Chapter II
The Ripening Years - 1869-1920
Pastor Duerschner's efforts and entreaties on behalf of the Osage Point Church proved effective. After at least twenty-five years of dependence on pastors who headquartered elsewhere, the church on the Osage was finally to have a resident pastor -- the Reverend Rudolf A. Pfister.
Pastor Pfister was born June 14, 1834, at Oetwell, Switzerland and studied at St. Chrischona. Before coming to this community, he served Mittlefranken (near Saginaw), Michigan and Farmington, Iowa. While serving at Farmington, he had changed his synodical affiliation. Pastor Pfister had belonged to the German conference of the Iowa Synod of the predominantly English-speaking church body called the "General Synod." In 1869 the entire German conference, both pastors and congregations, left the General Synod because of a feeling that this body was "unLutheran" in some regards.
It has not been possible to determine precisely when Pastor Pfister was called to the congregation on the Osage. The notice of his acceptance of the pastorate of this parish in the "Kirchenblatt" (official newspaper of the Iowa Synod) reads simply: "Pastor Pfister took a call to the former daughter congregation of Pastor Duerschner at Osage, Missouri." A "Salary List" containing 20 names pledging $87.50, 11 bushels of wheat, and 7 of corn for the support of Pastor Pfister is dated May 9, 1869. The July 1, 1869 "Kirchenblatt" carried the notice of his installation on the second Sunday after Trinity. He was installed by Pastor Duerschner of Stringtown with the assistance of Pastor Helbig. What appears to be the communion registration for the day (June 6) lists Pastors Duerschner, Helbig, Pfister, Mrs. Pfister and Katharina Koehler. Interestingly enough, this installation notice describes St. John's as "on the Osage" (on der Osage). On the same page of the "Kirchenblatt." it is reported that $5.15 has been received "from the congregation of Pastor Pfister in Osage" for the St. Sebald Seminary.
The presence of a resident pastor in the congregation aided the work here. During the last half of 1869, 10 children were baptized, two funerals held and one marriage solemnized (Conrad Goetschel and Margaretha Mueller). The next year Pastor Pfister confirmed 19 people, 13 on Palm Sunday and 6 on Pentecost Sunday (listed as "1st Pentecost Day," to distinguish it from Pentecost Monday or 2nd Pentecost Day"). The ages of the confirmands ranged from 14-19, although one was 36 years of age.
Although a congregation had existed here since at least 1844, Pastor Pfister apparently attempted to put better order into its existence. In the earliest extant record book of the parish, there is a congregational constitution or "Gemeinde Ordnung" dated 1869 and containing 28 articles. The first article pledged the parish to the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments as the only source and rule for faith and life. Other articles dealt with the calling, ordination and installation of pastors, membership in the congregation, church discipline, regulation of divine services and matrimonial affairs, and regulations for the parish school. Unfortunately, the space provided for the names of subscribers is entirely blank. Apparently the constitution was submitted to the congregation but never adopted. Consequently, no list of "charter members," in the modern sense, is available. The only means for determining membership during this period is the "salary list" mentioned above and the records of communion attendance which are still in existence.
Pastor Pfister did not remain at St. John's long. Apparently he left some time during the second half of 1870. He was still at St. John's on 3 July 1870 when his son, Paul Theodore, was baptized.
Before Pastor Pfister's departure, his successor was already "in the wings," so to speak. Ludwig Christoph Schober, born 2 June 1848 in Dorf Guetingen, Bavaria, had entered Wartburg Seminary at Saint Sebald, Iowa in 1864. Evidently in response to Pastor Duerschner's desire to expand Iowa Synod work in the Jefferson City area and eventually form an Iowa Synod conference hereabouts, Inspector George Grossmann, president of the Iowa Synod, had sent Scholar Schober to this area to investigate the possibilities for growth and report his findings to Inspector Grossmann. In a letter to Inspector Grossmann dated January 19, 1870, while apparently staying with Pastor Duerschner at Stringtown, Scholar Schober reported that he was pessimistic about the possibility of organizing a new congregation that would be able to support a pastor. Schober felt that the organization of a "filiale" or "daughter congregation" could accomplish the desired results. Apparently Scholar Schober's mission was to be of limited duration since he mentioned that if he were to stay longer than half a year he would have to get along on limited funds as traveling expenses were very high. The "mild climate" was. however, agreeable to Schober's health, and he liked the area fairly well.
Pastor Pfister's leaving apparently prompted the decision to send Schober back to the area with which he was already at least partially familiar upon graduation from the seminary. Schober was ordained and installed at St. John's by Pastor Duerschner in the latter part of 1870 and on November 23 of the same year married the former Franziska Roiter of Versailles, Missouri.
