Presentation
Introduction
Thank you very much for that introduction. It’s been my pleasure the last four or five years to work with Central Church in its sesquicentennial celebration, which was all during 2008.
And while I was helping through that, particularly, reading the minutes of the congregation up until 1918, which are all in German, how interesting a story could be told from the -- the fact that this church began as a group of German immigrants and ended by the time of World War I as a -- as a thoroughly American mainline congregation.
This presentation, then, is really based upon the experience of Central Church. But there are plenty of comparisons with other German immigrant churches in Jefferson City and elsewhere, of course. As you remember, probably, from your history, in the 19th Century much of social life as well as cultural life was organized around churches. They were the center of our family life outside the family. So churches play a very important role in our history in the 19th Century.
There were -- there were five German immigrant religious organizations in Jefferson City in the 19th Century. One, of course, is Central Church, Central Evangelical Church. One would be Trinity Lutheran Church. A third would be, of course, St. Peter’s Catholic Church, which -- in which the German immigrants were mixed with Irish immigrants and immigrants from other countries. A fourth was the small German Methodist congregation, which merged with the English-speaking Methodist in 1917 and is no longer in Jefferson City. And the fifth would be, and sometimes we forget about this, is Temple Bethel, the Jewish congregation, which as I can figure out was all of German immigrants when it came or maybe second generation Germans when they were established in Jefferson City.
At the end, I will make some comments comparing the experiences of Americanization of the -- of Central Church with the Americanization process going on now of immigrants into the United States.
Four Property Components
Okay. The next slide. The immigrant churches had four property components. One, of course, would be the church, itself. This picture was taken in the 1870s, about ten years after the Civil War ended. And you see the church on the right. In the middle is the parsonage and on the left was the school, the parochial school of the Evangelical Church with a fence, of course, enclosing the property as was customary to keep out straying animals. An unpaved street in the foreground. None of these buildings is standing today. All German immigrant churches, whether they were in the country or whether they were here in the city, had those three and the fourth component would be the parish cemetery.
Evangelical Cemetery
The Evangelical Cemetery, this one, was established in 1873. It was at the end of Washington Street, the south end of Washington Street, only two and a half blocks from the church, so it was very close to the church. And it was totally removed in 1965 when Highway 54, Highway 60 -- Highway 54 South, now it’s called west -- was put through it. And it goes directly across the cemetery. In the background you can see one of the houses on Linden Drive and to the far right, perhaps, some on the south end of Broadway Street just before Broadway goes under the highway, today.
This cemetery, this parish cemetery, has been completely relocated grave by grave in Riverview Cemetery and still carries the name of Evangelical Cemetery, not United Church of Christ but Evangelical Cemetery.
Okay. Next. The only thing remaining from that cemetery is a stone arched bridge at the south end of Washington Street, which few people know about. It’s still there; it’s on private property today, built by German immigrant stone masons in a remarkable way. And you may not be able to see all the details under the bridge, but it’s still there and it’s probably the oldest bridge we have remaining from that time period. Perhaps, the other hand-made stone arched bridge in Jefferson City is the one that conducts Ware’s Creek under the Missouri-Pacific railroad tracks into the Missouri River.
When the explosion of the tanker took place a couple years ago under the Jefferson Street Bridge over Highway 54 a plume of flaming fuel ran down this ravine under this bridge apparently causing no damage but the firemen who were running around trying to keep the fire plume from going farther into Washington Park did a lot of damage to the stones around the bridge.
Central Church Roots
Okay. Next. I want to make sure you understand where the Central Church has its roots. It has roots in both reformed and the Lutheran traditions in Europe. The Lutheran, of course, comes from Luther in the 1500s in Germany and spread into Denmark, Sweden, Norway and then in the United States it’s most strong in the Midwest. The reformed church, which comes from Calvin and Zwingli and it was in Germany and Switzerland, went down the Rhine Valley into the Netherlands and when it moved into Scotland it was John Knox. It wasn’t called the Scottish Reformed Church, but became known as the Presbyterian Church. In the United States the German reformed churches mainly were in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
In 1817, the Prussian king forced the union of these two traditions, of these two faiths, into a single denomination, which became known as the Evangelical. Mainly in Prussia, as it says on there, and in western Germany. Now, of course, not all the Lutherans and not all the reformed joined in on this, if they were in other parts of Germany particularly. But when these people from this union church -- that’s the key word, union church -- came to the United States, they came largely into the Midwest around the St. Louis region both in Illinois and Missouri.
