Education & Religion

Dr. Rev. Marcus Bachmann (12-25-1834 to 3-11-1914)

Rev. Marcus Bachmann served as pastor of the Fifth German Reformed Church at Pratt Street and Broadway

Rev. Bachmann was born in Switzerland December 25, 1834 and came to this country at the age of 19.  He entered and studied for the ministry at the Mercersburg College in Pennsylvania. He went to the Fifth German Reformed after graduation.  He held that position for nearly half a century.

Rev. Bachmann also served as president of the board of the German Aged People’s Home at Baltimore and Payson Sts. He was a charter member of that organization.  His wife, Catherine died one year before Rev. Bachmann.  Rev. Bachman died suddenly in March 1914.  Together he and his wife had three children, Dr. Edward Bachmann, Ernest Bachmann and William Bachmann.   He and his family were buried at the St. Paul’s German Reformed Cemetery or Cardiff Avenue (now Voshell’s Memorial Garden).  

Ernest J. Becker (7-9-1875 to 8-21-1960)

Mr. Becker was born in Baltimore.  He was the son of John Henry Becker whom had emigrated from Frankfurt am Main.  Ernest Becker attended Eduard Deichmann’s English-German school and was given instruction on a bi-lingual basis.  He earned his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University in 1894 and his Ph.D. in English in 1895. From 1899-1901 he taught Modern Languages at Richmond College.  In 1901 he returned to Baltimore and joined the faculty of City College.  From 1909 to his retirement in 1937 he held administrative positions.  In 1909-1921 he served as principal of Eastern High School and from 1921-1937 principal of Western High School.

At Western, he was responsible for the construction of a new school, as well as construction of a new curriculum that would accommodate both the gifted and the slower student. 

He was active in the Edgar Allen Poe Society, the Maryland Historical Society and the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland, where he served as president, vice president and a member of the Executive Committee.  At SHGM he contributed many articles, the first being the ‘History of the English-German schools in Baltimore’ (Twenty-fifth Report, 1942).

Rev. Otto Bregenzer (3-16-1878 to)

Herman Collitz (2-4-1855 to 5-13-1935)

Herman Collitz was born in the town of Bleckede, Hanover, Germany. He attended the University of Göttingen and specialized in classical philological branches as Sanskrit and Iranian.  He also worked with Slavic and Germanic languages.  He was at the University of Berlin in 1878.  He came to the U.S. in 1886 accepting a position at Bryn Mawr College.  Here he devoted himself to Germanics. 

He studied and produced many original papers that were invaluable to the science and art of linguistics.   In comparative linguistics he dealt with such subjects as the phonology and morphology of the Indo-European languages. He was also an authority on Indo-European mythology.

In 1907 Professor Collitz was called to the Johns Hopkins University to fill the newly created chair in Germanics.  At the age of 72, after 41 years of active college and university teaching, Professor Collitz was made Professor Emeritus of German Philology. A portrait of this pioneer in comparative linguistics in America was presented in his honor and placed in Gilman Hall.  As Emeritus Professor Collitz continued to write and study and contribute in his field until 1934. Besides being co-editor of numerous philological journals, he had the honor of being the first president of the Linguistic Society of America, and he also served as president of the Modern Language Association of America. To his Ph.D. degree from the University of Göttingen, the University of Chicago added an honorary doctorate in 1916. On his seventy-fifth birthday, February 4, 1930, he was similarly honored by the University of Magdeburg and his wife, Dr. Klara Collitz, had ‘Studies in Honor of Hermann Collitz’ published.   His obituary in ‘Modern Language Notes’, states that “he was one of the most distinguished students in linguistics we have had in America”. 

