was the bride and Henry Hegeholz, formerly of St. Louis, was the bridegroom.

There was singing by the congregation and a wedding sermon by Reverend Haessler before the couple took the marriage vows and knelt at the altar to implore divine blessings on their wedded life. (And they were blessed with happiness, contentment, and prosperity; but they remained humble, devout Christians, giving freely of their means to extend the Lord’s kingdom.)

Then the bridal party, their families, and the young people of the congregation drove to the Scheumann home. The garden was in full bloom. Rose bushes, that had been brought from Indiana, were covered with fragrant, pink blossoms. The various rooms of the house were decorated with garden flowers. Mother Scheumann and some of her good neighbors prepared food in the summer-kitchen while the “big kitchen” was reserved for the long table with its wedding-cake, bouquets of roses, and well-filled bowls and platters.

The “big kitchen,” which was also “the sitting room” in those days, now witnessed the climax of Louise’s courtship days. On several occasions, when she knew that some would-be suitor was coming to call on Louise, Lisette had hidden herself in the wood-box behind the stove so that she might eavesdrop.

But all the would-be suitors were forgotten when the “one and only” made his appearance. You may wonder, “How did they happen to meet? Saint Louis is quite a ways from the neighborhood of Ulysses, Nebraska.” I will tell you, for so it was told to me: when Henry Hegeholz was only a baby, his mother died. He was left to the loving care of a sister. After a short time, their father was accidentally drowned. When Henry was seventeen years of age, he, his sister, and his brother Fritz left Germany and came to Saint Loius. That was in 1869. After a few years, Fritz followed the call of the West and homesteaded in Seward County, Nebraska, near Lincoln Creek. Eventually, Henry visited his brother, they attended services in the log-church, and Henry met various members and their families. After several visits, Henry decided to take up farming in Nebraska and to ask the hand of a farmer’s daughter in marriage.

December 27, 1881, Reverend Haessler accepted a call to another congregation. Reverend Endres of Beaver Creek in York County and Reverend Gruber of Middle Creek in Seward County divided the pastoral duties of Zion Congregation.

After a vain attempt to call an older experienced pastor, the congregation called a graduate of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Saint Louis. This candidate for the ministry was none other than J. George Weller, son of Katerina and Johann Georg Weller of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The Weller Family's Move from Louisiana to Indiana

2009-11-07T20:59:00.001-06:00

The following is the second group of excerpts of Clara Alvina Koenig's manuscript An Afterglow of Yesterday. The manuscript was described in this earlier blog article.

The first excerpts, about J. George Weller's mother, was in this blog article.

J. George Weller's parents -- Johann George Weller and Katerina Regina (Meyer) Lehnberg -- were born in Germany. They met in New Orleans, Louisiana, and eventually married there in 1854.

The manuscript is confusing about their children, but it seems they had two daughters who died in infancy and then two sons who grew to adulthood. Then a third son also died in infancy. The oldest of the two surviving sons was Johann George (born in 1860), who eventually became a Lutheran pastor and then the Concordia president. The younger surviving son was Heinrich Herman (born in 1862), who eventually became a merchant.

The family moved from Louisiana to Indiana in about 1866. In 1873, when Johann George was 13 years old, he entered a preparatory school at Fort Wayne, Indiana, to obtain an education to become a Lutheran pastor.

The manuscript's second group of excerpts begins with the family still living in New Orleans:

Eventually, Johann Georg Weller owned five drays, drawn by horses and mules: he drove one of them himself and hired four other men to take charge of the rest. They hauled hundreds of bales of cotton to the ships and brought many boxes of tea and sacks of coffee to the warehouse.

A daughter was born to the Wellers in 1856 and another daughter in 1858. Both lived but a short time.

....

When the Civil War began, the best horses and mules were seized to be used by the army. This ruined Johann Georg Weller’s business. Because of flat feet, he did not have to go to war but was left in New Orleans with several others to look after the soldiers’ families.

Supplies had to be collected for the army; food became scarce and prices soared. A single barrel of flour cost fifty dollars. The Wellers shared their meager supply of food with a neighbor and his five small motherless children. One evening, “Mother” Weller informed the neighbor that only a little flour and about two pounds of bacon remained in spite of careful rationing, but offered to share that even to the last.

Before the sun rose on the following morning, six shots echoed through the neighborhood. Katerina and Georg heard and understood: the neighbor had despaired. Perhaps they should not have told him that the supply of food was nearly exhausted. Several other men helped Georg construct rude coffins and dig the graves. Short and simple was the burial service. Lovely garden flowers, five small crosses, and one large cross marked the six mounds.

Sadly Georg returned to his work. Although the future looked dim and hopeless, there was always work to do. He made his way to the riverbank to fell dead trees, which were used as fuel for cooking purposes. Suddenly the man stopped and stooped to examine what lay before him: a shirt, a pair of trousers, a purse containing $50.00, a hat, and a pair of shoes. Georg called and searched along the river banks but found no one. He wondered what to do, then resolved to carry the purse to town to find its owner. No results were obtained although several notices were posted about town and an article was inserted in the newspaper. The contents of the purse proved a veritable godsend to the Wellers.

On an April evening in 1862, a hurried meeting was called of all the men who had been left in New Orleans. Without doubt the city would have to surrender to Union forces within a few days. Plans were made to burn all ware-houses and to destroy whatever provisions remained. They would rather lose it through fire than to surrender it to the Northern men. Johann Georg resolved not to help with the burning; Katerina warned him that he could be jailed, but nothing was ever done to punish him.

No deeds of cruelty were committed by the Union soldiers, who were too sick to molest anyone. They were not accustomed to the extreme heat and the strange food and water of the South.

It was a January evening in 1863, shortly after President Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proclamation. Katerina sat on the wide verandah rocking little Henry while three-year-old Georg played on the lawn with his father. An old negro woman walked sadly down the street. One wrinkled hand grasped a cane while the other carried a bundle tied in a bandanna.

“What seems to be the trouble, auntie?“ asked Katerina.

“Oh, missie, ah is so sad ‘cause my massa put me out -- and ah served him many long years. He heard dat Pres’dent Linco’n set de colo’ed folks free an’ massa wouldn’t keep me even one mo’ night.

The old negress was invited to stay with the Weller family as long as she liked. “Auntie” helped as much as she could about the house. This proved a boon to Katerina when little John was born in the spring of 1864 (May 16th). He was not as healthy as the parents had hoped, and in spite of loving care, the child died shortly before its second birthday. Katerina’s health had been impaired by the birth of her first child; the anxiety and sorrow concerning little John made her condition a little worse. She was obliged to use a cane because of the pain and discomfort in her left leg. From this time on a maid, or a hired girl, was a necessity in the Weller household.

After the war had destroyed most of their property and they had lost little John, the Wellers decided to start life anew in the North. “Auntie” was asked to accompany the family but she refused because the change of climate might prove fatal to an old woman who had spent all of her life in the South. The dear old negress promised to tend the little mound in the churchyard. Tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks as “Auntie” said good-bye.

Various members of Zion Congregation accompanied Georg and “Katy” and their two sons to the boat landing. A river steamer carried the Weller family up the Mississippi and the Ohio. At length, the family arrived in New York City, where they visited Katerina’s oldest brother and planned to establish a new home.

Georg found employment in a planing mill. During his first week of work, an accident deprived him of one finger. While temporarily unemployed, Georg considered the future: the neighborhood in which they lived offered them no Lutheran church and school -- little George was old enough to attend school and ought to have religion and the other three r’s. On the other hand, Fort Wayne was widely known as a Lutheran center, and Adam Saeger and George Kronmueller, the two brothers-in-law in Fort Wayne, would be glad to help them locate in Indiana. Besides, Johann Georg was anxious to see his sisters again and to meet their families.

So the Wellers went to Fort Wayne and were welcomed by the Saegers and the Kronmuellers, who introduced their southern relatives to neighbors and friends and to the pastor of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Dr. Sihler.

Although the Scheumanns lived only about fifteen miles from Fort Wayne, they belonged to the Friedheim Congregation and did not meet the Wellers until many years later.

Johann Georg and Katerina soon joined “Dr. Sihler’s church” in Fort Wayne, and their son George was enrolled in St. Paul’s Parochial School. Johann Georg found employment in Bassis Foundry. He worked in this place for about three years.

During this time, Wilhelm Suedhof came to Fort Wayne to live with his Aunt Katy and his Uncle Georg. After Katerina Meyer had spurned the rich young man and fled to America, her younger sister married Suedhof. Their only child, Wilhelm was left an orphan at fourteen. He lived with his grandmother for a few years. Then the grandmother died and the young man emigrated to the United States. He worked for the Wolff Clothing Store of Fort Wayne for a number of years.

In 1870, Johann Georg Weller rented part of the “college farm,” near Fort Wayne. This farm was a hundred-acre tract bought by the founders of the Practical Seminary as an endowment: the rent from the land helped pay expenses and professors’ salaries at the college.

Having been a “Landwirth” (that is a farmer who owned his land) in the old country, Georg was happy in his work. His sons George and Henry attended St. Paul’s school and helped on the farm during their spare time.

When George was thirteen years of age, he joined the communicant membership of his church through confirmation. Having decided to become a minister, George entered the preparatory college at Fort Wayne in the fall of 1873. Two years later, Henry’s school days ended with his confirmation. He helped with the farm work, spending free hours with neighbor boys or in town.

The Mother of J. George Weller

2009-11-07T20:04:00.011-06:00

This is the first group of excerpts from the Clara Alvina Koenig's manuscript Afterglow of Yesterday, which is partly about the family of J. George Weller, the first president of the school that has become Concordia University. The manuscript is described in this earlier blog post.

This first excerpt tells about the life of a woman who was born with the name Katerina Regina Meyer and who became the mother of J. George Weller. The excerpt begins in the year 1838, as 19-year-old Katerina is traveling by ship to the United States in order to escape a marriage that her father had arranged for her. The excerpt begins with a conversation between Katerina and her family's former maid Marie, with whom Katerina is traveling on the ship.

“Oh, Marie, I cannot bear to think how my poor mother would grieve if our ship should sink into this vast ocean -- or if we should die of the terrible fever that is claiming so many of the others. My father would never forgive himself for having been so anxious to unite me in marriage with that young Suedhof.

“My dear Fraulein Meyer, your father meant well -- but he did not realize how you felt about the matter.”

“Mother understood that I did not love the young man and she did not want me to marry him solely for his riches. Even if he is the sole heir to that vast estate, I still prefer the hardships of this voyage to being Suedhof’s bride.”

“How surprised your father must have been, when he returned home that evening, to learn that you suddenly decided to accompany me to America!”

“That’s the worst part of it. I did not even wait to bid Father farewell. I feared he would not let me go -- now, I may never see him again. Oh, it makes my heart ache to think of it.”

Marie, who had been the faithful maid of the Meyer household for many years, put an arm around her young mistress.

“Fraulein Katerina, you must not worry so much -- the Lord will not forsake us -- even now, He is sending the wind to fill the sails and blow us forward. Take a little of this wine that your dear mother gave us.”

The young woman sipped a little of the port wine. Just then, Herr and Frau Schultz discovered their two friends sitting in a far corner of the ship.

“Marie seems to take good care of you, Katerina; still you do not look like the happy maiden we knew in the Fatherland. A young woman of nineteen should not be burdened with the cares of old folks.”

“Ja, ja Mama, you forget that the hopes of youth run higher than ours, and that young people are apt to be impatient. Even I am weary of this long journey.”

Katerina’s voice sounded sad and weary. “My friends, if it were not for you and Marie, I should have died of despair and homesickness. Ever since our ship was blown off its course and separated from the other two ships, I fear we may never see land again.”

During the long days and desolate nights that followed, Katerina Meyer shared her wine with Marie and the Schultzes. After the drinking water became stagnant, they added a little of the port wine to it, thus the water did not make them sick. When the supply of water was exhausted, the passengers and crew were obliged to drink ocean brine. Eighteen young people died as a result. Wrapped in sheets and weighted, the bodies were lowered into their water grave.

The food supply dwindled from day to day as the ship was carried southward by strong ocean currents. The blazing sun added to the discomfort of those on board the ship.

On a beautiful summer morning in 1838, after being on the briny deep more than two months, the captain sighted land along the distant horizon. Words cannot describe the joy that filled the hearts of those tired and homesick people. With tears of joy flowing from their parched cheeks, the passengers knelt to thank God for having answered their prayers by bringing them to the new country.

Although the ship had set sail for New York, it was carried so far off its course that it landed at New Orleans. This proved rather bewildering to the German immigrants. The new country was much larger than what they had imagined and the language was strange and confusing.

Marie and Katerina found a negro “mammy” selling gingerbread near the wharf. They pointed to the bread and offered German coins for it. The old negress understood. Katerina and Marie went their way, nibbling the spicy gingerbread. Suddenly they were forced to stop: a large dray, piled high with cotton and drawn by a span of mules, passed directly in front of them. The driver glanced at the two women, then halted his team and gazed at them. Greatly surprised, the young man exclaimed (in German):

“Katerina Meyer! Is it you, or do my eyes deceive me?”

Katerina made no reply. Her heart beat audibly as she remembered her mother’s admonition not to speak to “strange men in America” because they might lead her astray; but this man knew her name and spoke her native tongue!

The driver of the cotton dray sprang from his seat, removed his large, wide-brimmed hat and stepped before the terror-stricken girl:

“Katerina, don’t you know your former school-mate any-more?”

“Why -- it’s Willie Fruehe! I’m so glad to see you! No doubt, you remember Marie. She worked for us many a year; and over there are Herr and Frau Schultz. Come, let us join them.”

Joyfully, Katerina led Willie to their mutual friends. Everyone seemed to talk at once -- there was so much to tell; conditions in the homeland, the long voyage, the separation of the ships, and the change in their own landing place; then the future was considered. Marie decided to go to St. Louis with the Schultzes while Katerina accepted Willie Fruehe's invitation to accompany him to the plantation, about three miles from New Orleans. Mrs. Fruehe welcomed Fraulein Meyer and assured her that she might stay indefinitely.