This is where Central Evangelical Church comes from, is from that union church. As it says up there, it’s hard for me to read from here but it says it was organized, as I just mentioned, in 1858, last year being its sesquicentennial.
It’s important to remember, then, that the Evangelical Church was a church of inclusion. It’s a church that was formed by the attempt to bring all Protestant Germans together emphasizing the commonality of their faith rather than the various differences that had arisen through different interpretations of scripture. So the Evangelicals recognized not only Luther’s catechism, but also the Heidelberg catechism of the Reformed church. Now, there are plenty of people in the Lutheran and the Reformed traditions who did not accept this, as I mentioned, and so the Lutherans formed their own congregations and so the Reformed also have their own congregations primarily in Pennsylvania.
Okay. Next. This rather complicated slide shows you the name changes that occurred. And we won’t spend much time on it. But the denomination, as we have it here in Missouri, started off in the 1840s as the Kirchenverein des Westens -- the Church Society of the West -- and it moved through the German Evangelical Synod to the Evangelical Synod of North America. Then they dropped the word German and eventually came in union with the Reformed church. The Evangelical and Reformed Church, the E & R, and then 50 years ago united with the Congregationalist of New England to become the United Church of Christ. So we’ve got these name changes which causes some problems. I will keep referring to the church as it was known in the 19th Century as the Evangelical Church.
Okay. Next. I’m going to organize this analysis over these four topics. We have patriotism, public education, participation in civic life such as business and then, finally, the acceptance of an English language.
Patriotism
Okay. Next. That introduces this topic, then. Next. Patriotism. This is a copy of the first page of the church minutes when the church organized in -- on January 1st, New Year’s Day, 1858. And it’s interesting that every year when the annual congregational meeting took place it was always on January 1st, all the way into the 20th Century. Today, it would interfere with bowl games on TV, I’m sure.
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHROEDER: Unlike the Catholics and the Lutherans of the German immigrants, the Evangelicals wanted to set up a purely American church, not a transplanted German church. Because the churches in Germany had authoritarian control, and these Evangelicals coming over wanted to have their own control of their church. They didn’t -- they came not only for political liberty in this country. One of the great reasons for the immigrants from anywhere coming to this country, but also came for religious liberty also.
As late as 1950 after the defeat of dictators, during World War II and the Iron Curtain had fallen, Reverend Damm of the Evangelical Church recalled the denominations goal of religious liberty, quote, “Here is the foundation of democracy, the equal status of every believer of the gospel. Dictatorship is dictatorship whether it comes from the Kremlin or from church authorities.” So it meant that every person in the church was of equal stature just as in American government, every person was equal under the law. Every family had an equal vote. Usually represented by the man in the family, but if there were widows, widows had a vote in the church as well.
You’ll see in the middle of that Charles B. Maus, M-A-U-S, one of the founding members of the church. He and the Lohmanns also -- Maus and the Lohmann families whose properties make up the core of the Jefferson Landing Historic Site were charter members of the Evangelical Church.
Okay. Next. Patriotism. When the Civil War broke out, Jefferson City was a southern city. It had in the governor’s mansion a southern sympathetic governor who eventually left the governorship or was expelled and took -- set up a government in exile elsewhere. And the leadership of Jefferson City was in the hands of slaveholders or at least those who sympathized with the south and with the institution of slavery.
Here were these German immigrants, the Lutheran Church had not been formed at this time and this church accommodated the Lutherans as well as the Evangelicals. This church was composed of immigrants who not only wanted to work for the abolition of slavery, but they also wanted to preserve the Union.