Already in late 1870 the ministry of St. John's reached out into other communities to the east as four baptisms are listed as taking place in Linn. In 1871 there were more baptisms at Linn and members of four families are listed as registered for a celebration of Holy Communion apparently held there.
It would seem that during Pastor Schober's early ministry at St. John's the parish was to erect the first church building on the present property. In a report to the Synod dated 25 May 1871, the vice president of the Iowa Synod's Southern District, Theodor Koeberle, expressed the joy he had at the installation of a new pastor and the dedication of a nice, new, little church for St. John's parish. According to Mr.Otto Walther, who attended school in this building after it was converted to school use upon completion of the new brick church, this early building was of log construction, which later was covered by weather boarding. By late 1870 or early 1871 then, St. John's had a small parsonage and church. Pastor Koeberle's report indicates that relationships with other Jefferson City area Lutherans were not good at this time. He compares St. John's situation with that of the Iowa Synod parish in Altenburg, Missouri which was also located in the midst of a number of Missouri Synod congregations, which he claimed slandered and defamed St. John's. Possibly "the Missourians" resented St. John's calling of Iowa Synod pastors. This resentment probably stemmed in part from the difficulties at Stringtown. The fact that St. John's had most likely been served by Missouri Synod men in its days at the Osage Point Church probably heightened the friction.
Pastor Schober served St. John's until 1875. On August 20th of that year, Zion Church, Ottowa Lake, Michigan, extended a call to the young pastor of St. John's and he accepted it. Pastor Schober served as spiritual father to the people of Zion Church for 32 years before accepting a call to St. Peter's parish, New Haven, Michigan. In 1947 Pastor Schober passed into the rest of the people of God at the age of 98 years.
After Pastor Schober left, St. John's was served for three years by Pastor H. Wesche, who was the pastor of the Trinity-Zion parish. Since Pastor Wesche was of the Missouri Synod, St. John's was again brought under the influence of that Synod, after having two resident pastors from the Iowa Synod. Pastor Wesche must have been instrumental in obtaining the next resident pastor for St. John's since the next pastor would also be from the Missouri Synod.
The next shepherd of the Schubert flock, like the last resident pastor, was a recent seminary graduate. The Reverend Robert L. Falke, born 29 June 1855 in Meissen, Saxony, was graduated from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 1878. He was ordained and installed at St. John's on the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (August 4, 1878) by Pastor Wesche, with the assistance of Pastor Conrad Vetter of Honey Creek. One month later (September 5, 1878) he married the former Marie Fricke of Arenzville, Illinois. Even during Pastor Falke's pastorage, St. John's had some connection with the Iowa Synod. The records of the Iowa synod show that H. Wiebke attended the meeting of the Iowa Synod's Western District as a delegate from St. John's in 1881, while Pastor Falke of the Missouri Synod was pastor. That same year, Pastor Falke accepted the call to Salem Church, Forest Green, Missouri where he was installed on September 4, 1881. Interestingly enough, after serving at Forest Green, Pastor Falke was installed at St. Paul's Church, New Melle, Missouri, on July 13, 1902, where he served until retirement in 1928, and where he is buried. His successor at New Melle, the Reverend Edgar Wein, would become the pastor at St. John's on August 31, 1947.
Before completing his theological education at St. Sebald, the next pastor of St. John's, the Reverend Conrad Mutschmann-Gebert, had studied at the Missions Seminary in Neuendettelsau, Bavaria. An 1877 graduate of Wartburg Seminary, Pastor Mutschmann had served only one other parish (St. John's, Milford, Illinois) before coming to St. John's. He was installed at St. John's late in 1881 and tended the flock here until he died of heart disease on June 2, 1885, just 15 days short of this thirty-third birthday. A dispatch was sent to his brother, the Reverend Friedrich Mutschmann, who was attending the Iowa Synod convention in Toledo, but it arrived too late for him to attend the funeral. Pastor Mutschmann's death left Mrs. Mutschmann, the former Mathilde Otto, with four small children. Pastor Mutschmann is buried in our cemetery along with two of his children who died in infancy, Frieda Magdalena and Ferdinand Richard Emil. Little is known of Pastor Mutschmann's ministry here except the baptisms, confirmations, marriages and funerals recorded in the Parish Register and that an organ was purchased for the church from the Washington, New Jersey firm of Daniel F. Beatty for $71.50 in late 1881.
St. John's was again without a resident pastor. To fill this vacancy, the parish reached across the ocean to call another seminary graduate, the Reverend Ernest Frederick Geyer. Born April 19, 1865 in Greiz, Germany, Pastor Geyer was called to St. John's while he was still in his native land. Upon graduation from the Neuendettelsau Seminary, he came to this country and was ordained and installed at St. John's in 1886.