It was at the plantation that Katerina made the acquaintance of various people, among them Frank Lehnberg, a horsecar conductor and a close friend of the Fruehe’s.

Katerina again found employment; this time, on a large cotton plantation. The master of the house was a tall Spaniard who was feared by all the slaves because of his cruelty. The mistress was a small German woman, much to the delight of the maid who was nicknamed “Katy” by her new employer.

One of the slaves on this plantation, a mulatto girl, was given special duties about the house and enjoyed certain privileges. She and “Katy” became friends. Both soon proved to be favorites of the household.

The Spaniard had chosen a mulatto boy, who was also one of the slaves at this plantation, and had arranged for his marriage to the mulatto girl. The cruel slave-driver planned to use the couple for breeding purposes. Several years had passed and still the couple was childless. This fact enraged their master.

One morning, while the mulatto girl was cleaning the master bedroom, Katerina was helping the lady of the house. Sounds of a struggle floated down the broad stairs, and the mistress asked “Katy” to investigate the cause of such commotion. Taken by surprise, the Spaniard pushed the mulatto girl from him and sprang to his feet. Angrily shaking his clenched fist, he ordered the two girls to be about their work and fled from the room. The mulatto girl burst into tears. “Katy” laid a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder, but asked no questions.

Just before the next slave auction, the mulatto girl tearfully confessed to “Katy” that she would rather die than to comply with her passionate master’s wishes. The master, therefore, was going to sell her to the highest bidder --- preferably a very cruel man. Sad was the parting when the slave girl took leave of her young husband, of the kind lady of the house, and of “Katy”.

The mistress of the house persuaded her hard-hearted husband to tolerate occasional visitors’ days for her personal maid’s friends. The Fruehes were welcomed no less by the mistress than by Katerina.

Frank Lehnberg also, was a frequent visitor. Occasionally on Katerina’s free days, she and Frank drove to Jackson Square Park, where soft sunlight filtered through the scarves of Spanish moss and the sweet, cool breath of magnolias was on the air. There were flowers of all kinds: azaleas, roses, camellias, wisteria, and flowering quince. Peacocks strutted under the stately old oak trees, while mocking birds poured out their song from the tree tops. Katerina looked lovely in her best dress of white silk-and-linen with a small pink flower-design scattered over it. The skirt was hooped and the neckline was low. A black net shawl, finished with yards and yards of black velvet ribbon and edged with heavy silk lace, was draped about her shoulders and fastened at the front with a pink rose. A white leghorn hat, trimmed with a large pink rose, black mesh finger mitts, and a black mesh bag completed the ensemble.

Once, when the Spaniard and his wife left for the big slave-market, “Katy” was put in complete charge of the household and for six weeks the young woman supervised the plantation. The slaves loved her and gladly obeyed her. “Katy” had often seen very meager portions distributed to the hard-working Negroes; now she paid for butter and rice with her own earnings and gave the slaves rice with their gumbo and butter on their coarse cornbread. The slaves did not forget this kindness; when “Katy” left the plantation to be married, more than forty of them kissed her hand and some murmured, “De Lord bless you, Mis’ Katy.”

Katerina Meyer and Frank Lehnberg were married in 1841. They spent nearly ten years together, during which time Frank changed his occupation from conductor on a horsecar to proprietor of a brick yard. He bought a large brick house, in which he and Katerina lived, and later added a smaller frame house to his possessions.

Katerina’s brother from Saint Louis visited the Lehnbergs. Meyer contracted yellow fever, or malaria, and died in New Oreans. Their sister, who spent a very short time in the Southern metropolis, died of the same fever.

Although the Lehnbergs at first belonged to the “Lutheran Church on Custom House Street,” they later transferred their membership to Zion Congregation because it was much closer to their new home.

In 1851, Frank Lehnberg died of the dreaded cholera. His widow spent much of her time at the Fruehes. At other times, some member of the Fruehe family stayed with Katerina in her large and lonely house.

For many years a small group of Lutherans had met for services on the Custom House of New Orleans; one of the men read a sermon out of a well-worn book which had been brought from the old country and the whole group joined in singing hymns -- there was no musical accompaniment. About the year 1852 this group was organized into a congregation and adopted the name “The Lutheran Congregation on Custom House Street”. This congregation soon owned a small church building, and called a pastor during 1853. The rather long name of the congregation was changed to St. John’s.

Mr. and Mrs. Fruehe and their children belonged to St. John’s Congregation and, since “Katy” spent much of her time with the Fruehes, the young widow usually attended services in that church. After some time the pastor noticed that Katerina was blessed with a good voice so he asked her to help lead the singing.

Katerina’s sweet voice trembled a little and she found it hard to keep her eyes on the words before her. Mrs. Fruehe noticed it, but thought nothing of it.

As the carriage rolled toward the plantation after the services, Katerina asked: “Doesn’t that Herr Weller have a lovely voice?”

With a twinkle in his eye, Wilhelm Fruehe replied: "Yes, he has been a Vorsaenger in our church for a number of years. I know him well -- maybe I can introduce him to you”.

“The pastor thought of that before you did.”

A faint blush spread over “Katy” Lehnberg’s face but “Willie” Fruehe pretended not to notice it. In a matter-of-fact way he remarked: “Weller is a mighty fine fellow. You ought to be glad that the Catholics didn’t keep him, or the two of you might never have met.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“Well, I’ll tell you: That man had a hard time getting started, but he’s doing well now. He told me that his money was stolen on the voyage from Germany -- the strange part of it was that the thief left the prayer book which had been tucked into the same pocket with the money. That was in the fall of 1848 -- about five-and-a-half years ago.”

“What did the poor man do then?”

“Oh, that was only part of his trouble; besides that, he contracted typhoid fever on the way. When the emigrants landed they took him to a Catholic hospital. Weller stayed there about six weeks, during which the priest and the nuns tried to convert their Lutheran patient. When the Catholics saw that they couldn’t convert him to their beliefs and that he was penniless, too, they asked him to leave the hospital.”

“Oh, how terrible!”

“Johann Georg was hardly able to stand on his feet, but he prepared to leave. He thanked the doctors and nurses for their care and staggered down the corridor. At the door he met a nun who had a sympathetic face. That nun wished him God’s blessing and handed him a bottle of wine and a loaf of rye bread, which she had carefully hidden under her cape for that very purpose. By the time Weller ate the last of that supply, he was much stronger and soon found odd jobs. Later, he got work as a dock hand. He gradually advanced from driver of a large cotton dray to owner of a dray. Right now, he is about ready to buy another one.”

The following Sunday, Katerina Lehnberg, Mrs. Fruehe, and the children waited in the carriage. Finally, Wilhelm Fruehe appeared, followed by a tall dark-complexioned man. “Katy’s” heart beat faster.

“I’ve invited another friend of mine to dinner,” announced “Willie”. His wife spoke to the guest,

“You are most welcome. There is always room for an extra passenger and Dina will be glad to set another place at the table.”

The young man bowed and a slow smile spread over his handsome face as he greeted the women and children in the carriage. Katerina admired these expressive brown eyes, that row of shining teeth and the manly stature, that were complemented by “a lovely voice”.

“If only he were not so bashful,” thought Katerina as they rode along, “he would be the ideal man.”

After the couple became better acquainted, Johann Georg Weller sometimes visited Katerina Lehnberg in her own home in town. Words failed the shy suitor on several occasions. Finally, one evening, the lady remarked, “No doubt you are aware of the fact that I am a young widow and that we are unchaperoned -- people are apt to think it a bit unusual. I see no reason why we should not consider matrimony: we seem well suited to each other.”

The young man needed no more urging but poured out his heart, and was accepted.

On the eighth of January, 1855 , wedding bells rang for Katerina and Johann Georg.

The couple lived in Katerina’s brick house as long as they were in New Orleans. Johann Georg joined Zion Congregation. The Wellers were close friends of Pastor and Mrs. Fick, and Katerina was chosen as one of the sponsors for Dorothy Fick. Mrs. Metz, the pastor’s wife at St. John’s, was a sister to pastor Fick of Zion.

A Manuscript About J. George Weller

2009-11-02T22:34:00.010-06:00

I recently received a manuscript (as a Microsoft Word document) titled An Afterglow of Yesterday, written by Clara Alvina Koenig in 1941. She was a granddaughter of Heinrich Herman Weller, who was the brother of Johann George Weller (J. George Weller), who in 1894 became the first director of the Evangelical Lutheran School Teachers Seminary, which eventually became Concordia University.

I received the manuscript from J. George Weller's great-grandson George Weller, who received it as a photocopy from his sister Marcia (Weller) Weinhold. She has sent me an e-mail in which she told how she herself obtained the manuscript:

I visited Seward once, in the late 80’s. The manuscript was not from the Concordia library (though I think they need a copy). However, it was a library worker who put me in touch with a relative of Clara Koenig’s (sorry, names escape me) who was working at the Cattle Bank (who could forget that name?) and met me for lunch. Another relative also came and brought her copy of the document.

She allowed me to borrow it and take it back to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where Kinko’s required a letter of permission to copy before they would copy it for me. I made several copies, one of which I took to the Lake James cottage. [A member of the Weller family owns a cottage at Lake James, Indiana, which family members share and use as for vacations and reunions.]

I mailed the manuscript back to the Koenig relative who had lent me the manuscript. This same relative gave me Clara’s address in a nursing home. I sent her a card thanking her for writing down the stories. I received a nice reply from a caretaker indicating that Clara was not able to write back, but enjoyed the card (whatever that may have meant).

Aunt Dollie (Margaret) was still alive (which could date my trip...) when I brought the copy to Lake James, and reported that she and Mort (Martha) had stopped in Seward some years before and obtained a copy. She did not say from whom.

I also received a ride over to the former Weller home (where it had been moved) by a 90-some year old woman named Margaret. I remember her first name only because she was the name-sake of one of our Chicago cousins, one Margaret Kruse.

Some day I hope to find all the details of that trip (they were in a box under my bed in Kalamazoo, but I’ve moved twice since then.

In 1995-96 Marcia's brother George re-typed and polished the manuscipt, and he sent me an electronic version recently. He sent me also several genealogical descriptions of the the Weller family.

The manuscript begins with the immigration of a Prussian family, the Mailands, to the United States in 1832 and ends with the Missouri Synods decision to turn the seminary in Seward into a college in 1905. During the course of the manuscript, the developments of several German immigrant families -- the Wellers are only one of several -- are described. The entire manuscript is about 80 pages, and I will provide my electronic version to anyone who requests it.

In the following articles in this blog , I will excerpt some of the manuscript's passages that involve J. George Weller and his family.

J. George Weller's parents were Johann George Weller and Katerina Regina Meyer, who emigrated separately from Germany, met each other in New Orleans, Louisiana, and eventually married there in 1854.

The manuscript is confusing about their children, but it seems they had two daughters who died in infancy and then two sons who grew to adulthood. The older son was Johann George (born in 1860), who eventually became a Lutheran pastor and then the Concordia president. The younger son was Heinrich Herman (born in 1862), who eventually became a merchant.

Johann George moved from Indiana to Nebraska to begin working as a Lutheran pastor in about 1882. Eventually his brother Heinrich Herman and then their parents followed them to Nebraska, and they all settled in Staplehurst. In 1894, Johann George moved to Seward to begin teaching at Concordia, leaving his brother and parents in Staplehurst.

Johann George Weller had eleven children and his brother Heinrich Herman had nine children. There have been many grandchildren and further descendents, who have scattered all over the United States and beyond.

Ms. Koenig, at the beginning of her manuscript, credits her sources of information as follows:

I am indebted to the following persons, documents and periodicals, as sources of information:

Wilhelmina Mailand, the active little woman whose life spanned a period of ninety-six years, and whose memory was keen to the end of her days;

Katerina Weller, who lived with my grandparents for twenty-two years and was an invalid for more than half of that time;

W. C. Hartmann, better known as “Bill” both in the story and in everyday life;

James (or “Candy Jim”) Hartmann, the eldest son of Fred Hartmann;

Mrs. Charles Scheumann, whose maiden name was Alice Daehling;

Mr. AND Mrs. H. H. Weller, “Hank” and “Lisette” in the story;

Johann Georg Weller’S passport;

Henry and John Weller's baptismal certificates;

Friedrich Hartmann’s obituary;

James Hartmann’s affidavit of identity;

Alice Daehling’s baptismal certificate;

the Friedrich Scheumann family-record and a plushpicture album owned by Mrs “Bill” Scheumann;

the early church records of both Zion and Immanuel Congregation;

the anniversary editions of the Nebraska Farmer and of the Concordia Teachers College Broadcaster.

The Architecture of Homes by J. O. Shroyer, The Homes of Nebraska by Sol. Miller, and the four paragraphs of Pioneers of the Spiritual Trail by Dr. John W. Holland), which were copied from the December 1934 edition of the Nebraska Farmer by special permission of the McKelvie Publishing Company, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Information regarding Concordia Teachers College and the quotations from The Story of Concordia by H. O. A. Keinath, also The Reminiscences of the Senior Professor by H. B. Fehner, which were taken from the November 1934 Broadcaster by permission of Prof. Keinath, editor of the college paper (at that time) and historian of the institution.

The Wellers Who Lived at Concordia

2009-10-27T22:35:00.015-05:00

This is a photograph of Johann George Weller, the first president of Concordia University. The image is taken from a Concordia webpage that no longer exists.

(Flickr page)

When the webpage did exist, the image was captioned as follows:

Director George Weller

The Rev. George Weller was called in 1894 to be the Director of the new synodical school in Seward, Nebraska. Prior to that time he was the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Marysville, Nebraska, just outside of Staplehurst, Nebraska. Initially Weller taught all subjects except music to the students. He is pictured here in the study of his home, a room which also served as a college office, bank, and dispensary. Weller served as Director of the Lutheran Teachers' Seminary, as it was called in those days, until 1914. Following that he continued to teach there until his death in the mid-1920s.