And when the Civil War broke out, this congregation, only in its fourth year, and in the second year of the church -- it didn’t have the steeple at that time -- bought what the minutes call a “Union flag” and posted it right out in front of the church, really in defiance of all the leadership in the city. And it strikes me, what a bold move it would be for these immigrants who had just been in this country a few years, but who felt so strongly for their country that they would put up a Union flag publicly in front of their church when the town itself really did not approve of that stance.
Reverend Joseph Rieger
Next. The first pastor, Reverend Joseph Rieger, himself, of course, was an immigrant. He had come to the United States much earlier in the 1830s and had lived with Congregationalists in New England and learned the English language. The Congregationalists were -- were helping establish churches in the west. Missouri was the west at that time, in the 1830s, ‘40s and ‘50s. And when Rieger came to the middle west, to the St. Louis region, he stayed for a while in the home of Elijah Lovejoy, the abolitionist newspaper man who was printing all sorts of broadsides and leaflets about abolishing slavery. This is in the 1850s. And shortly after Rieger left the Lovejoy household, Lovejoy was assassinated. This was in Alton, Illinois. And his press, so we were told, was thrown in the river by people coming across from the St. Louis region. So Rieger got strongly informed about the conditions of slavery in -- in the middle west. And his congregations that he helped form were in Missouri, which was a slave state.
As the first pastor and the formative pastor in the church, of course, he had a great influence upon his congregation and found that his congregation fully supported his activities. During the war Rieger took care of wounded soldiers and sick soldiers, maybe not wounded but sick, in his parsonage, which had five little Rieger children living in it at the same time. So it was quite a crowded little house.
He also administered in Union camps around Jefferson City, taking care of wounded soldiers with -- he had, in this, the help of a doctor, doctor Nicholas DeWyl, D-E-W-Y-L. This is spelled in the German handwriting as it would be phonetically D-E-V-I-L, Devil. And when I first saw it, I thought, “Hey, how’d the devil get into this record book here?”
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHROEDER: And then I realized they were talking about DeWyl. But Nicholas DeWyl was a doctor. He had been educated at the University of Bonn in Germany. He came to Cole County and when the war broke out, came to Jefferson City and used his medical practice with Rieger, the two hand-in-hand working, as I said, both in the parsonage and in camps.
We know a lot about this because there were biographers of Rieger. The fellow who succeeded him was a vicar and lived with Rieger in the parsonage and wrote memoirs about what Rieger did in Jefferson City. Not only that, but his widow Henrietta Rieger left a statement about his -- her husband’s work in Jefferson City.
Rieger also took care of refugees coming in to Jefferson City from the bushwhacking in the Ozarks. In fact, he married some couples who are identified as refugees or displaced persons.
Southerners, in fact, gave their jewelry to Pastor Rieger for safekeeping during the war. You’ve heard a lot of stories about how people had to hide their money and their jewels from -- from people who would be running around through the neighborhoods. But the southern folks actually trusted Rieger with their jewels, with their money, because of his good reputation, even though he was on the other side.
War Veterans
Twenty-nine Civil War veterans, some of the Mexican War veterans were members of Evangelical Church. That was probably more than half of the male membership of the church. So it was composed, to a large degree, of Civil War veterans.
Next slide. World War I was not much different. Fifty-six members of the congregation served in World War I in one capacity or another. This photo was taken the year after the war was over in 1919 when they celebrated an American Legion Day. It’s remarkable how these young men, all of them with German surnames, and all with German heritage, were able to volunteer for the war and come back, all but three of them, in tact and make new lives in Jefferson City or elsewhere.
The congregation, at that time, raised $50,000 in liberty loans or war bonds to show their patriotism for their country, while also being criticized in the press for being Germans. And at the same time they were doing this, they were raising $40,000 for their own Sunday School building. So they were committing themselves to $90,000 in indebtedness. Now, if you multiply that by inflation from 1918 to today that’s probably in the -- it’s going to be up to $700,000 or close to a million dollars that this congregation would have been going into debt, both for the war and then for their own building purposes at the same time.
