Part four of the transcription from the draft of Rev. Herman Emil Studier’s “The Story of My Life.”

Transcription details

• Square brackets [ ] denote handwritten additions made in the draft.
• Draft of “The Story of My Life” by Rev. H.E. Studier is available. (PDF, 2.5MB)

The Story of My Life (Part 4)
by Rev. H.E. Studier

In Germany it had always been the plan for me to become a minister. Father had probably spoken to Rev. Klindworth of me before I came to Galena, for when I arrived there it was always the same advice, “Become a minister!” The first summer I went to the parochial school, where they read in McGuffy’s reader. In the year 1868 our Wartburg College, now at Clinton, Iowa, had been started in Galena and in the fall of 1870 I started in the college when I was not yet eleven years old.

The college was then in its infancy, having only two teachers; Fr. Lutz, who is still living and Preller. In the spring of 1871 we college boys partook of the cities celebration of the victory of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war. In April of 1873 I was confirmed by pastor Klindworth. The following year our Wartburg Seminary was moved from St. Sebold, Iowa, to Mendota, La Salle County, Illinois, and we boys were at the station when the train went through carrying the personnel of the school. A year later our college followed the seminary to Mendota, where I attended one more year. In 1876, I entered Warburg seminary and in 1879 I started in the ministry. In Mendota I saw my future bride Miss Maria Barbara Niedermeyer for the first time at Rev. G. Fritschel, my professor in Theology.

My first object was to take care for four weeks of the congregation of Streator and Long Point, Livingston county, Illinois for Rev. William Engelbrecht who attended Synod at Maxfield, Iowa at the celebration of its twenty fifth anniversary and was married after the Synod.

I was then sent to St. Sebold, Iowa where I was to serve as vicar for Rev. G.F. Fuehr, then president of the Undivided Western district. My future wife was at home at this time and we met again and were engaged on [unreadable]. My duties were to teach fifty pupils on five day of the week and preach on two Sundays out of three at the two different preaching stations, Wolf’s Prairie and Taylorville Prairie. This is where I had that annoying encounter with the spook in the schoolhouse.

In June 1880 the Western district held its last convention here, for it was then divided into the -southern, northern and western districts. During this meeting on the sixth of June I was ordained by my teacher, Dr. S. Fritschel, Rev. G.H. Fruehr assisting.

On the twentieth Sunday after Trinity of the year 1879 the new brick church of the St. John’s Lutheran church on White Street in Dubuque, Iowa was dedicated. It was at that time one of our few big church buildings. The heads of our Synod preached at the dedication: G. Grossman, president of the General Synod of Iowa and Director of Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa and Professors S. and G. Fritschel D. Ds of the Wartburg Seminary at the time at Mendota, Illinois.