Dieter Cunz (8-4- 1910 to 2-17- 1969)

Even though he wasn’t born in Baltimore nor did he die in Baltimore, a section on education could not be complete without the biography of a man who spent many years at the University of Maryland.  Mr. Cunz was born in a village in the Westerwald and grew up in Schierstein, a suburb of Wiesbaden.  He studied History, German Literature and the History of Religion at many universities throughout Germany.  He received his Ph.D. in 1934 from the University of Frankfurt.  Shortly thereafter, he left Germany and went to Switzerland where he lived for four years.  During those four years he authored three books (A monograph on the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zeingli; a collection of ‘Fairy Tales for Adults’; and a Constitutional History of Europe Since the Early 16th Century.  He emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, spent a year doing odd jobs in New York and then received a small stipend from the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation to catalogue and organize the library of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland (at this time, this was the last surviving society in the U.S. dedicated to the study and preservation of the history of German immigration to America.  After completion, he began his teaching career at the University of Maryland, where he remained for eighteen years.  He revived the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland and published many reports in the field of immigration history.  He became one of the most distinguished American writers on immigration history.   During his time he wrote what was considered one of his major achievements, ‘The Maryland Germans:  A History’, which was written in 1948.  His last book, ‘They Came from Germany’ was published in 1966.   In 1957, Professor Cunz moved from Maryland and accepted the position of the Chairman of the German Department at the Ohio State University.

He was acutely interested in methods used to teach German, especially elementary and intermediate German.  He authored a college text, ‘German for Beginners’ in 1958 and a revised new edition in 1965. 

Dr. Ferdinand Dieffenbach (3-21-1821 to 3-1-1861)

Ferdinand Dieffenbach was born in Schlitz, Hesse Darmstadt and was a University graduate.  He was a 48er and as such was forced to emigrate.  He and his wife, Marie Muller Dieffenbach (1826 to 1906) and child (Mary), immigrated to the United States in 1848 and settled in Baltimore.  He taught for the Zion Church school and in 1853 moved to Manchester.   In Manchester he began his own school and initially called it ‘The Independent Academy’.  It was located opposite the Manchester Lutheran Reformed Church on York Street.   In 1856 a school for girls was established in Manchester.  It was called the ‘Manchester Female Academy’ and was under the direction of his wife.  Dieffenbach changed the name of his school for boys to Irving College in 1858.  The name honored Washington Irving.  This was the first college/university in Carroll County.  In addition to the languages of Greek and Latin, they also taught English grammar and other foreign languages in addition to mathematics and science.  Ferdinand Dieffenbach himself spoke seven languages.  There were some operations related to a military academy and the school motto was ‘A sound mind in a sound body’.

The school prospered and was a well-respected institution.  Ferdinand Dieffenbach, unfortunately died at the very early age of 40.  His family attempted to keep the college going, but the Civil War and inexperience took was hard on the college.  It existed and was renamed ‘Irving Institute’ in the 1880’s but was ultimately sold at a public sale in 1898.

He and his family are buried at the Lutheran Reformed Cemetery (United Church of Christ) in Manchester.

Rev. George W. Ebeling, Ph. D (12-13-1821 to 9-25-1901)

Rev. Ebeling of Catonsville, an extremely intelligent and faithful servant of the Lutheran Church, was born in Germany and was raised in his Fatherland. He attended a high school in Germany, and afterward a Goettingen University.

Determining to devote his life to preaching the Gospel, he was ordained at Hanover in 1850. His father was a Lutheran Bishop for the district of Salzgitter in the Kingdom of Hanover.  Two years later he crossed the Atlantic to America on the invitation of Dr. Morris, and settled in Baltimore City, where he remained for a year, conducting a private school.

He then moved to Catonsville, where he opened a private school for boys, Overlea College. Until 1892, he was connected with the educational interests in Catonsville. He was very successful in his work as an instructor and inspired his pupils with much of the love of learning that he himself possessed. His labors were not confined to instructing the children, he has also taught adults.

He accepted the pastorate of the Salem Lutheran Church on his arrival in Catonsville, and remained in that position from 1854 to 1866 and again from 1869 to 1887.  He received his Doctorate in Philosophy from University of Jena. 

He married Marie Keidel (1-7-1831 to 9-10-1919) on April 28, 1853.  She was the sister of Henry, Charles and Lewis Keidel.  Together they had four children:  Wilhelm; Herman, who was professor of Greek at Oxford (Ohio) University; Henry, and Mary.

Rev. Ebeling and Marie are buried at Salem Lutheran Cemetery.

David Einhorn (11-10-1809 to 11-2-1879)-Rabbi

He was born in Diespeck, Bavaria. He was educated at the rabbinical school of Fuerth, and subsequently at the universities of Munich and Wurzburg. He was a supporter of the principles of Abraham Geiger, and while still in Germany advocated the introduction of prayers in the vernacular, the exclusion of nationalistic hopes from the synagogue service, and other ritual modifications.