Next. This is the bulletin; the church had a monthly newsletter, at the time, in English, the Evangelical Central Church Messenger. And I’m sorry this is not in color because that flag is in very brilliant red, white and blue. Now, 1919 -- you’ll notice the Pledge of Allegiance without the “Under God” in it. In 1919 there wasn’t much color in the press. No newspapers had color. The National Geographic Magazine, itself, didn’t introduce color until the 1930s. So here we have 1919 where this congregation spent the money to put in color, the American Flag, to celebrate their young men who had come back from the war.
Education of Freed Slaves
Okay. Next. Move to another topic here. Okay. Next. Back to Mr. Rieger, Pastor Joseph Anton Rieger. After the Civil War was over and Rieger and millions of others had achieved the goal of preserving the Union and the abolition of slavery; Rieger turned his attention to the education of the freed slaves in Jefferson City.
He was instrumental in helping with the establishment of Lincoln Institute. At that time, it was a private institution. It did not receive state support. And so there was a problem of trying to find money to get it going from contributions. He served on its initial board with his co-German immigrant Judge Krekel, whose home is still over here on Cliff Drive, just a couple blocks from here.
Unfortunately, Rieger died in 1869 before Lincoln Institute became a state institution. That story is pretty well known. His interest -- his biographers tell us that he also worked with the education of black children, not Lincoln Institute young men and women -- men, but with the black children. He would go and visit the homes -- you might call them the shacks -- of the blacks in Jefferson City. He’d visit with the children, encouraging them to learn to read and write and become just like the white kids.
German English School
Next. This picture is from Jerena Giffen’s, The House on Hobo Hill, which is the history of public education in Jeff City up until the 1960s, anyway. The core of this building was built in 1856 as the first attempt for public education in Jefferson City. This is even before Central Church was organized. There were German immigrants living in Jefferson City. And this school known as the German English School, that was its English name was largely built -- well, I’ll say it’s completely built by German immigrants or people who contributed to their campaign to get the school going.
The ten organizers named by Giffen in her book -- well, I would say seven of the ten organizers named by Giffen in her book were members, who were founding members of Central Congregation, which shows the interest that these German immigrants had in education.
After the Civil War, public education got a little bit more momentum in Jefferson City and state law enabled it -- enabled localities to tax themselves to provide for schools. But it would have to include Negroes as well as whites.
Jefferson City was still, in good part, an anti-black community and you can read in the newspaper in 1866, quote, “Taxpayers of the City of Jefferson, are you ready to vote a tax on yourselves? Are you ready to pay $2 on every $100 to educate Negro children? If not, vote no. Look to your rights, white man.” The first tax measure for public education in Jefferson City failed, the second one succeeded and Jerena Giffen gives the credit to what she calls, quote, “The German Element.”
Central School
Next. That measure -- that tax measure passed in 1867 resulted in the first school built in Jefferson City for public education. This is, as most of you will recognize, the -- what was called Central School. First, The School -- The Public School -- Central School later, after the public school was moved elsewhere. Trinity Lutheran took it over and it educated generations of Lutheran students. And was since demolished and the Doubletree Hotel sits on its site.
Giffen in her book says, quote, “It was the German Element in the city, who were the main supporters of the earliest public school efforts. The idea of slavery was repugnant to the stanch citizens and, thus, one of the main drawbacks to public school taxes, the simultaneous financing of Negro education, was not an issue with the Germans.”
Now, if you look at this more carefully, you will find that what Giffen generally calls the German Element, was really the Evangelicals. And we might add some Jews on this too, some German Jews, because the Catholics and the Lutherans had their own schools. The Evangelicals did too, but it was quite weak. In fact, it didn’t exist for about 15 years. Most Evangelicals, including their pastors, sent their children to the public school. Evangelicals were prominent on the first Board of Education. Four out of the six members of the first Board of Education in Jefferson City were German, three of them Evangelicals, the other being the publisher of the German newspaper.
Baron von Zuendt
Next. Baron Ernst Anton von Zuendt; the caption is cut off of this unfortunately, but the caption -- this is also taken from Giffen’s public education book -- the caption notes that this is the great grandfather of Lucille Zuendt whom some of you will remember in Jefferson City as being a teacher at Moreau Heights School and a benefactor of education, in general, in Jefferson City. I remember her because of the beautiful piano, grand piano that she gave to the Miller Performing Arts Center that sits in the entrance way there.
