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Susan is our new WELS Archivest. This intelegent woman has a daunting task. She is organizing the WELS archives. This invovles organizing the old and getting them prepared for long term storage. It sounds like a super interesting job, but a very huge one.
I had opportunity to speak with Susan while at convention. She isn’t only interested in the existing archives, but is interested in growing it. She knows people and churches have treasures in thier basements and attics and wants to help preserve them for future generations.
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I have a personal interest in Susan’s project. In fact, I have a book she doesn’t have! 🙂 It is the Gelchte de Minnesota Synode (The History of the Minnesota Synod) which was published in 1909. It is full of interesting information.
For instance, it has a picture of the parsonage where my Grandma Clara Hinderer Baur was born. It was a Sunday morning. Great Grandma Hinderer was giving birth in the top floor of the church/parsonage. Her husband was preaching in the downstairs where the church was.
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I have posted the index pages of the book here. Let me know if your church is listed and your would like a scan of the relevant page. It is in German, but you should be able to desipher enough to recognize if your church is listed.
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I’ve been working on family geneology and have found family archive material which relates to church history. I’m going to share some of them with you.
Recently, St. John’s Lutheran Church of Cedar Mills, MN celebrated thier 125th anniversary. I got connected with the lady in charge of organizing it and we made some interesting discoveries.
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Val discovered this picture in a church photo almbum. She share it with me to see if I knew anything about it, specifically the altar ware.
I did! I grew up with this altar war. This is a picture of my home church in Edmond’s WA.
Why did Val want to know?
She had also found this picture… with the same altar ware.
She also found in St. John’s church minutes that the altarware had been donated to my Dad, a son of the congregation, when he started a mission congregation in NE in the 50s.
Dad took the altarware with him to Edmonds, Wa. and then to New Ulm, MN when he retired from the ministry. It was in Mom’s attic.
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Mom loaned the altarware to St. John’s for the celebration. The question then arose what to do with it. It seemed only right that it be returned to St. John’s archives.
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This is just an example of how “forgotten” artifacts revealed parts of the histories of three congregations. My sister discovered she was baptized in the same baptismal font our Dad was… in different churches separated by miles (MN-NE).
St. John’s had a picture of the old parsonage complex, but didn’t know what the buildings were. I found a picture of Grandma’s that had the buildings labeled.
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St. John’s today
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Many of us have forgotten books sitting on book shelves which contain insight to Syndos history. This book reveals the students of DMLC’s first graduates of the DMLC theology class.
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Sometimes family photo albums reveal part of a church’s history. This is a picture of my Dad’s school (Dad is in the front row). The man is his grandfather who filled in why my grandpa was sick. The church records weren’t sure who he was.
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Some family pictures just reflect a part of a congregation’s life.
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Old papers are of interest. This is Northwestern Preparatory School when it was still known as Northwestern University. The paper is the predecessor to the Northwestern Lutheran.
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I know I’m not the only family to have connections with the Apache Land mission school. My Grandma taught there in 1913.
Letters are history too. To bad some of them are in German. This does have the signatures of some “important” men from Synod history.
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Sometimes we find unique items. This book was written by Pastor Gustav Harders. He was very instrumental in the Apache Mission and wrote some very good books on his work there.
Northwest Publishing House published this book in 1912. It was written by Pastor Harders. I contacted NPH and they don’t have any records of ever having published it. It sure would be neat if somebody could/would translate it.
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I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you. I could share stuff with you for the next ten years.
The point I wish to make is you are all part of your congregation’s history. That makes you part of Synod’s history. Please consider sharing your treasures with the archives. I think it is a great way to preserve them.
In closing, if anybody out there is capable and willing to translate German documents I would love to talk with you! I can be reached at jim@biblegeek.org.
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The hardest part of any project for me is knowing when to end it… and then ending it. This Synod Convention project hasn’t been any different. It isn’t because I’m so great. It just always seems there should be something more to be learned… I do plan on starting it up again when the Report for the Twelve Districts is released in preparation for next summer’s District Conventions.
Thanks for your interest in my past efforts. 🙂
– Jim
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