He was chosen rabbi at Hoppstädten, and afterward chief rabbi of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He was called to Pesth in 1851 where his advanced views met with such opposition that his temple was closed by the Austrian government.

In 1855 he was invited to assume charge of a Hebrew congregation in Baltimore, Maryland. During his incumbency, in 1858, he published a prayer book which had a wide circulation in the United States and formed the model for all subsequent revisions. He also published a German magazine, Sinai, devoted to interests of radical reform. He became the acknowledged leader of Reform Judaism, and laid the foundation of the regime under which most of American Jews (excepting the immigrant Orthodox Russian Jews) worshipped.

In 1861 Einhorn strongly supported the anti-slavery party, and was forced to leave Baltimore. He continued his work first in Philadelphia and later, in 1866, in New York where he remained until his death.

Rev. Edward F. Engelbert (3-7-1889 to 1-21-1973)

 Rev. Fritz Otto Evers (8-25-1886 to 9-4-1963) Pastor Zion

On January 27, 1929 he was installed as the regular pastor of Zion. He was born in Berlin on August 25, 1886, he was trained at Kropp Seminary near Schleswig for service with the German Lutheran Church in America.  The seminary, at that time, prepared young men who expected to follow the ministry in foreign countries.  He arrived in New York June 18, 1908 and was ordained in July 1908 at St. John’s in New Jersey, where he served as pastor until 1912.   He married Luise Clara Micho.  After two years of service as Director of the Lutheran Emigrants House and as Immigrant Chaplain on Ellis Island, he followed a call to the pastorate of Zion in Philadelphia in November 1914.  He served there for fifteen years (the congregation was founded in 1742 by Henry Melchior Muhlenberg).  During that time, he also was active in relief work for children affected by the war.  He visited Germany in 1927 and was received with high honors, being granted a private audience with President von Hindenburg.  He was chairman of the division on linguistic interests in the Baord of American Missions of the United Lutheran Church in America, secretary of the committee on German interests and director of the Seamen’s Mission.  He was the organizer of the Oratorio Chorus of the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia.

During his service to Zion, he was called twice to serve as chaplain in the Maryland Senate and once in the Maryland State House of Delegates.  He organized the German language school at Zion and brought it to a high degree of efficiency with at one time eight teachers and 150 students. 

On May 1942, Pastor Evers, on behalf of Zion Church committed the ambulance “The Pioneer” to the hands of the American Red Cross as ‘the gift of Zion Church for the work of mercy and in honor of Dr. Charles Frederick Wiesenthal.

He was a member of the German Society; served on the Executive Committee of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland and helped organize the ‘Goethe Celebration’ in January of 1950.  He was given the title of ‘Pastor Emeritus’ and in 1961 was awarded the Carl Schurz Medal for his work in American-German cultural relations. 

On September 21, 1952, Pastor Evers informed the congregation during the Sunday service of his desire to retire.   He did retire, but also served Zion as an interim pastor between 1961 (Pastor Wagner’s resignation) and 1963 (Pastor Penner’s arrival).  He served as Zion of Baltimore’s pastor for twenty four years.  

He is buried at Lorraine Cemetery.

Charles M. Eyster (5-1857 to 7-13-1926)

The Rev. Charles M. Eyster, was pastor of the First German United Evangelical Church.  He lived at his church at 1824 East Baltimore Street.  He was very popular throughout the city and state.  Two things made him very noteable….he married 7,950 couples and he never took a vacation from his duties in the twenty six years serving as First German United’s  pastor.  He became their pastor on June 3, 1900.  He came to Baltimore in 1900 and is shown on the 1900 census as living with the Wittig family at 410 Annst Street.  He was born in Thomasville, York County, Pennsylvania and his parents were both born in Germany.  He was educated at the East Berlin Normal School in PA and the Poughkeepsie NY Pennsylvania College and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg.  He commented that ‘I have been at the church since 1900 and I never go out of town.  The charge has a large congregation and I have performed marriage ceremonies for many of its members.  Another thing is that the church as a State Charter which is very far-reaching.  That is the reason I have so many out of town couples to marry.  The people who go to my church seldom take vacations and they don’t think their preacher or their doctor should take one.  They want them when they are called upon.’