Baron Zuendt, a German immigrant, a member of Central Church while he was in Jefferson City was the German professor in the public school. Since the Germans supported public education so much the Board of Education made sure that the German language was taught in there. And incidentally, the German classes were attended as much by non-German descent children in Jefferson City as they were by those of German descent.
Zuendt was remembered for bringing very high standards of education, German education to Jefferson City. At that time, Germany was considered to have the best educational system in the western world.
Simonsen High School
Next. You all will recognize this if you’re from Jefferson City as Simonsen High School. The core of the building where the cupola is was built in 1904 to replace that Central School as you saw it as the new high school in Jefferson City. But it was enlarged in 1914, which is the photograph you see here, and, of course, named for Ernst Simonsen, a Swedish immigrant.
Next. There is Mr. and Mrs. Simonsen. Ernst on the left, of course, the Swede, his wife was Fredericka DeWyl who happened to be the daughter of the Doctor Fredericka -- Doctor Nicholas DeWyl who helped Rieger in administering to the wounded during the Civil War.
Mrs. Simonsen, Mrs. Fredericka DeWyl Simonsen was the first woman registered pharmacist in Missouri having been influenced, of course, by her father to go into pharmacy. Her brother was also in the pharmacy, and together, the two of them, brother and sister, operated the DeWyl Drug Store on High Street in Jefferson City for many years.
On a trip to Michigan the Simonsens found out about progress being made in industrial education, particularly, and when they came back to Jefferson City -- according to Mrs. Simonsen, Mr. Simonsen was going to talk to the Jefferson City Board of Education about a further curriculum development, particularly, in the way of pre-engineering types of studies, but he died before he could do that. But his wife, Fredericka DeWyl Simonsen took up his cause. And she talked to the School Board and she ended up giving them $5,000 and it was, therefore, in his memory that the school was named Simonsen, but through her generosity in following through in his wishes.
Incidentally, Fredericka DeWyl also donated a few thousand -- thousands more dollars after that to Simonsen High School. Some of that went to put in the public address system, which was one of the first public address systems in any high school in the state of Missouri. I think that was in 1947 when they got their intercom system installed in that school.
Mrs. Simonsen’s great niece is Mrs. Marilyn Bradford of Jefferson City. The Simonsens had no children and I get a lot of my information about the Simonsens from Mrs. Bradford.
Germans and the Jefferson City Board of Education
Okay. Next. There’s too much on here to go over it all. But I -- as I went through the history book, I just noted how many of the members of Central Church were involved in Jefferson City public education and suffice it to say really the Evangelicals, these German immigrants or their sons dominated the Jefferson City Board of Education in the period from the 1870s to 1900. The Wagners who were in the brewery business before the Muerschels took over, and also built the Monroe House on High Street. The Dallmeyers are pretty well-named and I’ll say something about Fred Binder later on.
Civic Life
Okay. Next. We move now to civic life. Next. It’s hard to approach this topic because Germans of just whatever faith were readily accepted into the business community in Jefferson City. These happened to be members of Central Church who got into business on High Street or in the south side Muenchberg [Munichburg] as it was called at the time. Some of those names will be pretty noticeable to you. Again, I call your attention to the Lohmann. I guess, I’ve still got the double N on the end of that as it was originally spelled.
Maus Family
The Maus’ let me say something about the Maus family though. Yes, it is on there, M-A-U-S. In German that’s pronounced Mouse. But perhaps because of what it means in English the family changed the pronunciation to Maus. And that’s how we call it, today.
My aunt married into the Maus family. But that was when it had the German pronunciation because there were still German pronunciations when her mother-in-law, Emelia Maus, had a sister whose name was Wilhelmine, which was, of course, shortened to Minnie.
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHROEDER: And so my aunt whose name was Minnie, Minnie Bartlett, Mrs. Claude Bartlett had a aunt by marriage who was Minnie Maus. So Jefferson City had the -- had Minnie Maus about 30 years or 50 years before Walt Disney came up with a Minnie Mouse.