This photograph certainly was taken in Faculty Lane House 1, where Weller lived from 1895 until his death in 1924. His surviving family continued to live in that house until 1930.

I have received several written records from George Weller, a great-grandson of J. George Weller, the first President of Concordia College and the first occupant of Faculty Lane House 1.

According to a family genealogy, J. George Weller was born in 1860 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and he married Louise Katharina Clara Eirich in 1882 in New Minden, Illinois. He died in 1924 in Seward, Nebraska. He and she had 11 children:

Johann Friedrich Heinrich (“John Henry”) Weller, born in 1883 in Staplehurst, Nebraska. He worked as an engineer and married Mary Wynne, a nurse.

Hulda Catharina Elisabeth Weller, born in 1884 in Staplehurst. She married Alexander Pitcaithley.

Heinrich Friedrich Weller, born and died in 1886 in Staplehurst.

George Ernst August Weller, born in 1887 in Staplehurst. He worked as a teacher and musician. He married Martha Sophia Gallmeier in 1913. He died in 1932 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Clara Anna Weller, born in 1890 and died in 1893 in Staplehurst.
Elsa Lisette Christina (Christine) Weller, born in 1892 in Staplehurst. She married Dwight Williams.

Helen Maria Amanda Emma Weller, born in 1894 in Staplehurst. She married Ernest August Paul (Bud) Gallmeier in 1920. She died in 1955.

Anna Marie Louise Weller, born in 1896 in Seward. She married Herbert Trier in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Paula Weller. She married Henry Ehlen.

Raymond Frederick (Bub) Weller. He married Merle.

Alfred William Tobias (Sam) Weller, born in 1905 in Seward. He married Judith Rogers in 1927 in Minden, Nebraska. He died 1965 in Glidden, Iowa.

The Weller family moved into Faculty Lane House 1 in 1895. At that time the family consisted of parents George and Louise and five children -- Johann (age 12), Hulda (age 11), George (age 8), Elsa (Christine) (age 3) and Helen (age 1). (Two children had died in infancy in Staplehurst.)

While the family lived in the house, four more children were born -- Anna, Paula, Raymond and Alfred (Sam).

After George Weller died in 1924, the surviving family continued to live in the home until 1930.

George Ernst August Weller (who was born in 1897), had an oldest son named Robert, born in 1914. Robert worked as a Lutheran pastor, and he married Clara Frieda Elisabeth Hoyer in 1941. She worked as a teacher. They had an oldest son, George, born in 1942, who worked as a physicist and research engineer. The latter George is the great-grandson who sent me the records. His oldest daughter Gretchen is a Lutheran pastor. George describes his daughter:

As to the "liberal" Wellers, yes, I would say so.

My daughter is an ELCA pastor, at St Matthew, Renton, Washington. She is sometimes known as "guitarchick" and as "the rock and roll pastor of Renton". You can guess where she stands on the recent ELCA churchwide meeting results.

The Concordia College Library

2009-10-10T20:22:00.016-05:00

When my family lived on Faculty Lane, I could walk to the Concordia College library in a couple of minutes. I spent a lot of time there.

I don't remember how I was able to check out books. I don't think I had a library card. As I remember, the place where the books were checked out had a set of cards with the names of faculty kids who used the library, and I simply stated my name, and the clerk verified that there was a card for my name and then checked out the books to me. I used the library often enough that usually the clerk recognized me and so did not have to look for the card.

The library had a special room with books for children -- for elementary-school pupils. While I lived on Faculty Lane, I selected most of my books from this room.

One of the books I found in the children's room made a huge impact on my life. This book was a history of Soviet espionage in the United States. The book included a chapter about a Soviet spy ring that was discovered because of some information that was provided by a paperboy. The story is told in this website:

On June 22, 1953, a paperboy for the Brooklyn Eagle, knocked on the door of one of his customers in an apartment building on Foster Avenue in Brooklyn. The paperboy was going through the month-end ritual of collecting from his customers. The lady customer only had a dollar bill and the paperboy did not have enough coins to make change so he asked the neighbors next door if they could help. The neighbors pooled their coins and produced enough change for a dollar, and the bill was paid.

As the paperboy was leaving the apartment building, and jingling the change in his hand, he could not help but notice that one nickel weighed less than the other nickels.

As he examined it, it fell to the ground and opened up after hitting the cement sidewalk. Inside was a miniature photograph showing numbers arranged in columns.

Two days later a New York City detective casually remarked to an FBI friend about the hollow nickel a newsboy had discovered. The detective had received the information from another police officer whose daughter was acquainted with the paperboy. The New York City Police picked up the nickel with its contents and turned it over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

FBI agents in the New York City office examined the hollow nickel. The interior of the coin appeared to be what agents described as a microphotograph portraying 10 columns of typewritten numbers. There were five digits in each number and 21 numbers in most columns. Suspecting a coded espionage message, the agents shipped it to the FBI Laboratory for further analysis.

Following its arrival in Washington, the coin received careful scrutiny by a team of FBI scientists. Hollow coins, occasionally used in magic acts and only occasionally seen by the FBI, were seldom if at all, seen by ordinary citizens. The coin was indeed unique, even for the FBI. It was a Jefferson nickel with a tiny hole drilled in the letter R of the word "TRUST." Investigators concluded that the tiny hole had been made to accept a device to open the coin. The other side of the coin had been made from another nickel minted during World War II and composed of a copper-silver alloy.

As efforts began to decode the message on the microphotograph, FBI agents in New York launched an investigation. The neighbors who had given change to the newsboy for a dollar bill knew nothing of the coin and confirmed that they had never seen such a thing. Proprietors of novelty stores and other businesses in the area were contacted and photographs of the hollow coin were shown to them, but this failed to produce anything positive. A detailed canvassing of the neighborhood did not yield any useful information. The meaning of the microphotograph seemed destined to remain a mystery.

From 1953 to 1957, attempts to solve the mystery of the hollow nickel by interviewing former intelligence agents who had defected to the free world from communist-bloc nations shed no light on the case. FBI investigators checked out hollow subway tokens, other hollow or trick coins but none appeared to suggest a tie to the one discovered in Brooklyn. The search for the person for whom the coded message in the nickel was intended was nowhere to be found.

Seemingly unrelated events can occasionally bring solutions to insolvable mysteries. The key to the paperboy's hollow nickel proved to be a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet State Security Service (KGB). The 36-year-old officer telephoned the United States Embassy in Paris and subsequently in an interview stated that he had been operating as a spy in the United States and needed help. The spy, Reino Hayhanen, explained that he had just been ordered to return to Moscow and felt defection was better than returning for an uncertain future.

Mr. Hayhanen had been born on May 14, 1920 near Leningrad to two Russian peasants. Despite this modest background, Hayhanen became an honor student and in 1939 earned the equivalent of a certificate to teach high school. In September of 1939, he was appointed to a primary school in the village of Lipitz. His high level of proficiency in the Finnish language, however, attracted the NKVD or secret police. Two months after beginning his job as an elementary school teacher, the NKVD drafted him to go to the combat zone and translate captured documents and interview prisoners during the Finnish-Soviet war.

When the war ended Hayhanen was ordered to review the loyalty and reliability of Soviet workers in Finland and to develop sources of information in Finland. His real job was to identify anti-Soviet elements in the intelligentsia. By 1943, he had gained considerable respect for his knowledge of Finland and Finnish matters and was accepted into membership into the Soviet Communist Party. At the end of the war Hayhanen received promotion to the rank of senior operative and worked in the village of Padani, identifying dissidents. The KGB called Hayhanen to Moscow in the summer of 1948 and gave him a new assignment. He would be required to learn English, sever all connections with his family and receive special training in photographing documents as well as in the encoding and decoding of messages. While his training continued, he worked as a mechanic in Valga, Estonia, and in 1949 entered Finland as Eugene Nicolai Maki, an American-born laborer.

[The article continues on the linked website.]

This story captured my imagination. Another chapter in the book claimed that the Soviet Union had a secret town where everyone spoke English and all the signs were in English, and this town was where the Soviet spies learned to speak English like native Americans.

This book gave me the idea that I should learn to speak Russian perfectly and then sneak into Russia and secretly convert a lot of Russians to Christianity.

The library's children section did not have any books about how to learn Russian, so I went into the adult section and found three books about the Russian language. None of these books was useful, because they were not introductory books. One of them was the second-volume of a old textbook set, and the other two were collections of reading texts for intermediate students who had learned some of the language from other books. I checked out all three books and took them home and looked through them, but they did not enable me to teach myself Russian. (I described how I eventually learned Russian in this article.)

The library's children section also enabled me to learn about sex. I found a few books about puberty, and I read them thoroughly. A couple of those books I read many times, always the same few pages. I noted the Dewey Decimal numbers of those books and then went into the adult section, and there I looked through the books with similar Dewey Decimal numbers. The books in the adult section provided me with more details and with some vivid illustrations.

Another group of books that I remember checking out from the adult section was about boxing. I went into the adult section to look at books about sports and physical fitness, and I found several books about boxing techniques. I checked out these boxing books and took them home and practiced the techniques that the books illustrated.

One of these boxing books included instructions about how to make barbells out of a piece of pipe, a couple of tin cans and concrete. I followed those instructions and made a set of those barbells. I used these barbells to try to build muscles in my arms as I practiced my boxing techniques. The barbells looked like this:

The events I have described so far in this article happened before I began in seventh grade. In particular, I found the boxing books and built the barbells during the summer between my sixth grade and my seventh grade.

It was during that same summer that I acquired a lot of old magazines in the Concordia College library. I was in the library's adult section browsing around for books about some subject that interested me at that point. I don't remember whether I was looking for books about spies, about the Russian language, about sex, about boxing or some other subject. Anyway, while I was browsing through the shelves, I saw a college student, apparently working part-time in the library, who was taking a lot of old, bound volumes of magazines from some library shelves and loading them onto a cart. This college student was talking with someone else, and from that conversation I understood that he had been assigned to throw all these old, bound magazines away.

I asked the college student whether he really was throwing all these magazines away, and he replied that he indeed was doing so. I then asked whether I could have them all, and he said that indeed I could, because otherwise he intended to throw them into a dumpster. So, I took all the magazines from him and carried them home.

This was a lot of stuff, and I had to make many trips back and forth between the library and my home in order to move it all. I carried it all in my arms.

The magazines were all from the first half of the 1940s. The magazines included Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post and a couple other titles. Most of the magazines were bound by quarters. For example, all the Life magazines for the months January through March 1940 were bound in one volume, and all the Life magazines for the months April through June 1940 were bound in another volume, and sor forth. On that day I carried home a total of about 30 bound volumes of these old, various magazines from the early 1940s.

My Mom allowed me to keep all these bound magazines in our study in our home. I looked through those volumes many times, especially during the summer when I acquired them. This experience gave me a sense of what life was like when my parents were young. My mother was born in 1932, so during that period, 1940-45, she was ages eight to thirteen. I myself was eleven years old in the summer when I brought the magazines home from the library. Perhaps that is my Mom allowed me to keep them.

Those old magazines remained with our family as long as we lived in Seward, Nebraska. I think I had to get rid of them right before our family moved to Eugene, Oregon, but I don't remember whether I gave them to someone else or threw them into the garbage. It is possible that we did take them to Eugene, but much of our family's belongings burned up in a fire in a storage facility while we were waiting for our new home in Eugene to be built. If we did take them to Eugene, then they burned up in that fire.

Some Descendants of George Weller

2009-09-27T09:08:00.038-05:00

The following is information I received from Steven Trier, great-grandson of George Weller, who lived in Faculty Lane House 1 from 1895 to his death in 1924. The surviving Weller family continued to occupy the house until 1930.

Mr. Trier sent me this information in several messages, and I have organized it into one essay.

George Weller was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His real name was John Weller but he was called George from infancy on. (When he himself had children, his eldest son was named John, after his own real name, and it was many years and several children later that a son was named George, after his assumed name.) At an early age George Weller's family moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and he grew up there.

George Weller eventually married a woman named Clara Erich, who had three brothers who all were all Lutheran pastors. They had attended the seminary (or the school that eventually become the seminary) in Fort Wayne.

George and Clara Weller had about eight children, who included Anna, Hulda, John, Bub and Elsa. (The Wellers all had nicknames -- Rubs, Pussy, Dolly, Bing, Bub, Petey, Mortz, etc. Maybe I'll have to setup a cross reference to follow. I am still trying to clarify details about that Weller family.)

George Weller was my great-grandfather, and his daughter Anna Weller was my grandmother. Anna Weller eventually married Herbert Trier, who was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. (There ae many associations between the Weller, Erich and Trier families and between Seward, Nebraska, and Fort Wayne, Indiana.)

During Anna's childhood growing up in the Weller family in Seward, Nebraska, there were still small groups of Indians in the Seward area, and the White and Indian children sometimes would play together. It is more than likely that the Concordia children were the only Whites allowed to do so. German was the language spoken in the Weller home as well as in the church services. (It is interesting to read the St Johns history and see that there were still German services in the 1950s).

Herbert and Anna (Weller) Trier had four children -- John Weller Trier, Eric Trier, Barbara Trier and Herbert Peter Trier. The youngest, who was called Pete by the family, is my father. He was born in Fort Wayne in December 1927.

The Trier family had settled in in Fort Wayne in 1828. When George Weller had lived in Fort Wayne, he and his family had socialized with the Trier family. My great uncle (a Weller) was the Director of Music at St. Paul's in Fort Wayne, and my Dad and his Trier family lived literally in the shadow of the Church. So the Weller and Trier families knew each other well and so became inter-married.

The Weller and Trier families also have a connection to the Seminary in St. Louis. Missouri. The real push to set that school up came from the Fort Wayne Lutherans, including my great, great, great-grandfather Conrad Trier. He was one of the founders of St Paul in Fort Wayne as well as Trinity Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne.