His first charge was as pastor of the Seven Vally Lutheran Church in PA., where he was from July 1884 to July 1885, from then until he came to Baltimore, he held a pastorate in Manchester, Carroll County, Maryland.

He married Margaret and together they had one daughter.

The Rev. Charles died at his home as a result of a stroke.

Gustav Facius ( 9.22.1830 to 9.10.1903)

Gustav Facius was born on September 22, 1830 in Germany.  He came to the U.S. in 1847 and studied for the ministry here.

He was President of the Concordia Society for 10 years and taught multiple foreign languages. Rev. Facius also served as the President for the German Orphan Asylum.  He was first called to the German Reformed Congregation in 1876. 

Rev. Facius was married to Leopaldine.

Rev. Facius died as Pastor of the First Reformed German Church of DC, where he went in 1890. During his time in DC, he also served as Chaplain at the Soldier's Home there.

Herbert E. Fankhanel (1896 to 4-21-1972)  

The son of Albert and Margareta, he grew up in Baltimore.  At the age of ten, he was a soloist in the boy’s choir of Zion Lutheran Church.  He graduated from City College and continued his studies at Johns Hopkins and St. Johns College.  He received his master’s degree from the University of Maryland.  He taught English at Baltimore Polytechnic for 42 years, as well as teaching German at several private schools.  His passion, however, was music.  He belonged to many music and choral singing groups and was an accomplished soloist and choir leader.  He was also a soloist of the Baltimore Opera Company for several years.  He conducted the Germania Quartett Club, the Arion and the Eichenkrantz singing societies.  He served in the Army during WWI and belonged to the American Legion.  He was an active member of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland, the Germania Lodge and the Baltimore Schlaraffia. 

Albert Faust (4-20-1870 to 2-8-1951)

Mr. Faust was born in Baltimore in 1870.  His parents His parents were natives of the

little town of Schlitz in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. His father, Johann Faust, born in 1828, emigrated to America in 1852 and started a shoe factory in Baltimore. In 1861 he married Katharina E. Kalbfleisch.

Albert attended "Scheib's School," was confirmed in Zion Church and later enrolled at Johns Hopkins University. Here he was deeply influenced by such eminent Hopkins scholars as Henry Wood and Marion Dexter Learned. After his graduation he traveled for several years in Europe and did graduate work at the University of Berlin. He returned to the U.S. in 1894 and began a teaching career which led him from Hopkins to Connecticut Wesleyan and the University of Wisconsin, to Cornell in Ithaca, New York.  He settled here in 1904 and remained the professor of German until his retirement in 1921.

Faust's scholarly endeavors centered around two problems: the impact of German immigration on the rise of American civilization and the intercultural exchange between Germany and the United States. His Ph. D. thesis at Johns Hopkins University, indicated the direction of his lifework: ‘Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postl), Material for a Biography, a Study of his Style, his Influence upon American Literature’. He was the first to penetrate the pseudonym and to rescue Sealsfield's work from oblivion. In 1897 his doctoral dissertation, in a revised and enlarged form, was published in Germany under the title:Charles Sealsfield, der Dichter beider Hemisphären.  After the completion of the Sealsfield monograph, Faust's literary interests were increasingly overshadowed by his historical studies. More and more his research turned towards the history of German immigration into the United States, a field which until then had almost exclusively been held by interested laymen and amateurs. Now Professor Faust, with the firm step of the trained historian, approached the difficult and complex task of compiling a comprehensive history of German immigration and

German contributions to American civilization. In 1907 he published his magnum opus: The German Element in the United States. The work won immediate recognition through the award of the Seipp Price of $3,000. It was highly praised by one of the judges of the award committee, the famous historian Frederick Jackson Turner. A few years later a German edition was published, Das Deutschtum in den Vereinigten Staaten (1912) which was awarded the Loubat Prize of the Prussian Academy. In 1927 a new and enlarged one-volume edition was sponsored by the Steuben Society of America. To be sure, in the forty years since the first publication of the work German-American studies have moved on, new vistas were opened, and in general scholars have attempted a more discerning and more critical evaluation of the effect of the German influx into the United States. Yet Faust's achievement as the first and fundamental compendium of German-American immigration history stands uncontested. Up to the present time it has remained the indispensable point of departure for all research in German-American studies.  The German Element in the United States was the one book of the author which found its way into hundreds and thousands of American libraries, private and public. Other publications were addressed more to specialists, such as the Guide to the Materials for American History in Swiss and Austrian Archives (1916), the List of Swiss Emigrants in the Eighteenth Century to the American Colonies (1920/25) and the annotated edition of John Quincy Adams' Translation of Wieland's Oberon (1940).