Fred Binder
Next. Okay. Fred Binder. Perhaps, no person of German heritage better exemplifies the contribution of German immigrants to business and civic life than Fred Binder does. And I think I can argue this regardless of whether we’re talking about Catholics or Lutherans or Methodist or Jews because Binder’s record in Jefferson City is absolutely remarkable.
He came to Jefferson City in 1867, in his twenties, just after the Civil War, and has been involved in business and city affairs until his death in 1911, a rather sudden death. He was a member of the Evangelical Church Board beginning in 1873 for 39 years, serving as president for 29 of those 39 years.
And another aside here, Fred Binder’s penmanship is absolutely atrocious.
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHROEDER: He may have been an outstanding person in the community, but his record in the church -- his church records that he wrote are almost illegible in the German script. He served on the Jefferson City Board of Education from 19 -- from 1870 to 1911, which was 33 years; second only to Thorpe Gordon. And Thorpe Gordon has a school named after him. Fred Binder does not.
He was on the city council for many, many years. I’m not sure how many, starting in 1881. He was mayor of Jefferson City in 1884. And when the Carnegie Library Building was built he served on the Carnegie Library Board starting in 1900, the year it started. And as I remember his portrait hung in the entrance way to that building, just before you went up the steps on one side and on the other side was Andrew Carnegie’s portrait. It’s too bad that those two beautiful portraits, which were so awesome to a ten-year-old are now perhaps lost.
He organized the Jefferson City Waterworks in the 1880s. Before then we had cisterns and wells. And now we could bring water from the Missouri River, same place it is today, so that people could have water in their houses, running water, could have flushed toilets, could have all the wonderful things that water in your house brings, clean water too. And he was its long-time president too. He just not only organized it, but he served as president for decades.
He helped organize the Jefferson City Bridge and Transit Company and oversaw the construction of the first Jefferson City Bridge across the river, now gone, the one on Bolivar Street. He helped establish the city’s first building and loan association, and was its president, at a time when it was important to have cheap loans for people who wanted to build houses in Jefferson City. He was a builder. And, perhaps, his best -- his legacy -- one of his best legacies is that way. He built St. Peter’s Church, Catholic Church, 1883, that wonderful, beautiful building.
He built his own church, Central Evangelical Church eight years later in 1891. He built the U.S. Courthouse and Post Office, now gone, on High Street. He built the west side of Francis Quadrangle on the University of Missouri campus, the engineering complex is his work. He built the reform schools for boys at Boonville and for girls in Chillicothe. But, perhaps, his best legacy to Jefferson City, that we all enjoy, is the 40 acres he gave to Jefferson City through his will, actually, through his son’s will, because his son died shortly after he did; the 40 acres on West Main Street, which became Memorial Park.
Actually 10 acres were carved out of it to create the subdivision known as Forest Hill, today, which is a nice wooded tract of houses. But the other 30 acres became Memorial Park. I knew it as Binder’s Woods when I was growing up.
You might note that on the west side of Memorial Park there is a Binder Drive today that goes to the swimming pool. Later, the city took over that park and with the sale and with funds remaining from the Binder Trust that he left to Jefferson City, bought the 300 something acres or 600 acres, whatever it is out on the west side of town, The Binder Park with the Binder Lake in it.
So here is a German immigrant who rapidly got into the civic and business life of Jefferson City.
Germans and the Performing Arts
Next. Participation in civic life includes participation in the performing arts as well. The Germans liked to sing, they liked to act, liked to play and so they formed dramatic clubs. They formed singing groups, instrumental groups. There were cornet bands. There’s the Zupfverein or the Mandolin Club. They held bazaars in which they sold their own handmade products. All of these involved the use of English, incidentally, because they interacted with the whole community. And they were open to the -- to the whole community.
This is Fred Hollerorth dressed up in the 1890s.
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHROEDER: As a kid -- 1890s. I think this photograph is by Suden. If you know photography in Jefferson City or looked into it, there were two major photographers at the time. Carl Deeg, D-E-E-G and the other was Suden, S-U-D-E-N; both were members of Central Church incidentally.