Because of economic hardships during the 1930s and early 1940s, the two youngest Trier children -- Peter (my Dad) and my aunt Barbara -- were shipped out to live with their Aunt Elsa and Aunt Hulda (the Weller sisters of my grandma Anna Weller) in Kearny, Nebraska. During those years, Peter and Barbara occasionally visited the Weller family in Seward.

Because of his years living in Kearny, my Dad probably knows more about those Nebraska Wellers than anyone still alive. He says that Uncle Bub Weller (a son of George Weller) attended the University of Nebraska in the early 1920s and was a team captain and All-American. Uncle Bub's older brother John Weller (the oldest son of George Weller) attended the University of Nebraska in 1902-1906 and was a team captain too. Bub was a big man and played tackle and was the key in Nebraska's upset win over Notre Dame. John was smaller and played in the backfield. I believe John eventually worked as an engineer on the Panama Canal.

The woman standing second from the left (in the dress with horizontal stripes) is Elsa (Weller) Williams, and the woman standing second from the right (in the dress with the red collar) is Anna (Weller) Trier. Elsa and Anna were daughters of George Weller, the first President of Concordia College in Seward, and so they grew up in Faculty Lane House 1. The picture was taken in 1971, when Elsa was living in Lincoln, where Anna visited every year from Fort Wayne.
(Click here to see the image in larger sizes.)

A few days ago my uncle Eric Trier celebrated his 85th birthday. Eric and my Dad are long in years but they are not old. My Dad works out every day for a couple of hours as does my uncle Eric. My Dad is a medical doctor, still in practice.

One of my Weller uncles (my great uncle) was the head of a local FBI office at the onset of World War Two, and when he was directed to confiscate fire arms from second generation German-Americans, he resigned.

Aunt Elsa (Weller) Williams's husband Dwight Williams was a colonel in the Army as well as a school principal.

While I was growing up in Indiana, the Weller family had a lake cottage in northeast Indiana, and it was and is the mecca for all Wellers. So as a kid I got to spend a great deal of time around all sorts of the clan, and it is large. Interestingly, they are fairly liberal for Lutherans in comparison to George Weller being very traditional.

I have been to Seward several times and even was offered a scholarship to attend Concordia College in Seward after I graduated from Concordia Lutheran High School in Fort Wayne in 1979.

I am intending on a visit to Seward yet this fall with some of my kids (I live in Colorado) so they may see Weller Hall and the house where their great-grandmother Anna grew up. I have been in contact with Dr. Bergman, who now lives in the old Weller house, and he has invited me to visit. I also have discovered that one of my teachers of my grade school (Holy Cross Lutheran in Fort Wayne), Dr. Stan Obermueller, has been living in Seward and teaching at Concordia for the past 25 years.

My Failures as a Paperboy

2009-09-26T16:39:00.016-05:00

(This article follows an article about how I became a paperboy and a second article about how I delivered newspapers and a third article about paper-route economics.)

From the beginning of my paperboy career, I understood the importance of increasing the number of customers on my route. The time I spent delivering papers every day was practically constant. Delivering one more newspaper took almost no more time, but my profit increased by more than a penny a day.

I did more arithmetic. If a new customer subscribed to both the daily and Sunday deliveries, then in a year, my increased profit at the end of the year would total (42¢/month * 12 months = ) $5.04. If I put that extra profit into my savings account at Cattle Bank, then at a 3.5% interest rate I would earn 18¢ interest every year afterwards -- EVERY YEAR AFTERWARDS !! -- PLUS COMPOUNDING !!!

And that was just for one more customer. My brain feverishly fantasized about the profitable results of several new customers added to my route every month.

During the first couple of months after I took over my paper route, I spent a couple of hours on Saturday afternoons knocking on doors of non-subscribers in my route area and trying to sell subscriptions.

I had read the guidance in The Newspaper Carrier's Handbook about how to sell subscriptions. The following pages depicted the paperboy scouting for prospects on his route and then approaching those prospects to sell subscriptions.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

There also were various sales instructions like this ...

Click here to see the above leaflet in larger sizes.

... and this.

Click here to see the above leaflet in larger sizes.

I did not have the self-confidence or the ability, however, to sell like the boy in the manual did. I was only nine years old and was easily intimidated. When I knocked on a door and someone opened the door, the conversation usually went like this:

Me: Hi, would you like to subscribe to The Lincoln Star?

Adult: No, thanks. [Closes door]

After a few such Saturday afternoons of rejection and frustration, I gave up.

However, the newspaper's distribution office in Lincoln regularly conducted various contests and prizes to entice the paperboys into trying to sell subscriptions. One popular prize was a group trip to the state fair in Lincoln. If all the paperboys in a district together sold a total of so many new subscriptions in a particular time, then all the paperboys (even paperboys who did not sell any subscriptions at all) got to go to the state fair for a day.

I would try to sell subscriptions when the prize was a trip to the state fair. I cannot remember whether I did sell any subscriptions on those occasions (maybe a sold a few) but I always got to go to the state fair, because all the paperboys in the district sold enough for everyone to go.

The trips to the state fair were a lot of fun. In the morning we paperboys would fill a bus, which drove us to Lincoln and dropped us off at the fair. I think each of us received some discount coupons for rides and games. Then in the evening the bus would drive us all back to Seward.

The state fair had a much larger selection of rides and attractions than the county fair in Seward had. The state fair had some burlesque attractions. There were some view machines, where you put a coin in the machine and then you looked into a visor and saw a short film of a woman dancing around in lingerie. Then the woman would start to take off their lingerie and the scene would go black. There also was a live burlesque show with real women dancers. I was too young to get into that, but a couple of the very oldest paperboys were allowed to enter. I spent a few coins looking into the viewing machines. A couple of the guys bought some playing cards that were illustrated with pictures of women with lingerie, and those guys would show the cards around in the bus on our ride back to Seward. This was the funnest day of the year for us paperboys.

During the first year that I worked as a paperboy, a bunch of us won a trip to watch the University of Nebraska's football team play a game. There were a lot of empty seats in the stadium, because the team always had a bad record in those days. Paperboys were allowed to attend free as a promotion, just to fill some of the seats. I remember that we boys spent more time running around and playing in the stands then watching the football game. (The Cornhuskers began to win football games and become popular after 1962, when Bob Devaney became the coach. My father sat next to Devaney on an airplane flight and had a conversation with him when Devaney was flying from Wyoming to Nebraska to take over the coaching job.)

After I quit working as a paperboy, there was one subscription contest where the prize was a trip to Omaha to go on a tour of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) air base. My brother Steve Sylwester went on that trip.

I remember one subsciption-selling contest where I did sell a couple of subscriptions. One summer afternoon each of us paperboys received a phone call telling us we were supposed to report immediately to the home of Austin Neihardt, Seward's distribution manager, for an important meeting. This never had happened before. I rode my bicycle to Neihardt's, where the living room was filled with paperboys. A distribution manager from Lincoln introduced himself and gave each one of us a small catalogue showing prizes we could win for selling subscriptions. The prizes were very attractive. Then he told us that we would get triple credits for all the subscriptions that we sold by 7 p.m. on that very day and double credits for all the subscriptions that we sold by the end of the weekend.

Of course, all we paperboys raced out immediately on our bicycles to our route areas and tried to win these prizes. That day I sold one subscription, and then I sold another subscription by the end of the weekend. The I won a good Swiss Army pocket knife and a couple of other prizes. Normally we had to order our prizes from the catalogue and wait a few weeks to receive them in the mail, but when I returned to Neihardt's house at 7 pm with my first new subscription, the manager had one of the prize knives with him, and so he gave me that prize immediately. I opened the blade and barely touched it to my finger tip, and the blade was so sharp that it cut my skin and caused me to bleed. What a cool knife!

That particular contest has stayed in my memory for several reasons -- the unexpected phone call, the catalogue, the sharp knife and my immediate success selling two subscriptions. This success bothered me, because I felt that I probably could have sold more subscriptions during those years if I had continued to try regularly. I could have improved my sales skills and could have earned more money. I pondered my inadequate effort and sales failure often during my last months as a paperboy.

I did sell a few subscriptions by giving prospects the newspaper free for a week. On the first day we would leave the first day's newspaper at the foot of the door and hang this announcement on the prospect's doorknob.

In my experience, this method worked rather well -- certainly much better than knocking on doors with cold calls. I think that about half of the prospects who received the newspaper for a week eventually subscribed. I wanted to use this method more often, and I do not remember why I did not. Maybe I was supposed to take more initiative and propose good prospects to the district manager. Or maybe these free newspapers were a bonus for paperboys who already were selling more subscriptions with other methods.

In general, my attitude, effort and service declined significantly during the last year or two that I delivered newspapers. I got up later and later and delivered the newspapers later and later. I dawdled. I forgot to deliver papers to some customers. The number of subscribers declined to a lower number than when I had begun delivering the route. I became dissatisfied with the amount of money I earned, but I did not want to make any effort to sell subscriptions.

I made a special effort to deliver the newspapers early only during the month before Christmas, because most of my customers gave me a Christmas bonus. Some customers gave a cash bonus -- as much as five dollars. Other customers gave me boxes of candy. During the Christmas break from school, I would spend my days eating boxes of chocolate-covered cherries and watching television (Jack Benny movies, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movies, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movies, Abbott and Costello movies, etc.).

A major reason why my attitude declined was that I foresaw that I would be able to work in the Concordia College cafeteria during my eighth-grade year. That job payed 60¢ an hour and did not include exposure to freezing, windy weather. I could foresee an escape from my paper route and a big step up in my employment.

For some boys, delivering a newspaper route was the beginning of a life-long career in entrepreneurial business. I, however, grew up in a family of teachers and pastors, and so during those young years I had no role models or mentors or coaches who provided guidance and encouragement for a business career. When I think back at that experience of delivering newspapers, I cannot escape the conclusion that I did not succeed as I initially hoped I would succeed and perhaps could have succeeded.

Paper-Route Economics

2009-08-27T22:14:00.038-05:00

(This article follows an article about how I became a paperboy and another article about how I delivered newspapers.)

I think my paper route had an average of about 20 customers, varying from about 17 to 23. The below account statement, for the four-week period that ended on December 11, 1964, records that I delivered about 19 daily (Monday through Saturday) and 18 Sunday newspapers during that period.

(Larger sizes of this image can be seen here.)

Let's do the arithmetic for a four-week period when a paperboy delivered to 20 customers who subscribed to the daily and Sunday newspapers. The Agency Carriers' Collection and Billing System included the following Price Schedule:

In order to apply the simplest arithmetic, we will use the third column, labeled "Both" (i.e. both daily and Sunday deliveries) and we will use the bottom part, labeled "FOR THE 4-WEEK PERIOD".

The row labeled "Your collect" indicates that the paperboy collected $1.50 from each customer. Since the paperboy had 20 customers, he collected a total of ($1.50 * 20 customers = ) $30.00 for the four-week period.

The row labeled "Your cost" indicates that the paperboy had to pay $1.08 to the delivery manager for each customer. Since the paperboy had 20 customers, he paid a total of ($1.08 * 20 customers = ) $21.60 for the four-week period.

The row labeled "Your profit" indicates that the paperboy earned a profit of 42¢ for each customer. Since the paperboy had 20 customers, he paid a total of (42¢ * 20 customers = ) $8.40 for the four-week period.

Since the paperboy earned a profit of $8.40 for a four-week period comprising 28 days, he earned about 30¢ a day, which was an average of about 1½¢ for each newspaper he delivered.

I estimate that I spent about 1.5 hours delivering the newspapers every day, so my hourly earnings were about (30¢/day @ 1.5 hours/day = ) 20¢ per hour.

In addition to the time that I spent delivering the newspapers, though, I also spent time collecting money from my customers and spent time trying to get new customers. Therefore I probably earned 15¢ or less per hour.

According to the Agency Carriers' Collection and Billing System, the paperboy was supposed to pay the delivery manager within the seven days following the end of the four-week period. You can see from the account statement at the beginning of this article that the four-week period ended on December 11, 1964, and that I paid on December 19, 1964, so I paid one day late on that occasion. I don't think there was a monetary penalty for paying late, but if a paperboy paid late chronically, then the delivery manager might eventually fire the paperboy.

Continuing with the hypothetical case where a paperboy delivered to 20 customers who subscribed to the daily and Sunday newspapers, the paperboy would have to pay $21.60 to the delivery manager within seven days after the four-week period. Since each customer paid $1.50 for such a subscription, the paperboy would have to collect from at least 15 of his 20 customers within those seven days in order to pay the delivery manager the $21.60 on time ($1.50 * 15 = $22.50).

The paperboy would be able to collect some of the money while deliverying his route. If the lights were on in a customer's house when he was delivering, he could knock on the door and collect. Mostly, though, the paperboy would ride to his customers' homes during the afternoons, evenings or weekends to collect. Often during such trips, the customers would not be home or perhaps they did not have the money available, and so the paperboy would have to make several attempts to collect the money. Therefore a paperboy normally spent three or four hours a week collecting the money.

The paperboy recorded the customers' payments with collection cards.

The collection card, along with instructions, can be seen in larger sizes here.

The card was about nine inches long and made of light-yellow paper, a little stiffer than a playing card. The paperboy made a pair of identical cards for each customer. He filled in his own name and address on the top and his customer's name and address along the left side of each card. He gave the customer one of the pair of cards and kept the other of the pair for himself. The paperboy kept all his collection cards, in customer-delivery-order on a large, metal ring that he carried with him when he collected. When he collected the money from a customer, the paperboy would use a paper punch ...

... to punch a hole in the space marked with the date that ended the four-week period. He would punch a hole in the customer's card and in his own card.

Practically all my customers always paid in cash. I carried a drawstring money bag to hold the collected money and to be able to make change. My money bag was something like this ...