In addition he wrote a great number of essays and articles, among them a brief survey of German- American letters in the Cambridge History of American Literature (Vol. IV, New York, 1921) and a chapter on the German Americans in a cooperative volume Our Racial and National Minorities (ed. by F. Brown and J. Roucek, New York, 1937). Among Faust's literary efforts there is also a historical drama published in 1944, The Bank War, dealing with the conflict between President Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle of the Second Bank of the United States.

We should not forget to say a few words about Faust's activities as a teacher and editor. In 1928 he was appointed editor of the Foreign Language Division of F. S. Crofts and

Company, the largest publishing house for foreign language college textbooks, a post he held for almost twenty years. Under his guidance the writings of a good number of German authors such as Heine, Fontane, Hesse, Keyserling, Bonsels, Fallada, Thomas Mann, Paul Ernst and many others were made available to American students of German.

He also was instrumental in the founding of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation in Philadelphia, which he welcomed as a promoter of intercultural relations between Germany and America. In 1930 he represented the American universities at the official celebrations which the German Reich arranged to honor the 100th anniversary of Carl Schurz. Three years later Dr. Faust was invited to Vienna as visiting Carnegie Professor. During this year in Austria he lectured on American history, literature and on his special field of German-American studies. He was decorated by the Austrian government with the Golden Cross of Honor. In 1937 he received an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen.  In spite of his wide travels and his international recognition Albert B. Faust always remained conscious of his roots and of the soil from which he had grown: America, Maryland, Baltimore. He remained a member of Zion Church until his death; frequent trips to his home town kept old friendships alive His last visit to Baltimore occurred in February 1946 when he delivered the address at the sixtieth anniversary dinner of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland. Albert Bernhardt Faust's most outstanding and everlasting merit is the establishment of German American studies as a recognized province of scholarly research. He laid a solid foundation on which others are continuing to build. For this he deserves an honored place in the history of American scholarship.

Father Jacob Frambach (1723-1795)

Father Frambach was born at Nideggen, near Jülich (Rhineland).  He came to the U.S. in 1757 a first to Lancaster.  It appears he came to Maryland in 1773.   One of the locations that he frequented was Hagerstown.  Jonathan Hagar (see profile) deeded a Catholic graveyard to Father Frambach in 1786.  The records show that Father Frambach was in Cumberland in 1780.  He traveled extensively as did most religious during these early days.   Father Frambach took part in the ‘White Marsh’[1] meetings of the Catholic clergymen in 1783 and also attended the first Catholic National Synod meeting. 

Father Frambach retired from Frederick in 1788.  He was allowed thirty pounds annually and went to Bohemia Manor.  After 1790, he acted as Vicar General of Bishop Carroll and in 1794 he was mentioned as pastor emeritus of Frederick Maryland.  He died in 1795.

Professor Paul Haupt (11-25-1858 to 12-15-1926)

Born at Görlitz in Silesia, son of Karl Gottlieb and Elise Hulse.  The family an old and well known Protestant family. 

Paul Haupt received an excellent education and early exhibited signs of unusual brilliancy. While very he learned Hebrew. Graduating from the Gymnasium Augustum in Görlitz, he spent two years at Leipzig and in 1878 received his doctorate in Semitic Languages with high honors.

Haupt's first book, Die sumerischen Familiengesetze, was an epoch making production.  After receiving his doctorate Haupt spent some time studying in the British Museum. The fruits of this work resulted later in the publication of his Akkadische und sumerische Keilschrifttexte. This was the first volume in the great series of the Assyriologische Bibliothek, edited from the beginning by Dielitsch and Haupt. In 1880, he became Privatdocent for Assyriology in the University of Göttingen.