The minutes of congregational meetings begin some months after Pastor Geyer's arrival. The first meeting on record (January 1, 1887) broached the problem of cemetery regulations. Discontent had arisen over the custom of burying people in chronological order, since some people desire burial next to their spouses. The difficulty was resolved by allowing the strict chronological sequence to be broken for a $10 consideration. Should a family plot be desired the fee would be $25.
Since the pledge committee was successful in its efforts to raise funds, a March 3, 1889 meeting resolved to build a new church. Tentatively, the church was to be built of brick, 50 feet long and 30 feet wide with a 10 x 10 apse for the altar on the side end and a 75-80 foot tower on the west end. A choir loft was to be built on this west end, with a stairway leading to it and the tower. "Since the entire building will be a massive one, it should have a roof corresponding to it - a metal roof." Heating for the Gothic structure was to be by means of two stoves. Mr. William Vogdt, a Jefferson City architect, was engaged to draw up the plans. Messrs. ? Urban, H. Schubert, F. Walther, M. Weith, M. Schneider, J. Schmutzler, and George Kiessling were to serve as the building committee. By January 2, 1890, the church was completed except for cleaning up, the installation of gutters and drains, and the stringing of fences. Building costs amounted to $4,900, without the interior furnishings. Mr. Ernst Braun of Jefferson City was paid $208 for 26 pews and $150 for fashioning the pulpit. By October 5, 1890 a debt of $1,300 remained. The liquidation of this debt remained a matter of concern for the next few years, since interest on it amounted to almost $70 a year. Through diligent effort, this debt was reduced to $100 by late 1895. When the new church was complete, the old church built around 1870 was used as a school house. Mr. William Schwab, who went to school in this log building (after it had been weather-boarded), recalls that the pupils sat on church benches. Reading lessons were held at the benches, but the pupils sat on chairs around a table for their lessons in geography and arithmetic. In the January 1, 1892 meeting, the acquisition of regular school desks was discussed, but the matter was tabled until a later meeting. School desks, along with blackboard and maps, were finally purchased in 1912.
A delegation from Immanuel Church, Centertown, appeared at the January 1, 1892 meeting to request that Pastor Geyer hold services in their parish once a month, since Pastor Fikensher had left Centertown. After a lively debate, the request was granted by a small majority vote, for a term of one year. A year later, the Centertown parish sent Pastor Geyer a regular call, asking that he come to them every three weeks and on the "second holydays" (Pentecost Monday, Easter Monday, Second Christmas Day). On those days, St. John's was to have afternoon services. Reluctantly, St. John's agreed to the arrangement. Pastor Geyer would receive $10 a year less from St. John's (making his salary here $350 a year). In addition, St. John's would keep one-third of the "first holyday" offerings, which otherwise would have gone for synodical purposes. The same meeting authorized a small addition to the barn, for which Pastor Geyer paid $10 out of his own pocket.
Since no German instruction could be given in the public school, the parish school term was lengthened from 6 to 9 months in 1894. The next year reveals an interesting facet of life at St. John's during its earlier years. On April 21, 1895 the proposal was made to introduce the Iowa Synod "Kirchenbuch" in place of "the dry and deficient" Missouri synod "Gesangbuch" (hymnal). This minor item is of interest since St. John's had been served by Iowa Synod men since at least 1868, except for the decade 1875-1885. Nevertheless, it was still using the Missouri Synod hymnal. After a lengthy discussion, it was deemed advisable to retain this hymnal for the present.
By 1895 parish school instruction had been lengthened to two winter terms of six months each. The interior of the 1868 parsonage had been renovated in 1888, but by 1897 it had simply become too small for the pastor's family. It contained only two small rooms and a still smaller kitchen. The need for a new parsonage was acknowledged and it was resolved to circulate a subscription list for the purpose. When about $1,200 had been pledged, building was to begin. By April 4, 1897, $1,003 had been pledged and it was resolved to give out a contract for a $1,000 frame house. The arrangement of the house was left up to the pastor. Mr. Carl Dierkses presented his plan for a $1,000 house on May 2, 1897 and was awarded the contract. Building was to begin in August and all pledges were to be paid by October 15th. The location of the new parsonage proved a lively contest. A portion of the men wanted the new house to stand on the same spot as the old, so that a new cellar would not have to be dug. The other part, especially the pastor, wished the house located nearer the front of the lot so as not to be so far out of line with the church and school. The difficulty was resolved when the pastor led those opposing this relocation to inspect the old cellar. When its dilapidated condition was seen, it was readily agreed that a new cellar would be a necessity and the new location was approved.