... but, of course, it did not have a dollar sign on it. My money bag was made of soft, green cloth and it had a white drawstring.

After I had collected enough money to pay my bill, I went to home of Seward's delivery managers, Austin and Josephine Neihardt, who lived next to the water tower. Josephine received all the payments from the paperboys. When she counted a paperboy's money, she was extremely slow and fussy. She carefully straightend out each bill. She put the bills into piles by denominations -- one pile for the one-dollar bills, one pile for the five-dollar bills and so forth, and she piled all the coins by denomination likewise. Then she used a big, old-fashioned adding machine to do all the multiplications and additions and subtractions, writing each calculation carefully on a sheet of paper.

Then Josephine would slowly and carefully write an account statement, like the one at the beginning of this article, as a receipt for the paperboy. In the above receipt she calculated that I delivered 456 daily papers and owed her 2.92 cents for each one, totaling $13.32, and she calculated that I delivered 71 Sunday newspapers and owed her 13.5 cents for each one, totaling $9.59 -- with a grand total due of ($13.32 + $9.59 = ) $22.91.

Watching Josephine do this procedure so slowly was maddening for every paperboy. Another unpleasant element of the procedure was that Josephine did not have any teeth, just gums, and she often licked her thumb to count through the bills. A couple of paperboys got checking accounts just so they could write her an exact check.

I did not have a checking account while I was a paperboy, but I did open a savings account at Cattle Bank, which looked like this:

I tried to put five dollars in my saving account every month, which left me about four dollars to spend. I loved to figure out arithmetically how much money I might eventually earn in interest. If I deposited five dollars every month, then the total deposits would amount to $60 at the end of one year. If my account earned about 3.5% interest, then I would earn $2 in interest. At the end of two years, I would have about $122 in my account, and I would earn more than $4 in interest. At the end of three years, I would earn more than $6 in interest. And so forth.

These projected interest earnings were fantastic, but my fantasies went really wild when I imagined my accumulation of savings and interest if I could get a lot more customers in my route.

Robert Sylwester wrote:

Interesting. I just figured out that I made about $3.50 an hour during 1964 as a Concordia professor -- with a doctorate and a family of nine to support. It comes out to maybe 40-cents an hour per person in our family. So given the circumstances, you didn't do too badly with 15 cents an hour. As I recall, it cost maybe 50 cents for an adult to see a film at the Rivoli Theater.

Gene Meyer wrote:

Loved your description of the lady who collected the money. I can still see her licking her fingers and counting and arranging the dollar bills. I only subbed for Steve Roettjer and Jim Hardt…it was way too cold in the winter for me.

What’s 20 cents per hour worth day?

Per this site:

In 2008, $0.20 from 1960 was worth:

$1.45 using the Consumer Price Index

$1.17 using the GDP deflator

$1.81 using the value of consumer bundle

$1.73 using the unskilled wage

$3.26 using the nominal GDP per capita

$5.49 using the relative share of GDP

$4.53 using the nominal GDP per capita

$7.40 using the relative share of GDP

Delivering the Lincoln Star Newspaper

2009-08-24T23:06:00.020-05:00

(This article follows an article about how I became a paperboy.)

Three daily newspapers -- The Lincoln Star, The Lincoln Journal, and The Omaha World Herald -- were delivered by paperboys in Seward. The Lincoln Star and The Omaha World Herald were morning newspapers, and The Lincoln Journal was a weekday afternoon newspaper. The Star and Journal newspapers were owned by the same parent company, and the paperboys who delivered those newspapers had the same route manager in Seward. I delivered The Lincoln Star.

Peter Kolb, who lived at the other end of Faculty Lane, delivered the Herald, and my brother Steve substituted for Peter when the Kolb family went out of town. (See that Herald route list in this Flickr set.) Eventually Steve and my next brother Tim became a Lincoln Star paperboys too. My sister Tricia delivered the Lincoln Star into coed dormitories on the college campus.

A few boys in town delivered a newspaper called Grit, which was not a local, daily newspaper but rather a newspaper published for the entire USA a couple times every week. Grit advertised for paperboys in boys' magazines like Boy's Life. Grit printed articles with good news and practical advice, and it eventually went out of business.

The Lincoln Star newspaper routes in Seward were managed by Austin and Josephine Neihardt, who lived on the edge of downtown on Seventh Street next to Seward's water tower.

A bundle hauling truck drove from The Lincoln Journal/Star printing and distribution facility in downtown Lincoln to Seward early every morning, and then delivered Seward's bundles to a covered area along the back wall of the Seward Post Office. If the Neihardts were waiting when the bundle hauler arrived, they could receive the bundles directly from the truck into the back of their station wagon. (One morning the truck was very late due to a late press run, so my brother Steve bicycled to the Neihardts' house and was present when the truck delivered the bundles of newspapers there.)

The newspapers arrived in separately prepared route bundles that were bound with wire. Each bundle had a top bundle cap that was labeled by route number so the paperboy could identify his bundle.

The Neihardts loaded the bundles into their station wagon and drove to each paperboy's home and threw the bundle onto the yard. I often heard the bundle of newspapers hit my yard at about 5:30 a.m. and heard the Neihardts' car drove away. I got up, dressed and walked outside to prepare to deliver my route. Since my bundle was bound with wire, I had to cut the wire open with a wire cutter and throw the wire into the garbage. (On one occasion I got into trouble because a wire I had left in the grass wrecked the lawn mower of Alan Meyer.) Then I counted the newspapers and put them into my paperbags.

The paperbags were a pair of large, canvas pouches that were joined by a long, narrow, canvas neck. The paperboy would wrap the neck around the middle of his bicycle handlebar, and one pouch would hang down from each handle.

We Lincoln Star paperboys (and, I think, Omaha World Herald paperboys) all wrapped our paperbags around our bicycle handlebars. (Paperboys who delivered Grit wore their paperbags over their shoulders.)

I delivered about 20 newspapers. I think the number varied from about 17 to 23 during the course of my career. On weekdays the newspapers were thin and fit into the paperbags easily. On Sundays the newspapers were thick, and 20 newspapers filled the bags rather fully. (See a couple of my route lists in this Flickr set.)

I rode a one-speed bicycle that my Dad had bought me, used, soon after we moved into Seward. During my last year as a paperboy I rode a three-speed bicycle that I bought used.

It was dark every morning when I began. In the summer, the sky was turning light as dawn approached, but in the winter it was very dark for a while. I had a small generator attached to my bicycle's rear wheel-frame. As I rode, the revolving tire turned a mechanism on that generator, which lit a red light on the rear of my bicycle and a white light on the front. The street lights provided enough light for me to see where I was going, but the generated lights enabled car drivers to see me.

My route started just west of the water tower -- just west of the intersection of Seventh Street and Jackson Avenue. According to Mapquest, the trip from my house on Faculty Lane to the start of my route was about nine-tenths of a mile. After my family moved out to remote North Columbia Avenue, the trip from my home to the beginning of my route was about a mile and a half.

My route covered an area from Seventh street on the east to Forteenth Street (the swimming pool) on the west and from Bradford Street (the block north of the water tower) on the north to the south edge of town. Looking at the area on Mapquest and tracing the route within that area, I suppose that I traveled about two miles within my route area. So, the total distance I rode my bicycle was about a mile from my home (on Faculty Lane) to my route area, about two miles on the route itself and then about a mile from my route area back to my home -- a total of four miles. After my family moved to remote North Columbia Avenue, the total distance was about five miles.

My route ended at about the intersection of Eighth Street and South Street (a block south of McKelvie Road, which was Highway 34). My last customer was the Pollock family -- the father was Seward's sheriff, and one of the sons was my classmate Robert Pollock. From there I would ride through the town square on the way home. At that time of the morning, the smells from the bakery dominated the town square, so I often stopped to buy a maple bar in the bakery.

I suppose the entire trip took about an hour and a half on a normal morning. In the early part of my career I would leave at about 5:30 and return home at about 7:00. Gradually, I left later and later, so by the end I was leaving after 6:00 and returning after 7:30. Eventually I got so bad that I had to rush to get to band practice at school by 8:00, and some customers complained that I delivered the newpapers too late.

There was one old guy who lived toward the end of my route and who often sat out on his porch in the mornings when the weather was nice. He always tried to engage me in a conversation for as long as he could, talking about nothing. I didn't mind talking with him for a while, to be polite, but if it was on a day when I didn't have school. Otherwise I rarely had any contact with my customers while delivering the newspapers. (I will write about collecting money from my customers in my next article.)

There were a few homes with barking dogs, and some of those dogs did not get used to me even though I came every morning for four years. On one occasion a strange dog that was running wild bit me on my thigh. A man saw the dog bite me, and he took me to the hospital, where the wound was treated. The bite punctured my skin, but since the bite was through my jeans, the doctor figured that no dog saliva got into my body, so I did not have to get rabies shots.

I often encountered John Garmatz while he was delivering his own route. We would stop and talk. There was one other paperboy I often encountered, a public-school kid, and we would stop and talk too.

When the wind blew, it seemed that the wind always blew against me. When I was riding from my home to my route area, the wind blew against me. And then when I was returning from my route area to my home, the wind had changed direction and blew against me then too.

In the winters, delivering my route was painfully cold. I hated to go out into such cold, windy weather so early in the morning. I would get out of bed, dress and go lie down next to the heat vents along the floor in our house, trying to store up warmth before I went outside. I would wear two socks one each foot and two gloves on each hand. Sometimes by the time I returned home, I was crying because my fingers and toes hurt so much from the cold. I would rush into the bathroom and hold my fingers under lukewarm water for five minutes.

When it was snowing or raining heavily, one of my parents would drive me around on my route in our car. A couple of the roads at the south end of town (around the egg plant) were not paved, and they became quite muddy after a rain or after snow thawed. I would get mud stuck in the spaces between the tires and fenders of my bicycle and would have to push the mud out of those spaces with a stick every block or so.

One pleasure I had from delivering my paper route was that I saw the sun rise every morning. On some mornings when the weather was nice, the sunrise was beautiful, glorious. All the birds began singing as the sun rose. I would think to myself, surely there is a God, because our world is so wonderful at such moments.

I delivered most of the newspapers onto the front porches or into the area between the screen door and the front door. Most people on my route had front porches. A couple customers lived in apartments without porches and also without screen doors. Some customers had special wire holders or boxes next to their front doors. I did not roll up my newspapers with rubber bands, and I never threw the newspapers onto the customers' properties. I placed every newspaper carefully.

One morning I remember well was August 6, 1962, the day after Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bed. I had not known that news until I opened my newspaper bundle and saw the headline. I hurried through my route, eager to spead the news to all my customers. I placed each newspaper as artfully as I could on each customer's porch, imagining the impact the headline would make on each customer. (I have no such vivid memory of delivering my newspapers after the assassination of President Kennedy.)

Toward the end of my paperboy career I sometimes had problems with absent-mindedness while delivering my route. I could deliver my entire route without thinking about what I was doing. Sometimes I would end with one newspaper still in my paperbag, and so I would have to wrack my brain to re-think which house I might have missed, and I would have to back-track to a house to see if I had left a newspaper there. There were a few times when customers complained I had not left a newspaper at their home.

I ended my paperboy career in eighth grade, because then I was able to get a job washing dishes in the college cafeteria.

The boy who took over my route was the younger brother of two sisters who were in our eighth-grade class for a couple months. These sisters had got into some trouble with the police because of their promiscuous behavior, so they were enrolled at St John School to straighten them out. After a couple of months, as I heard, the police caught them one night with some men in a car, and so the two sisters were sent away to a juvenile-detention facility. Anyway, a few weeks after these two sisters disappeared from my eighth-grade class, the time came for me to teach a new boy to take over my paper route so that I could quit. The new boy lived in a house on North Columbia Avenue, between my family's house and the school, so I went into his house a couple times while I was waiting for him to get ready to go with me. He was a few years younger than me, maybe in about fourth grade. As we talked while delivering the route, I learned that he was the younger brother of those two sisters and that they no longer were living in the home. I did not ask him for any further details about his sisters' problems, and he did not tell me.

After I quit my own route, I substituted a couple times for other paperboys who had to leave town for a week or so on family vacations.

For many years after I ended my paperboy career, I had bad dreams about that experience. The dreams were about me forgetting to deliver newspapers to customers or about me promising to substitute for another paperboy for a while and then forgetting to do so. I still have these dreams sometimes, although more than 40 years have passed.

Herman Glaess, RIP

2009-08-17T06:44:00.005-05:00

Herman Glaess died in Lincoln on August 8 at the age of 83 . I have placed his photograph and obituary on my Family Glaess webpage.

After the Sylwester family moved out to remote North Columbia Avenue, we lived across a cornfield from the Glaess family. During the months when the corn was not grown high, it was about a five-minute walk between the two houses, so we were essentially neighbors. Mark Glaess was in our house many times, and I was in the Glaess house many times.

All the Glaesses had great senses of humor. They loved to joke and laugh with each other and with everyone they came into contact with. I think this characteristic began with Mr. Glaess, because I saw him joking and laughing many times.

How I Became a "Lincoln Star" Paperboy

2009-08-16T20:39:00.023-05:00

I delivered the Lincoln Star newspaper in Seward every morning from 1961 until 1965. For me, that was from the age of 9 to 13, or from fourth to eighth grade. Being a morning paperboy was a major part of my experience of growing up in Seward. I still remember my old paper route 44 years later, and I have retraced it whenever I have returned to Seward for visits.

I was recruited in 1961 by my classmate Ken Uhlig, who already had a paper route. Ken came to my house one day during the summer after we had finished third grade because he wanted me to take over his route so that he could transfer to a route closer to his home. He told me that I could earn ten dollars a month if I took over his route. This seemed like a huge amount of money to me, so I was eager to begin immediately.

Ken and I then discussed the opportunity with my parents. They thought it was basically a good idea, but they wanted more information. Arrangements were made, and a couple weeks later a Lincoln Star delivery manager traveled from Lincoln to Seward to visit our home for a couple of hours one evening. He interviewed my parents and me and explained the job. He then left me some printed materials to read.