He early became the foremost authority on the Sumerian language. Thanks to the discernment of its first president, Daniel Gilman, Haupt, before he had reached the age of twenty-five years, was appointed Professor of Semitic Languages in Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Haupt was the first US delegate to the International Congress of Orientalists at Rome in 1899 and the first US delegate to the International Congress of the History of Religions at Paris in 1900.  His books are internationally reknown:  The New Critical Editions of Hebrew Text of the Old Testement’ (1892) and the ‘Polychrome Bible’ (1898). He was the ‘honorary’ cuator of Oriental antiquities, etc., at the US National Museum in Washington DC. 

He married on March 8, 1886, Minnie (Glede) born in Albany NY.  Together they had three sons, Walter, Eric and Hans and one daughter, Ester/Istar?. 

Prior to 1920 the family lived on Linden Avenue in Baltimore.  In 1920 he was living with his wife, Minnie and two children, Eric (28) and Ester or Istar? (23) on Longwood Road in Roland Park, Baltimore. The 1920 census shows an additional son, Harold and the family living on Madison Avenue in Baltimore. 

Dr. Haupt is interred in Druid Ridge Cemetery.

Timothy Oliver Heatwole (2-18-1865 to )

The name anglicized from Hütwohol.  The family originated in Steeg, near Bacharach on the Rhine.  They came to the US in 1747 and settled in Pennsylvania.  They later moved to Virginia.  Timothy Oliver was born in 1865 in Dale Enterprise, Rockingham Co., Virginia to David Heatwole (1827-1911) and Catherine (Driver) (1828-1906). He received his degree of doctor of dental surgery from the University of Maryland.  He began teaching at the school and was promoted to a full professor of Dental and Medical Therapeutics.  He served from 1911 to 1924 as the Dean of the School of Dentistry.

Not only was he involved with the school, but also politics and served several terms in the House of Delegates and the Baltimore City Council.  He served in the US Dental Corps in WWI.

He married to Annie B. (Carmer) on June 17, 1914 and in 1920 they  lived at the Walbert Apartments on Charles Street.  They were Presbyterian and members of Brown Memorial Church.

Henry Hochheimer (10-3-1818 to 1912) Rabbi

Rev. Dr. Henry Hochheimer was born in Ansbach, Middle Franconia, Germany.  He went with his parents to Ichenhausen when he was ten.  His father a rabbi as was his grandfather.  He studied in Ansbach and in the Augsburg gymnasium.  He also was educated under this grandfather, Rabbi Guggenheimer and Rabbi Hirsch of Munich.  He entered the University of Munich and graduate with a doctorate degree in 1844.  He became his father’s assistant for five years in Schenhausen.  He was forced to flee the country due to revolutionary articles written by him.  He was invited, when he arrived in New York, to come to Baltimore and become the rabbi for the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.  He was a frequent contributor to the Jewish press, especially in Germany.  He was from 1859 to 1892, the  Rabbi of Oheb Israel and was made Rabbi Emeritus in 1892.  He spent 63 years in Baltimore.  He married Rosalia and together they had four children.

Rabbi Hochheimer is buried at the Hebrew Friendship Cemetery.

Rev. Julius Hofmann, D.D. (4-9-1865 to 1928)

Julius Hofmann was born in Friedberg, Hesse Darmstadt, Germany, the son of Peter and Maria (Engeler).  In 1889 he graduated from the University of Giessen, receiving there also, in 1897, the degree of Licentiate[3] in Theology.  In 1909 Franklin and Marshall College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.  In 1889, he was called to serve as assistant Pastor under Pastor Scheib at Zion Church.  In 1895 when Pastor Scheib resigned, Pastor Hofmann succeeded him.  He also took a course in philosophy at Johns Hopkins.  In 1905 Dr. Hofmann received, from the Emperor of Germany, the decoration of the Order of the Crown[4]. 

Dr. Hofmann published several books regarding the history of Zion Church and also a volume of poems (1907). While at Zion, he founded the Young People’s Society, an association for the study of classical church music; a Sunday school library and edited a church bulletin.  For many years, he was instructor in German at Johns Hopkins University.   He mastered fourteen languages. 

On the eve of World War One, Pastor Julius K. Hoffman and the members were about to dedicate their new parish house at Zion Church in Baltimore City.  Wanting to identify the love for old world traditions they had brought across the Atlantic in their hearts, and, to profess the allegiance they had sworn to their new adopted country, Hoffman and others sought out sculptor Hans Schuler (See profile) to carve a special eagle set for the red-bricked parish hall's entrance.