About the time that the new house was finished, a special meeting was called to cancel the dual-parish arrangement with Immanuel, Centertown, because of dissatisfaction over afternoon services at St. John's. When Pastor Geyer pointed out that it would be unjust to accept the $75 which the Centertown congregation had collected for the parsonage if he were not allowed to serve Immanuel any longer, it was decided to continue the arrangement until Easter, 1898. On January 4, 1899, a special meeting was held to hear the Pastor's report on an inquiry received from the Western District president of the Iowa Synod about Pastor Geyer's willingness to accept a call to another congregation. Pastor Geyer conditioned his remaining at St. John's on three points: (1) acceptance of a congregational constitution, (2) closing of the saloon near the church on Sunday's, or at least during the hours of divine services, and (3) improvement of the salary situation. The congregation resolved "to do our best" on these three points and petitioned Pastor Geyer to remain.
After 14 years of faithful service at St. John's, Pastor Geyer accepted a call to Millard, Nebraska in May, 1900. His was the longest pastorate in the history of the parish.
Later in the same year that Pastor Geyer left, the Reverend Carl August Luecke arrived to be the spiritual father of St. John's. The first congregational meeting during his pastorate was held January 1, 1901. At that time, a secretary was chosen for the parish. Until that time, the pastor had served as voluntary secretary, recording minutes and taking care of correspondence. Under the new arrangement, the secretary would record minutes of the meetings, keep the financial records and take care of all written work. For this work, the secretary was to receive an annual compensation of $5.00. At the same meeting, the Elders were charged with finding someone to clean the church and tend to its heating "for a little salary." The pastor was requested to read the congregational constitution which he had composed, but this matter was postponed for several weeks. When it was to be the subject of a special meeting several weeks later, the matter was indefinitely postponed. Instead of considering the constitution, the meeting authorized the pastor to hold divine services "at Osage, according to his own best judgment, perhaps once a month, or just as he wanted to, but only on afternoons," and the Elders to "see to" fencing the cemetery. On February 26, 1905, Pastor Luecke presented a call he had received from Lohman and a request of the president that California and Centertown be served permanently by the pastor of St. John's. Under the circumstances, the parish saw fit to reinstate the dual-parish arrangement with Centertown, which St. John's had abruptly terminated in 1897-98, and to include the California congregation.
The following year repair of the church tower "and its ornamentation" was turned over to the elders for immediate attention. It was probably at this time that the ball and weathervane, which appear on the earliest pictures of the church tower, were replaced with the cross now there.
On July 28, 1912, Pastor Luecke presented a call he had received from Avoca, Nebraska and explained that he could not serve the parish any longer, "if it would not now, in its entirety, accept a simple Lutheran congregational constitution."
Rather than accept a constitution, the congregation deemed it advisable to give Pastor Luecke a peaceful release. A few months after Pastor Luecke's departure, his successor, the Reverend Alfred Finkbeiner, born 18 May 1871 in Moudon, Switzerland, arrived. An 1894 graduate of Wortburg Seminary, Pastor Finkbeiner had served parishes in Nebraska and Kansas before coming to this community. Shortly after Pastor Finkbeiner's arrival, a special meeting was held for "the adoption of a Christian, Lutheran congregational constitution." After a model constitution set up by the Iowa Synod, a constitution identical to this model, with a few modifications for local requirements, was adopted. Forty-three years had elapsed since Pastor Pfister drew up the first Gemeine Ordnung (congregational constitution) for St. John's in 1869.
During the next year, the congregation was incorporated under the laws of the State of Missouri and a new organ, and a new alter, was purchased for the church.
On January 18, 1916, Pastor Finkbeiner asked for a peaceful release to accept the call to another congregation. His request was granted. Pastor Finkbeiner was 98 years old this year (1969).
Only a few months elapsed in early 1916 before Pastor Ernst Kaatz arrived to replace Pastor Finkbeiner. In July of that year, the voters of St. John's decided to borrow money to finance the reconstruction of the school. The log building, constructed circa 1870, had been weather-boarded some years before, but the entire structure now needed replacement. The new school was to be built along the lines of the old, 18x28x10 feet. Messrs. Carl Walther, Frank Walther and Albert Hofmann were chosen as the building committee. At the same time, a new wire fence with iron posts was to be strung along the road in front of the church. This work was to be done by the members themselves during the late summer. In the fall, a Missions Festival was to be held by the church "with a picnic for the children."
World War I brought changes to St. John's. Pastor Kaatz was granted a leave of absence for an indefinite period so that he could study the English language. Two dozen English hymnals and an organist's edition with musical notation were purchased for an English service, which was to be held on the last Sunday of each month. A patriotic program was held to celebrate Decoration Day 1918, the proceeds going for War Savings Stamps.
The leaving of Pastor Kaatz in 1919 brought to a close a distinct period in the history of St. John's. Since 1868, the parish had been served mostly by pastors of the Iowa Synod, although the congregation had never affiliated with that synod.
The congregation called for a pastor repeatedly throughout 1920 - to no avail. It was the end of an era.
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