Next. Women at the turn of the century, of that century, didn’t get outside the house very much. And one way that they could assert themselves was by using their culinary skills to publish cookbooks. I think this Capital Cook Book, which was compiled by the Young Ladies’ Society, and notice they use English here even though the church supposedly was still German speaking in its general sense. They published this in English because the young people were pushing the English, use of English, the Young Ladies Society put this out. This is one way that they could make money for themselves and not go through their husbands or anybody else. And apparently they made a good -- good amount of money on this.
And it’s really a delight to go through this 1904, it doesn’t have the date on there, 1904 cookbook and look at the recipes. If you -- if those kinds of things excite you. This was done for the city, and so far as I can tell, this must have been the earliest cookbook published by a Jefferson City group. I may be wrong on that, but I haven’t been able to find anything earlier than that.
Acceptance of English Language
Next. Okay. Now, we turn to English. Perhaps, when we think of the Americanization of immigrants its -- next, the English language that we think of, they must, they have to speak English or they’re not fully American. And I’m not sure how I -- I can really address this for this congregation because it is really a pretty complex thing.
One is looking at the names that were changed. You got the surnames on the left and the Christian -- the given names on the right. And how, particularly through the baptismal register, you can see how the English spelling got to be accepted. One name I left off of the surnames over here is perhaps one of the best examples and that would be the family name Jahnke, J-A-H-N-K-E, Jahnke, and that changed into Yanke, Y-A-N-K-E, which certainly sounds English to all of us to be called Yanke even though to be of German background.
In addition to these name changes, of course, and the acceptance of English, would be the acceptance of names that aren’t even German in origin, such names as Margarethe or Robert to give a child, which sort of denies the German parentage if -- when you start giving names that aren’t German.
We often -- we’ve heard a lot of discussion, today, about conducting official business, government business in English as being something we have to require. In fact, Jefferson City just agreed to -- in its city council that all business would be conducted in the English language.
In the 1870s, Central Church had a dispute over its -- over the cemetery, the German Cemetery with Trinity Lutheran Church, over who really owned it. And the case eventually made its way, all the way to the Supreme Court. We’re not talking about the cemetery that you saw the slide of earlier. This is really the cemetery that still exists up there just next to South School on the other side of Highway 54.
The entire proceedings of the hearings of all the plaintiffs and the defendants are here in the State Archives. And it was my pleasure to read these. And as I read these, I thought, these are all in English and, yet, all the litigants from either the Lutheran or the Evangelical Church were German speaking.
And how could these German speakers have operated in an English speaking court system? They probably knew some English, of course, to get along with it. But they were forced, they had no choice, they had no interpreters there to say, “Well, these people don’t speak English fluently so we’ll bring in a German interpreter and interpret for them.” They didn’t have that choice. They had to accept the English of the court system at that time. And, yet, today we worry about people not being able to be understood if they don’t know English.
Central Church was essentially bilingual. Even though the records were kept in German and much of the church services until the 1890s were completely in German, the people were still speaking English among themselves. They had to because the children were learning English. And they only spoke German when they had to speak with their -- with their parents.
If you go only by the records of the church, then, you will say that the church persisted in it’s -- in the German language all the way till 1918 because that’s when the Church Board ceased writing in German and moved to English. And, yet, that hides the fact that really English was being spoken much earlier than that.
The reason for that is pretty obvious to me which is the church was run by the older people. And the older people were the ones who kept to the old language the longest. When the German YMCA was established in the 1870s, the first YMCA in Jefferson City in the 1870s; it, of course, was composed of German speaking young people. But it looks like in all the records that I’ve seen in both the German newspapers and English papers in Jefferson City, that these kids, these young people, played games and worked in English rather than in German. So the official record is going to mislead us into how long German was maintained.
Young people forced the issue in the Central Church and probably in other churches as well. The Catholics probably didn’t have this trouble because the use of Latin in their school systems, they had to speak to people with different ethnicities.
The old people, as I said, were most comfortable in the church using the language of their youth, in the church. In church when you’re praying, when you’re communing with God, it is a very intimate part of your life. And the words that you learned, the catechismal words, the words that you learn from the Bible as a child are the ones that you’re most comfortable with.