By 1913, everything was in place.  Schuler had produced another exquisite piece of his artistry.   The sculpted sandstone lintel can be seen today: it represented an American bald eagle with a shield on its heart depicting the imperial German eagle - a symbol of the German immigrant at the heart of America.

The parish hall auditorium, located on the second floor, was named the ADLERSAAL (Eagle’s Hall).

Rev. Eduard Huber (6-22-1845 to 7-9-1906)

Rev. Huber was born in Canton Thurgau, Switzerland and emigrated to the U.S. with his parents and grand-parents at the age of nine.  They settled on a farm near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He was educated in the parochial school at Germantown, Wisconsin and later attended the German-English Academy in Milwaukee.  He began teaching in the county public schools at seventeen years of age.  He later taught in the public school system of Milwaukee.  In 1865 he began his theology studies at Eden College in Marthasville, Missouri.  He completed these studies in 1868 and assigned as an assistant pastor in Jefferson City, Missouri at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the West.    He was ordained in January 1869.    At the death of the pastor, he was called to lead the congregation, which he did until 1873.  He also, at that time, officiated as chaplain of the Missouri Legislature and volunteered his services to the Missouri State penitentiary. 

The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of North America sent him, in 1873, to Richmond VA., to assume the pastorate of an Independent Congregation.  He remained there for ten years and devoted all of his time to uniting the congregation. 

In 1882, he was called to St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Baltimore, where he spent the remaining years of his life.   He introduced a bi-lingual service in his church.  During his twenty-three years at St. Matthew’s, he organized three churches:  Christ’s Church in Locust Point; St. Peter’s Chapel, on Federal Street near Gay, and St. Matthew’s German EvangelicalLutheran Church on Harford Rd.  He also founded the German Evangelical Immigrant and Seaman’s Home. 

At the time of his death he was the Supreme Judge of the Ministerial Union of his Synod, a very high judicial position in the denomination. 

He was fascinated with science and the field of micro-organisms and made many important discoveries in the field.  He was a member of the Microscopic Society of Johns Hopkins University and The Maryland Academy of Sciences, as well as the Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis.  He was a board member of the German Society of Maryland, the German Orphan Asylum and the German Aged Peoples’ Home.  He was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland. 

Eva ‘Maus’ Kelleher (4-18-1936)

             Eva was born in Dortmund, Germany.  During the first four and a half years of her life she lived in Dortmund with her parents and her brother.  Her father was an engineer.  When he received an offer of a position with an Austrian firm, he accepted it and the family moved to Kienberg-Gaming in Lower Austria.  Eva entered elementary school at the age of five.  She progressed very quickly in learning the basic skills of reading, writing and math.  Because she was a fast learner, she was allowed to advance at her own pace and she had finished the curriculum for the seventh grade by the age of ten.  This early start instilled in Eva a life-long respect for early childhood education and a keen desire to transmit her own love of learning to children.   

             After the end of World War II the area of Austria where Eva and her family lived was occupied by Russian forces.  They lived under this occupation for quite a while.  Then the family left Kienberg-Gaming under stressful circumstances and went to Gelnhausen in the American zone of West Germany.  Eva attended the Oberschule/Gymnasium Gelnhausen, after which she completed three years of schooling and internship training as a physical therapist and worked closely with doctors and nurses in a local medical clinic. She was employed in this field when she met Bill Kelleher, who was an infantry squad leader in the U.S. Army stationed at Gelnhausen.   Bill and Eva were immediately attracted to each other and they were married in April, 1957.  When Bill was discharged from the U.S. Army in 1958, he returned to his home city of Boston and settled down near his parents and sisters.  Eva and their little daughter joined him as soon as they could do so.  Their family grew to include four daughters.  In 1962 Bill completed his B. A. degree in Economics at Boston College.  Economic  Laboratory offered him the Baltimore / Washington, D.C. sales area in 1963.  So the Kellehers moved to Baltimore and began to reach out to the vibrant German-American community of this geographic area.