As I recall, the Lincoln Star company had a rule that paperboys should be at least nine years old, so I had to wait until my birthday, November 6. However, I think that the rule was not enforced strictly. I remember that the delivery manager visited our home again several weeks after the first visit in order to complete the recruitment procedures, and I began delivering newspapers after that second visit.

One of the printed materials that the delivery manager gave me during the first visit was the The Newspaper Carrier's Handbook, which I studied thoroughly during the weeks between those two visits. My brother Steve Sylwester later became a paperboy too, and so he received this same handbook and has kept it all these years. When Steve told me he had this handbook, I was delighted because I still had a vivid mental image of it. When Steve then e-mailed me the scans, I recognized all the pages because I had read them thoroughly and repeatedly as a boy. I have uploaded the scans of all the pages into this Flickr set.

The delivery manager emphasized during both visits that I should try to sell more subscriptions to people on my route. Let's suppose, he explained, that a paperboy has a route delivering 25 newspapers, which takes him about one hour. The paperboy would earn about 30 cents an hour in that situation. If, however, the paperboy were able to sell 25 more subscriptions and thus increase his daily delivery to 50 newspapers, then he would double his earnings to about 60 cents an hour. Delivering 50 newspapers does not take significantly more time for the paperboy than delivering 25 newspapers, because they all would be along the same route that he travels anyway. This logic was clear to me, and so I studied the manual thoroughly because I was eager to double my earnings from $10 to $20 a month.

The The Newspaper Carrier's Handbook explained that this job would give me business experience that I could develop positively throughout my life.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.)

In the photograph on the left page, we see the young paperboy dressed in a suit and tie, fantasizing about becoming a successful businessman as an adult.

The following pages depicted the paperboy scouting for prospects on his route and then approaching those prospects to sell subscriptions.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Soon after the second visit of the delivery manager, I became a paperboy. I accompanied Ken Uhlig on the route for about a week in order to familiarize myself with it, and from then on I delivered the route by myself.

Of course, I also was given a Route List, which stated the name and address of each customer and whether the customer wanted daily and/or Sunday deliveries. Below is a Route List that my brother Steve has saved from his own route.

Click here to see the full list in larger sizes.

Mike Sylwester's Last Will and Testament

2009-08-07T07:37:00.088-05:00

During the last weeks of my eighth-grade year in 1966, I wrote a Last Will and Testament, bequeathing various properties to members of the seventh grade. Someone in the school staff typed it, duplicated it, and distributed it to all the seventh and eighth graders. Candy (Safarik) Connery kept her copy all these years, and she mailed it to me recently.

I don't remember whether I wrote this as an elaboration of a previous school tradition or whether I created it as a new idea. I do know that in following years the eighth-grade classes wrote similar bequeathals to the seventh-grade classes, and these were printed in the school newspaper. For example, here is what the newspaper printed in 1968.

Candy, who works as an elementary-school teacher, told me that she introduced this tradition to the classes she taught at her school.

As you will see when you read the entire document below, I was an obnoxious little bragger when I was in eighth grade. Nevertheless, I do think that the document has stood the test of time. After the document, I have added some explanations.

THE LAST WILL AND
TESTAMENT OF
MIKE SYLWESTER
CHAMPION
OF
PERFECTION

I, Mike Sylwester, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bestow my possessions to all my worshippers of me, their idol. The reasons for the passing along of my blessings are as follows: (1) you can’t take it with you, (2) I already have too many good qualities, (3) unless the seventh grade is left some good characteristics it just might turn into a pack of juvenile delinquents, or pirates, or teachers, or even worse, they might turn away from their fetishization of me. So wasting no more time and paper, I shall proceed with the endowing of my God-given gifts.

(Large images of the whole document are on this Flickr webpage.)

To Lawrence Brauer I do hereby leave a cookbook of a thousand ways to make sloppy joes and a picture of me so when I have deceased from the presence of this earth he can bow to it.

To Laura Battermann and to Catherine Giesselmann I leave to each of them a book of Polack jokes.

To Catherine Giesselmann I also bequeath a picture showing all my muscles bulging in all their glory to be shared with all other female admirers on demand.

To Mark Glaess I dower my nose, that is to be separated from my face exactly one hour, eight minutes and forty—nine seconds after my death to insure proper freshness, so that he may add it to his already huge collection.

To all seventh graders in common I bequest my great good luck except for Karen Luebbe as she has already enough luck for the whole school to share.

To James Blomenberg I pass along my great speed so that he may run from mobs of screaming, admiring females if he is ever reincarnated as Mike Sylwester for leading a good life.

To the Heitgerd twins, I present equal shares of my modesty.

To all girls sitting behind me in music (Diane Neujahr, Marcia Middendorf, etc.) I leave ankle-length dresses to prevent them from pulling each others dresses up and embarassing pure virgin boys like me.

To Mark Klammer, my perfect equal, I leave 1 / 1,000,000,000,000,000 of a gram of each of my qualities so that he may truthfully boast of being greater than me.

To Mr. Rupert Giesslemann I leave $7.29 to all be spent on tranquilizers for my five brothers and one sister who are not yet in the seventh grade and I also leave him the warning “the worst is yet to come.”

To Ronald Rocker I leave him my height so that he may be approximately 9 3/4 feet tall. This gift has been awarded to him so that he won’t be shorter than Marcia Heitgerd.

To Donna Niemann I present a sign to be worn around her neck being plainly printed with the inscription: “Stay away from me!”

To all seventh-grade girls I leave my muscles and athletic ability so that they may win more volleyball games and please Mr. Giesselmann so that he might get a raise.

To each seventh grader I leave 17¢ to be wisely invested till the 17¢ has grown to $29.58. After the class pools this money and comes out with $1,300.42 it is instructed to build a memorial to me as the greatest St. Johnny ever.

Such endeth the last will and testament of Mike Sylwester. All remaining stuff will be buried at 134.1 degrees longitude and 72 degrees latitude on the western hemisphere. Over this plot grow a cabbage plant. After 18 weeks look under the cabbage leaf and you will find my successor who will be as great as me.

Now I will add my explanations.

The overall context for my writing this Last Will and Testament was that the seventh-grade class at St John School during the 1965-1966 school year was sooooo imature! Although I was in eighth grade, I had frequent contacts with the seventh graders, because our two grades participated together in choir, in sports, in lunches, and in various other activities. In choir, the seventh graders constantly squirmed around in their seats and burped and farted and giggled. In sports, they cut corners when they ran laps and whined about exercising and practicing. At lunch they ate with their elbows on the table and chewed with their mouths open. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. They were sooooo immature, that it was difficult to imagine that they really could even begin the eighth grade after the summer vacation.

When I wrote my Last Will and Testament, my main idea was to give these seventh-graders some encouragement and guidance. I wanted them to believe in themselves despite their blatant immaturity. All of my fellow eighth-graders already had given up completely on the entire, pathetically immature seventh-grade class, but I decided that if I at least pretended to expect some eventual improvement, then maybe at least a few members of that creepy class might begin to make a few baby steps in the right direction.

When all the rest of the eighth-graders had hearts as hard as stone toward the seventh-graders, why did only I have a soft spot in my own heart toward them? Part of the reason was that I was the youngest member of the eighth-grade class and was the smallest boy. The two images below show me posing with my confirmation class (Candy sent me the photograph.)

The bottom image shows me standing between two other runts, John Garmatz and Ann Marie Holtz. The two runts on the outside of this image were public-school kids, I think. (By the way, I had the darkest skin of everyone in my class. Sue Curtis was the girl with the darkest skin. I figured that we should marry and have kids, because I was interested to see how dark our kids' skin would turn out to be. I'll write more about this cosideration in a future article.)

Anyway, because I was relatively young and short, I could look at the seventh-graders and think to myself: There, but for the grace of God, go I. I was able to identify with them and to pity them, not just disdain and mock them like the rest of the eighth-graders did. Of course, I had to keep my kind, sappy sympathy to myself, but I felt I nevertheless might express my secret sentiments indirectly through my Last Will and Testament.

Of course, some of the seventh-graders had touched my heart somewhere along the way, and I never forgot those moments.

I began my Last Will and Testament with Larry Brauer.

I wrote:

To Lawrence Brauer I do hereby leave a cookbook of a thousand ways to make sloppy joes and a picture of me so when I have deceased from the presence of this earth he can bow to it.

Larry Brauer touched my heart one day when we were in about sixth and fifth grades, respectively. I still was living on Faculty Lane. A bunch of local kids were playing around behind Faculty Lane, on Hillcrest Drive. We had an encounter with a crazy older kid (I think he was a public-school kid we didn't know), and the encounter ended with that kid throwning a rock that hit me in the head. (I don't remember what the argument was about; I think the other kid was just crazy.)

The rock's impact cut my head, and I started to bleed a little. I started to cry, but I bravely tried to stop from crying. It didn't hurt much, but since I could not see the cut on my head, only the blood, I was scared that I was hurt badly.

Larry walked up to me and told me that the cut was not bad, just a little blood, and I shouldn't worry about it. I still was half-crying, so Larry suddenly told me a joke:

Larry: Hey, do you know what's the happiest day of the year?

Me (sniffling): I don't know. What?

Larry: Christmas Eve, because all the girls get a free goose!

Then Larry burst out laughing. I didn't know what it meant that all the girls got gooses, but I did figure out that it was something naughty, so I burst out laughing too and got over my worry about my injury.

I had not known Larry much before that day, but from then on I knew and appreciated that he was an extraordinarily funny and jolly person. When I was in his company, I always watched what he would say and do. His laugh was infectious, so all he had to do was to laugh, and I would laugh too.

The last year or two when I was in St John School, I had two running jokes with Larry. One joke involved Sloppy Joe sandwiches. I don't remember exactly what the joke was, but we talked repeatedly about how much we loved to eat Sloppy Joe sandwiches.

The other running joke involved us doing a little bow toward each other when we met. It was a Chinaman bow. We each held our two hands on our belly and locked the two hands' fingers together and then grinned and bowed slightly to each other. I don't remember how or why that little ceremony between us got started, but it lasted for many months.

Anyway, that explains why my Last Will and Testament began with Larry Brauer and about how, after I was gone from St John School, he still would be able to bow to a book of recipes of Sloppy Joe sandwiches instead of bowing to me. Larry probably has forgotten all all of this, but it still is part of my memory.

Many years later, when I was married, I used his girls-and-gooses joke often with my first two wives. (My third wife is Lithuanian and would not get the joke.) When my wife would get very angry with me about something and would get into a state of holding a constant grudge and giving me the silent treatment, I would approach her cautiously and ask, "Hey, do you know what's the happiest day of the year?" That is all I would have to say, because she immediately would burst out laughing, despite her fury. This same trick worked very well on both those wives.

Then my Last Will and Testament addressed Laura Batterman and Cathy Giesselmann:

To Laura Battermann and to Catherine Giesselmann I leave to each of them a book of Polack jokes.

To Catherine Giesselmann I also bequeath a picture showing all my muscles bulging in all their glory to be shared with all other female admirers on demand.

They were a typical pair of seventh-grade girls -- cute but dopey -- who hung out together and sometimes wandered into my orbit. I told them Polack jokes to make them laugh.

How can you tell you're at a Polack wedding?

The bride has braided armpits and everyone is wearing clean bowling shirts.

I myself had a more sophisticated sense of humor, based on several years of playing my Smothers Brothers records repeatedly.

Tommy: And then after the wedding, we all went to the conception.

Dick: No, not the conception! The reception!! The reception!!!

Tommy: I must have gone to the wrong room.

When I told Laura and Cathy a Polack joke, then they laughed and even howled, but if I told them a sophisticated Smothers Brothers joke, then they responded with puzzled looks and then hesitant, fake laughs, just pretending to get the joke.

The "picture showing all my muscles bulging in all their glory" was a photo montage that I had created the previous summer, when I had had lots of idle time. I had cut out a photograph of my head and a photograph of the body of a muscle-man from a weight-lifting magazine and then had pasted them together on a sheet of paper. I had cut and pasted the pictures as precisely as I could, so it did look at first glance like a photograph of me with an extremely muscular body. Then I had decorated the margins of the sheet with stars and lines, and I wrote some words at the top and bottom. I don't remember all the words, but the most prominent were MIKE SYLWESTER, SUPER STUD. Then I photocopied the entire sheet, so it looked more like a poster instead of a montage. I then showed the product to my guy friends, and they all got a big laugh out of it.

One day my mother saw my poster lying somewhere in our house, and she was offended by the words SUPER STUD. She thought that made my poster extremely vulgar and told me not to show it around any more. She said: "Do you know what a stud is? It's a male horse used for breeding! Is that what you are labeling yourself for everyone?!"

Since my Mom was so mad about my poster, I did put it away, but of course I did not destroy it. I kept it hidden until late during my eighth grade, when for some reason I felt compelled to show it to Laura and Cathy. Unfortunately, I don't remember the circumstances or their reactions, but apparently Laura reacted one way and Cathy reacted another way. Apparently that is why I bequeathed a Polack-joke book to both Laura and Cathy but bequeathed my muscle picture only to Cathy. The reason for that distinction is lost in my memory.

Then my Last Will and Testament turned to Mark Glaess:

To Mark Glaess I dower my nose, that is to be separated from my face exactly one hour, eight minutes and forty—nine seconds after my death to insure proper freshness, so that he may add it to his already huge collection.

Of course, I found the word dower in a thesaurus. Even now, 43 years later, I am unfamiliar with that word, so I had to look it up. It is a synonym for endow.

In the summer of 1964 the Sylwester family, Klammer family and Stelmachowicz family moved their houses from Faculty Lane to an isolated location on North Columbia Avenue. To the east (front) of our houses was a corn field, to the west a wheat field, and to the north a horse pasture. To the south were a couple, scattered houses occupied by adult couples we didn't know.