And I didn’t realize this was so strong. Why the -- why the old people insisted on having communion given to them in German all the way up and through the 1930s and maybe into the 1940s until I realized my own case. I, of course, learned my catechism with the King James version of the Bible as most of you probably did, too. And then when the trans -- the newer translations, revised standard version came out, it made sense to read it, but I was sort of uncomfortable reading such things.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”; and, now, I hear, “The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.”
That doesn’t sound -- that doesn’t just ring right with me. I’d be more comfortable using, “My cup runneth over, it is so close to me.” “My cup overflows”, I don’t know. It just doesn’t sound -- and so I would be one of those who still, in those close moments, when you’re praying, when you’re thinking about the very essence of your religion, you go back to what is comfortable with you from your early years.
American Period of Central Church
Okay. Next. So this is the slide I choose to show you of the American -- our American -- the beginning of the American period of Central Church. This is the Sunday School Building that was erected in 1918, right during World War I. It’s no longer there. It was demolished sometime ago. I like to call it Jefferson City’s first convention hall, mini-convention hall. When it was built in 1918, it had a lot of meeting rooms. It had something like 20 or 22 separate classrooms, meeting rooms for small groups. It had one big auditorium, which could seat a couple hundred people with a stage, with curtains, with foot lights for presentations. It had a big gymnasium, basketball courts with showers in it.
The gymnasium could use -- be used for sit down dinners for a couple hundred people. It had a large kitchen in order to service those people at dinners. It also had a bowling alley, the first in Jefferson City to be sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress.
So it had all those things. It had a big room. It had small rooms. It had the convention facilities for dinners and it had recreation facilities there. No place in Jefferson City had anything like that.
Sellinger Center wasn’t built for another ten years. The Jefferson City Junior College -- well, longer than that, The Jefferson City Junior College came in, but it didn’t have dining facilities. The high school had a gymnasium and an auditorium, but it didn’t have dining facilities for conventions. And so this turned out to be a Jefferson City Convention Center.
Labor Unions met there and had dinners and conventions there. They showed movies there. Some of the first -- this is 1918 when the talkies were coming in and the Central Church had a Friday night movie show there for people from all over the city to come to it. They had dramatic performances, concerts. The Jewish Congregation came in and had its Seder meals in this Sunday School Building, and all sorts of service organizations: the Lions, the Chamber of Commerce, and so forth. They had the first Jefferson City Vacation Bible School there, which incidentally was interdenominational. I’m trying to tell you this Sunday School Building not only served the church, but also served the community in a broader sense.
Conclusion
Okay. Last. So here we have the old church and the new church. And I want to end with two comparisons with immigration today. First is really not a comparison, it’s a contrast. Those who want to compare the Americanization of immigrants today, with those of the 19th Century should realize that these are completely different periods in history that we’re talking about.
Immigrants in the 19th Century whether they were from Germany or wherever came at a time when there was hardly any chance of returning to the home country. There were no telecommunication systems, you lost contact and you really, except for letter writing, probably would not have anything more to do with the people you left behind in the old country. You were forced to become Americans in that situation. You didn’t have a choice of staying in contact. You couldn’t go home for birthdays. You couldn’t go home for celebrations. You couldn’t go home for visits as so many of our immigrants do today.
So we live in a different world. And it’s really a contrast. And I have a hard time saying that we have to compare the immigrants today with those of the past. Secondly, I’ve learned through my own experience that my family has -- as rapidly as it has Americanized still retains a lot of the immigrant culture in one respect. We Americanize quickly in the legal systems, in the economic systems, in the educational systems, in all those arenas. We can’t help but become Americans in the public governmental sense, legal sense. We have to agree to our laws here. And we have to operate in a broader business community and accept the business regulations of America. And we have to have the educational system here. Even the parochial schools have to agree to certain kinds of educational standards.
But it’s in the private lives, the family lives, where we retain the customs that we want to from our ancestors. It’s in food and in music and, of course, in religion where we are the least Americanized of all. And that’s wonderful because that’s what makes the great cultural mix that we are, today, in the United States. And I thank you for your time. I enjoyed this. And I hope you did too.
(Applause.)