When we looked across the cornfield in front of our houses (when the corn was not grown high), we could see the house of the Glaess family, which had moved north of town at about the same time as we did. During the times of the year when the corn was not growing, we could walk through that field in less than five minutes. When the corn was growing, it was easier to ride a bicycle around the field. Anyway, Mark Glaess was our closest neighbor and so he came over to our house a lot to play with the Sylwester and Klammer boys. (The oldest Stelmachowicz kids were all girls.)

Mark was a good friend of me and my brothers. On Sunday evenings he sometimes would stay for our family's Sunday evening meal, which always consisted of ice cream covered with chocolate sauce and cookies. Then he would go home and tell his parents he had eaten lots of healthy vegetables and fruits. He had a good sense of humor, so I felt entitled to kid him publicly about his big nose.

Then my Last Will and Testament turned to Karen Luebbe:

To all seventh graders in common I bequest my great good luck except for Karen Luebbe as she has already enough luck for the whole school to share.

She was a very pretty seventh-grade girl who was a cheerleader. I was on the school basketball team, so she cheered for me whenever I was playing in a game.

That's me kneeling at the lower left corner. You can see the photo in larger sizes at this Flickr webpage.

I did not get to play much in the games. I mostly sat on the bench, and during those times I enjoyed watching Karen do her cheerleading routines right in front of me. I thought she was lucky in life to be so pretty and to be a cheerleader.

Since she was a Luebbe, I assumed she must live on a farm. Therefore I imagined she rode horses and took care of cute farm animals.

There were a couple occasions, not during basketball games, where I happened to be sitting near her, and I tried to engage her in a conversation. I told her I thought she seemed to be lucky in her life. (I didn't tell her she was pretty.) She would just flash me a smile.

She never was talkative with me, but she did not act stuck-up. She was reticent but nice. So, I mentioned her in my Last Will and Testament, in order to tell everyone I thought she was lucky in life. Whether or not she really was lucky was irrelevant. I was just trying to get her attention again for a moment.

Then my Last Will and Testament mentioned James Blomenberg:

To James Blomenberg I pass along my great speed so that he may run from mobs of screaming, admiring females if he is ever reincarnated as Mike Sylwester for leading a good life.

I don't remember why I mentioned James Blomenberg in relation to running and to girls. He was on the basketball team too; in the team photograph above, he is kneeling in the center. Maybe the mention had something to do with him likewise being a benchwarmer with me during the basketball games and watching the cheerleaders.

James was a funny guy I liked. I wrote about him already in a previous post.

Then my Last Will and Testament paid attention to a gang of four girls (clockwise from upper left -- Margaret Heitgerd, Marcia Heitgert, Marcia Middendorf, and Diane Neujahr):

To the Heitgerd twins, I present equal shares of my modesty.

To all girls sitting behind me in music (Diane Neujahr, Marcia Middendorf, etc.) I leave ankle-length dresses to prevent them from pulling each others dresses up and embarassing pure virgin boys like me.

Since my voice had not broken yet, I sat near a lot of girls in our seventh-eighth-grades choir. Even though I always tried to pay attention and be serious during our choir practices, these pesky seventh-grade girls constantly squirmed around and whispered and giggled. What a bunch of jabbertrons they were!

(Marcia Middendorf had a brother, two years younger, named Mark. About 13 years later, in about 1979, I was standing in line in the cafeteria on Bolling Air Force Base in Washington DC, putting food on my plate, when the guy next to me said, "Hey, aren't you Mike Sylwester? My name is Mark Middendorf." He had noticed my last name Sylwester on the name tag on my Air Force uniform shirt. So, Mark and I had lunch together and talked. He too had joined the USAF, and he was being trained to disarm bombs. We were stationed on the same base, but we never saw each other after that.)

Then my Last Will and Testament addressed Mark Klammer:

To Mark Klammer, my perfect equal, I leave 1 / 1,000,000,000,000,000 of a gram of each of my qualities so that he may truthfully boast of being greater than me.

The Sylwester and Klammer families were neighbors out on remote North Columbia Avenue. Both families had a lot of boys in the same age range, and we always played together.

I always liked Mark Klammer and enjoyed spending time with him. He was funny and fun-loving. He could make a lot of hilarious sounds. He could talk like Donald Duck. He could whistle extremely loud. He had a funny laugh, with a kind of cough in it. He could play the drums well and loudly. I intend to tell some stories about him in future articles in this blog.

Then my Last Will and Testament addressed Ronnie Rocker:

To Ronald Rocker I leave him my height so that he may be approximately 9 3/4 feet tall. This gift has been awarded to him so that he won’t be shorter than Marcia Heitgerd.

Like me, Ronnie Rocker was a small guy whose voice had not broken and who therefore had to sit next to that bunch of bratty girls in the choir. I tried to take this young fellow under my wing and help him learn the ways of a mature eighth-grader.

Ronnie Rocker had one of the coolest names -- RONNIE ROCKER -- in the history of St John School, and his yearbook photo displays the cocky attitude that I helped instill into his personality in preparation for eighth grade.

Finally, my Last Will and Testament addressed Donna Niemann:

To Donna Niemann I present a sign to be worn around her neck being plainly printed with the inscription: “Stay away from me!”

I don't know remember at all why I wrote this. It seems rather cruel now, but I assume it was based on some joke between us at that time.

Gene Meyer wrote:

I laughed out loud concerning your description of Larry Brauer. His laugh was infectious, indeed. Larry was a kindred spirit.

By the way, Larry was a product of a single-mom home. His dad died and his mom had three kids to raise.

His older brother, Denny Brauer (in my brother Alan’s class), became famous as a bass fisherman. He was on the Wheaties Box a few years ago (and naturally PETA protested).

He also had a show on ESPN, Bass Class with Denny Brauer, in 1998. Here is Denny's current web site, and here is another one to look at.

Graduation Photographs

2009-08-06T20:35:00.026-05:00

Candy (Safarik) Connery mailed me some pictures and other stuff that she has kept all these years. It seems to me that the photocopier she used had its contrast set at maximum. The photocopies are rather black and white, with little gray. I did like, however, the individual graduation photographs that she sent with this high contrast.

Some eighth-grade students paid to be photographed professionally in a studio when they graduated from eighth grade. They distributed the photos to their classmates as souveniers. I don't remember that I myself had such a studio photograph done. I think most of the students in our class did not have one done.

Below are the photographs that Candy received and kept. These students were in the classes that graduated from eighth grade in 1965, 1966 and 1967.

If you click the student's name next to the photo, you will go to the Flickr webpage for that photo. There you can click ALL SIZES to see the image in larger sizes. Feel free to download any of the images to your own computer.

	Debbie McGrew, 1966
	Scott Brinkmeyer, 1966
	Steve Roettjer, 1966
	Kathy Boeka, 1966
	Bill Schwich, 1966
	Susan Curtis, 1966
	Debbie Niederschmidt, 1966
	Patricia Neujahr, 1966
	Brenda Prange, 1966
	Brenda Prange, 1966
	Ann Marie Holtz, 1966
	Diane Beckmann, 1966
	Gene Meyer, 1966
	Jeanette Tonniges, 1966
	Brian Dittman, 1967
	Carol Rouse, 1965
	Diane Brauer, 1965
	Susy Gleisberg, 1965
	Ruth Klammer, 1965
	Debby Whatsername, 1965
	Rex Gerwick, 1965

Bohemians

2009-08-04T07:34:00.031-05:00

Kids living in Seward in the 1960s used the word bohunk like kids everywhere use the word doofus now. As an insult, we would say What a bohunk he is! or You bohunk!. The word indicated that the person was stupid and uncouth.

The word bohunk comes from the word Bohemian and is primarily a slang name for a member of that ethnic group -- like the word kraut is for a German or the word spic is for a Spaniard. When we Seward kids used the word bohunk in the 1960s, though, we usually did not mean that the person was a Bohemian, but rather that he was a doofus.

The relatively common and abstract use of this word in Seward was, however, a result of the historical circumstance that Seward was a mostly German town surrounded by a heavily Bohemian countryside.

The country Czechoslovakia consisted of three parts -- Bohemia on the west, Moravia in the middle and Slovakia on the east. The Bohemians and Moravians speak the same language, which is called Czech, and the Slovaks speak a very similar language, Slovak. Before World War One, these three regions were separate parts of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. After World War One, they comprised one sovereign country, Czechoslovakia. In 1992 Czechoslovakia split into two countries; Bohemia and Moravia became The Czech Republic, and Slovakia became independent Slovakia.

During the 1800s and early 1900s, a large number of Czech-speaking Bohemians and Moravians emigrated to the United States and settled in southeast Nebraska. The 1920 population census of the USA found that about one-eighth of all the US residents of Czech ethnicity lived in Nebraska. The numbers from that census were used to annotate a map showing how many Czech-speaking families lived in each Nebraska county. Below is a portion of that map.

As you can see Seward County had about 100 Czech families, whereas Saline County and Fillmore County to our south had 1,675 Czech families and Butler County, Colfax County and Saunders County to our north had a total of 3,010 families. The map does not show a census count for York County, but the number there was relatively high too. Seward County was populated overwhemingly by German immigrants, but was surrounded by heavily Czech populations.

The west bank of the Missouri River that runs along Nebraska's southeast border is called The Bohemian Alps. Ted Kooser, Nebraska's Poet Laureate, has written a book titled Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps about the Bohemian Alps.

The book Czechs in Nebraska provides this explanation for the heavy settlement of Czechs in southeast Nebraska:

At the time our state [Nebraska] was being settled by Czechs, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota (to name but a few states in the same section) also were open to settlers. Why then, did they come to Nebraska in such large numbers?

Several forces combined to bring this about. One was the homestead law, the principal cause. A settler in Nebraska in 1854 could take 160 acres and after living on it six months, buy it from the United States for $1.25 an acre. ... In 1862 the free homestead law was passed and went into effect in 1863. Under this law a settler could take 160 acres for but $14.00 filing fee, and have it free by living upon it five years. In 1873 the timber claim act was passed. Under it a settler could get 160 acres by planting 10 acres of it to trees and taking care of them for eight years. All three of these laws were in force from 1873 to 1891, and under them a settler could in a few years get 480 acres of land.

... Czechs are, in the main, an agricultural people and Czechoslovakia, like all old-world countries, is overpopulated, so its soil-loving but soil-starved inhabitants flocked to our shores in quest of fertile, virgin land. This applies to those who came to the middle west. The first Czech rural settlements in this country were formed in Wisconsin and the next in Iowa (as to the middle west) and the first Nebraska pioneers came from either of those states. They were followed by friends and relatives in this and the mother country.

Czech newspapers were a great force in aiding immigrants to find new homes. These papers in those days (and some have yet) had a department devoted to communications from subscribers, and such communications often dealt with the subject of good locations. Their importance, as a lever, can easily be appreciated, when we consider that their readers knew little or no English.

The history of the counties most heavily settled by Czechs shows that they began coming here between 1865 and 1880. Prior to 1871 there was no Czech paper here and the leading journal was the weekly Slavie in Racine, Wisconsin .... The first pioneers wrote letters to friends, or for publication in the Slavie, for the purpose of attracting others, and it was but natural that immigrants, not knowing English, placed utmost reliance in their own people and readily followed them into newly-established colonies.

Colonization clubs also were formed. The one in Chicago, in the late sixties, was called Ceska Osada (Czech Colony) and numbered over five hundred members. In the early seventies a club of this kind existed in Omaha, called Slovania ... The object of both clubs was to find land for settlement, through investigating committees.

In 1871 Edward Rosewater founded a Czech paper in Omaha, the Pokrok Zapadu (Progress of the West), although at first it was more in the nature of a land advertising sheet. It was supported by the Burlington and Missouri and Union Pacific railroad companies .... The paper was set up in Iowa City, Iowa, where the Czech weekly Slovan Americky [American Slav] was being published ... and mailed (free) out of Omaha to whatever addresses of prospective settlers could be gathered. It may be mentioned here that a German paper Beobachter am Missouri [Observer on the Missouri River] was published under the same circumstances. ....

Vaclav L. Vodicka (born in Techonice, Bohemia...) came to Omaha in 1868. From 1877 to 1885 he was a land agent for the Burlington & Missouri Railroad Company. By that time most of the good homesteads had been taken and railroad lands were the next best thing. The Burlington offered special inducements to immigrants, for people did not like to settle far away from the Missouri river. Settlers on this company's land were refunded freight charges paid on immigrant movables and passenger fares paid for their families. Besides that, a discount of twenty percent was given on the first payment applied on the principal. .... No other railroad company in Nebraska offered any special inducements. What wonder then that Mr. Vodicka, who was of irreproachable honesty, who was one of them and spoke their language, in whom they had the utmost faith, helped to settle many Czechs and established several colonies?

When a colony was effected, even though it consisted of a mere handful of pioneers, its numbers were soon augmented by friends and relatives, in this and the mother country. Personal letters and communications published in Czech papers, plus the attraction of cheap, good lands, produced a veritable influx all through the seventies. Mr. F. J. Sadilek, Wilber, Nebraska, a pioneer and competent authority, estimates that up to 1880 fully three-fourths of the entire number of Czech immigrants came to our state.

The same book says also that the first Czechs in Seward County came from Saline County, which is the adjacent country to the south. Czechs began to accumulate in Bee, nine miles north of Seward, in about 1910.

Most of the Czechs in Nebraska were Roman Catholics, and they established parochial schools that taught in the Czech language. The book lists these Czech schools in counties near Seward county:

Brainard in Butler County -- a ten-grade and high school, with school of music in connection. Built in 1915, consecrated August 23, 1916, and sessions commenced September 5, 1916, with an attendance of 147 pupils. Later two grades were added (Junior High School) and in 1917-1919 there were 200 pupils. At present about 150 day and boarding pupils. Czech is still taught half an hour daily.

Dodge in Dodge County -- an eight-grade school, built in 1911. Taught by Sisters de Notre Dame. 126 pupils attend.

Prague in Saunders County -- taught by three Sisters de Notre Dame and one secular teacher. 120 pupils attend.

Schuyler in Colfax County -- a school for music, art, foreign languages, etc. Taught by Sisters de Notre Dame.

Wahoo in Saunders County -- a twelve-grade school. Business course taught also. Taught by Sisters de Notre Dame. 164 day pupils and sixty-one boarding pupils attend.

The schools at Brainard, Prague and Wahoo are grade and high schools, that in Schuyler is for music, art, foreign languages, etc., the rest are grade schools.

In Bohemia and Moravia, the cities were populated predominantly by German-speaking people and the rural areas were populated predominantly by Czech-speaking people. In Slovakia, the towns were occupied by Hungarian-speaking people and the rural areas by Slovak-speaking people. The German speakers and Hungarian speakers looked down on the Czech and Slovak speakers as culturally inferior.

It's therefore no wonder than that the ethnic-German population of Seward, Nebraska, used the word bohunk in the casually insulting manner that I heard and used the word during my childhood.

The Czech-speaking town that was closest to Seward was Bee, which is about nine miles to the north. Its population of about 200 was almost entirely Czech. The prominent families have Czech names -- Ruzicka, Barcel, Kudrna, Stava, Dolezal, Plisek, Pelan, Sedlak, Kavan, Styskal, Makovicka, Krenk, Zavodny, Bushek, Rezac, Bila, Vampola, Vondra, Pavel, and Policky.

One of my classmates, William Reynolds, lived in Bee. The name Reynolds is English, not Czech, but William acted just like a ... bohunk.

His hero was one of the Three Stooges -- Curly Howard.

William always loved to do Three Stooges humor. He loved to laugh nyuk nyuk and hum the theme song from the Three Stooges television show -- a shem and a dem, a shem and a dem. He loved to hit his head on things. He would run across the room and bonk his head against a wall. I think his behavior was normal for the bohunks in Bee, but it always seem strange to us, his non-Bohunk classmates in Seward.

Most of my friends and I had more sophisticated, urbane senses of humor. We preferred the Smothers Brothers and Bill Cosby. However, we couldn't help ourselves when William did his low-class, slap-stick, bohunk Three Stooges jokes -- we laughed.

In St John school's list of graduates, I found the following names that certainly or probably indicate Czechoslovak ancestry.

Adamek
Chloupek
Dobrusky
Dolak
Dutkanicz
Hromas
Karel
Kovar
Mahalek
Matulka
Moravec
Oborny
Podolski
Safarik
Shimek
Sloup
Souchek
Svoboda
Turek
Urban
Urbanek
Vlasin

These might be families that Czech-speaking when they immigrated to the USA and then moved into Seward. Or they might be families that Germanized while still in Europe.

In 1975 my brother Steve Sylwester married Koe Heinicke in Seward, so I visited Seward for a few days to attend the wedding. My family had moved away from Seward in 1968, and I had visited Seward only a few times since then.

During this visit in 1975, I dropped by the Marxhausen home for a visit, and during my conversation with Dorris Marxhausen, I mentioned that I had studied Czech during the previous years. I had attended summer school at the University of Brno in 1973 and then had taught a first-year Czech class at the University of Oregon. I regularly read Czech newspapers and novels, and so I spoke Czech quite well.

Mrs. Marxhausen mentioned that she knew some people of Czech ancestry in other towns in the area, and she asked me whether I would like to meet some of them to discuss their continued use of the Czech language. I said I would like to do so, and on the next day she told me that she had arranged for me to meet a friend of hers who spoke Czech

Mrs. Marxhausen drove me about a half hour to some town, the name of which I have forgotten. We did not stop in the town, but rather drove into the surrounding countryside, to a farm. There, she introduced me to a woman, maybe about fifty years old, who lived in a farmhouse. Mrs. Marxhausen introduced us and left, saying that she would return when I called that I was done.

I spent the afternoon talking with this woman in Czech. I don't remember the details well, but basically her ancestors had immigrated from Czechoslovakia several generations earlier. Her grandparents and parents had married within the Czech-speaking community, and so she herself had grown up speaking Czech. She herself had married a Czech-speaking man, and they had spoken Czech with their own children.

Now, however, the language was dying out in her town. One factor that had maintained the language was that the local Roman Catholic church always had a Czech-speaking priest, who conducted the church services and chuch activities in Czech. In the late 1940s, however, the last Czech-speaking priest had left and had been replaced by a priest who did not speak Czech.

She introduced me to her son, who was about in his mid-twenties. He too spoke Czech, but not as well as his mother. He would speak a sentence or two of Czech and then switch into English. He did not speak Czech in a sustained manner.

He and his mother both spoke Czech with many Englishized words. Their grammar was Czech, but their vocabulary was very English. For example, the Czech word for barber is holič, but I remember that they said barber. Likewise, the Czech word for car is vůz, but I remember that they said car. They thought my Czech was somewhat comical because I used the real Czech words, which they considered to be old-fashioned -- they said I talked like a recent immigrant who still did not know American ways.

The son drove me around the area for a few hours. We would stop in at local bars and drink beer and play pool. Whenever he recognized someone who still spoke Czech, he would introduce me, and we would have a brief conversation in Czech, so that I could see that people in that area really did still know how to speak Czech.

The Czech language looks funny to Americans, because it has diacritical marks over many of the letters and because many of the words do not seem to have vowels. For example, our sentence Stick a finger through your neck is Strč prst skrz krk in Czech. Here is the Lord's Prayer in Czech:

Otče náš, jenž jsi na nebesích,
posvěť jméno Tvé.
Přijď království Tvé.
Buď vůle Tvá jako v nebi, tak i na zemi.
Chléb náš vezdejší dej nám dnes.
A odpusť nám naše viny;
jako i my odpouštíme našim viníkům.
A neuveď nás v pokušení, ale zbav nás od zlého.
Nebo tvé jest království i moc i sláva na věku.

The word Bohemian is used also to refer to people who live an artsy, unambitious, poor life. This use of the word developed in France during the 1800s, when a lot of Gypsies migrated from Bohemia to France and called themselves Bohemians. The English word Gypsy developed in a similar manner, when people of that same nationality -- they call themselves Roma -- migrated from Egypt to England and called themselves Egyptians or the slang equivalent, 'Gyptsies.

Family Knows His Guns

2009-07-27T07:54:00.001-05:00

Sylvester Knows His Guns, born in [year?]. He is a Northern Cheyenne Indian who succeeded Ralph Redfox at the Center of Indian Ministries and Studies at Concordia.

We need more information about this family.

The Sylvester Knows His Guns family lived in Columbia Avenue House 03 from [year?] to [year?].

Family Potratz

2009-07-27T07:08:00.003-05:00

Kevin Potratz, born in [year?]. He works in Concordia University's Computer Science Department.

Janelle Potratz, born in [year?].

Zachary Potratz, born in [year?].

Jacob Potratz, born in [year?].

Jenna Potratz, born in [year?].

Brianna Potratz, born in [year?].

The Potratz family has owned and lived in Columbia Avenue House 03 since 1999.

Family Redfox

2009-07-27T07:07:00.000-05:00

Ralph Redfox, born in [year?]. He began as a student at Concordia and then became the coordinator for the Center of Indian Ministries and Studies (CIMS). He is a Northern Cheyenne Indian.

Marcia Redfox, born in [year?].

Childrens' names and birth years?

The Redfox family lived in Columbia Avenue House 03 from 1970 to [year?].

Family Schulz

2009-07-27T07:06:00.000-05:00

Marlin Schulz, born in [year?]. Professor of Education at Concordia Teachers College.

Donna Schulz, born in [year?].

We need more information about this family.

The Schulz family lived in Columbia Avenue House 03 from 1968 to 1970.

Family Serck

2009-07-27T07:05:00.001-05:00

Leah Serck, born in [year?]. She was a Professor of Education at Concordia.

We need more information about this family.

The Serck family lived in Columbia Avenue House 03 from [year?] to [year?].

Numbers of LCMS Schools Outside Seward

2009-07-26T18:40:00.009-05:00

In my recent posts I wrote pessimistically about the factors that might affect current and future states of religious schools. According to the statistics that the Lutheran Church / Missouri Synod (LCMS) presents on this website, however, Lutheran schools still seem to be prospering in many places. There Synod still has:

988 elementary schools with 120,684 students

and

108 high schools with 18,867 students.

The "average" LCMS elementary school has nine full-time teachers and 133 students, so St John School is a little larger than this average school. (The "average" LCMS high school has 15 full-time teachers and 216 students.)

The table below, which shows total counts of students per grade, indicates that more students have been enrolling in recent years (or that students drop out as they advance to higher grades):

1st	14,184
2nd	13,514
3rd	13,350
4th	13,041
5th	12,800
6th	12,632
7th	12,193
8th	11,805
9th	4,836
10th	5,000
11th	4,717
12th	4,314

The next table shows the students' ethnicities:

White	82%
Black	7%
Hispanic	5%
Asian	3%
Other	3%

The next table shows the religious affiliations of the students' families:

LCMS operating congregation	39%
Other LCMS congregation	5%
Other Lutheran church	3%
Non-Lutheran church	36%
Un-churched (46,395)	17%

The next tables show average annual cost of education per student:

Elementary Per Student	$5,570
High School Per Student	$9,034

The next tables detail the funding sources for the schools.

Funding Sources of
Elementary Schools

Congregation Budget	40%
Tuition and Fees	49%
Other	11%

Funding Sources of
High Schools

Congregation Budget	7%
Tuition and Fees	68%
Other	25%

Average Annual Fees
for Elementary Schools

Members	$1,960
Non-members	$3,250

Average Annual Fees
for High Schools

Members	$5,604
Non-members	$6,513

The next table shows the enrollments of the largest elementary schools:

St Luke's Lutheran School, Oviedo FL	868
St. John's Lutheran School, Orange CA	826
St. Paul's Lutheran School, Orange CA	804
Hales Corners Lutheran, Hales Corners WI	689
Trinity Lutheran School, Litchfield Park AZ	686
Trinity Lutheran School, Spring TX	667
St. Peter Lutheran, Macomb MI	572
Salem Lutheran School, Tomball TX	555
St. Lorenz Lutheran Frankenmuth MI	532
Grace Lutheran School, Winter Haven FL	530
Salem Lutheran School, Orange CA	530
Shepherd Of The Hills, San Antonio TX	529
Immanuel Lutheran, Macomb MI	527
St John Lutheran School Bakersfield CA	508
West Portal Lutheran School, San Francisco CA	505
Christ Community, Kirkwood MO	501
Trinity, Roselle IL	493
St Michael Lutheran School, Fort Myers FL	492
Good Shepherd Lutheran, Collinsville IL	490
Redeemer Lutheran School, Austin TX	485
St. Peter Lutheran School, Arlington Heights IL	485
Our Savior Lutheran School, Livermore CA	477
Christ Lutheran School & PS, Phoenix AZ	475
Royal Redeemer Lutheran, North Royalton OH	442
Immanuel Lutheran School Saint, Charles MO	441
Concordia Lutheran School, San Antonio TX	435
Trinity Lutheran. Utica MI	425
St John Lutheran School, Ellisville MO	421
St Paul Lutheran School, Lakeland FL	418
Trinity Lutheran School, Hicksville NY	415
Grace Lutheran School, Pocatello ID	414
St Paul Lutheran School, Boca Raton FL	407
Concordia Lutheran School, Fort Wayne IN	409
St. Peter's Lutheran School, Columbus IN	408
Zion Lutheran School, Brighton CO	407
Trinity Lutheran School, Delray Beach FL	393
Trinity Lutheran School, Bloomington IL	391
St Paul Lutheran School, Glen Burnie MD	389
Rochester Central Lutheran, Rochester MN	389
Holy Cross Lutheran Academy, Sanford FL	387
Grace Lutheran School, Escondido CA	386
Lamb of God Lutheran School, Las Vegas NV	384
Trinity Lutheran School, Waconia MN	383
St Paul Lutheran School, Jackson MO	380
Immanuel Lutheran School, Palatine IL	378
Christ Lutheran School, Norfolk NE	375
Abiding Savior Lutheran School, Lake Forest CA	372
Immanuel Lutheran School, Twin Falls ID	371

The next table shows the enrollments of the largest high schools:

Lutheran High School Of Orange County, Orange CA	1318
Milwaukee Lutheran High School, Milwaukee WI	737
Lutheran South Academy, Houston TX	711
Faith Lutheran Jr/Sr High School, Las Vegas NV	707
Concordia Lutheran High School, Fort Wayne IN	682
Lutheran High School, North Macomb MI	628
Lutheran High School South, Saint Louis MO	527
Lutheran High School, West Rocky River OH	461
Baltimore Lutheran School, Baltimore MD	438
Rockford Lutheran High, Rockford IL	430
Walther Lutheran High School, Melrose Park IL	431
Long Island Lutheran, Brookville NY	408
Concordia Academy, Roseville MN	404

The next tables show average salaries:

Average salaries at
Elementary Schools

Administrators with BA	$45,662
Administrators with MA	$49,376
Full-Time Teachers with BA	$30,320
Full-Time Teachers with MA	$35,390

Average salaries at
High Schools

Administrators with BA	$54,049
Administrators with MA	$57,270
Full-Time Teachers with BA	$35,683
Full-Time Teachers with MA	$36,888

There are many more statistics at the LCMS website.

I was suprised to see how many Lutheran schools with large enrollments still exist. Many of them are located in large cities, but many are located in towns with unfamiliar names. The annual fees for attending LCMS schools average $1,960 but St John School's annual fee is only $1,000. It seems to me from these numbers that St John School does have the potential to increase its enrollment significantly.

I do not intend to research and write any more articles about St John School's enrollment numbers, but if someone has more numbers or explanations to offer, I will post them in this blog.