             In  September, 1966,  Eva found her special calling in life when she was offered a position teaching German to the elementary school children at the German Language School located at Zion Church in Baltimore.  Eva was delighted to accept this position.  She had the ability to relate well to the children and enrich her instruction with a variety of strategies that captured their attention and built up their enthusiasm.  The children loved to be with her and attended her German classes eagerly.  She set high expectations for her young students and they reciprocated by rising to the challenge, learning German well, and eagerly participating in the activities that she planned.   When Elizabeth Roberts decided to retire as the principal of the German Language School in 1985, she recommended Eva Kelleher to be her successor in this position.  Eva willingly agreed to accept this multifaceted and demanding position while continuing to teach German in the school.  She also took several additional college courses to prepare herself better for her new responsibilities.   For the past twenty-six years she has administered the German Language School energetically and developed the instructional program to serve the needs of many different people in the community.  In recent years the enrollment of this Saturday school has reached and at times exceeded 100 students.  Approximately half of these students are adults.

             In addition to her ongoing responsibilities at the German Language School, Eva is a board member of the German Society of Maryland.  This position stems from her election as president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the German Society, a leadership position that carries with it ex officio membership on the German Society’s Board.  The Auxiliary is supportive of the German Language School and honors high-achieving students there who score at the 85th and the 90th percentile on the AATG German Language Test (Levels 1, 2 and 3).  In the past she has served on the Church Council of Zion Church.  Her teaching career has also included ten years of teaching with the Berlitz School when it was located in the H & O Building on Charles Street in Baltimore and an ongoing German language course at the Kickers Club of Baltimore.  Eva also teaches elementary, intermediate and advanced adult education courses at the Community College of Baltimore County.  

Eva was honored by the German Society of Maryland as their Distinguished German American in 2011.

Frederick Knapp (4-20-1821 to 1-9-1893)

Frederick Knapp was born in Reutlingen, Germany.  After receiving his education in the state schools, high school at Reutlingen and later the Normal Institute at Esslingen, he was assigned to Schoenich  a school of over one hundred pupils.  He was assigned to the Schoenich and Eisleben schools in Northern Germany.  He was many involved with the 1848 revolution.  Participants that were involved in the revolution and emigrated to the US were labeled 48ers.  He was given 24 hours to leave Reutlingen, and he sailed from Bremen to Baltimore in 1850.  Upon his arrival, he was hired by William Marburg and a year later was made principal of the school of Fourth German Reformed Church, on Calvert Street.

He was always known as a noted educator, but his work with the deaf made him a leader in his community.  

Mr. Knapp was married to Louise Anna (Groezinger) on May 4, 1851.  They had one son, William, who replaced him at the F. Knapp German and English Institute, when Frederick decided to devote 100% of his time to the teaching of the deaf.  He had two daughters, Lucien and Bertha.  

F. Knapp was a director of the Germania Männerchor, director of the Schutzen Society, a founder of the Turnverein, member of the Baltimore City Odd Fellows, member of the Liederkrantz and a director of the German Orphan Home.  

William Knapp (1855 to 2-4-1917)

Son of Frederick Knapp, founder of the F. Knapp German and English Institute, William was born in Baltimore in 1855.  He attended his father’s school.

He left his service in the Army to take control of the school when his father decided to devote all of his time to the teaching of the deaf.

He lived in the area of the school at 847 Hollins Street.  

He died at the age of 62 from pneumonia.  He is buried in Baltimore Cemetery.

William Kurrelmeyer (1-17-1874 to 10-9-1957)

Mr. Kurrelmeyer was born in Osnabrück, Germany and came to the U.S. with his parents at the age of eight.  He attended the Baltimore City Public Schools, graduating with honors from Baltimore City College in 1893.  He attended and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1896 and received his Ph.D. from there in 1899.  He played on the Johns Hopkins lacrosse team and was a member of their track team.  He was Professor of Modern Languages at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. for one year.  The remainder of his professional career, he was associated with the Johns Hopkins University.  In addition to teaching, he was co-editor of the Hopkins publication Modern Language Notes.  His first work that gained recognition for him was the publication of a pre-Lutheran Bible in ten volumes.  In the years 1928-1939, he published seven volumes of the standard edition of Wieland’s collected works.  He also wrote several articles on the work of Goethe.

Another of his many undertakings was to search for words not found in the voluminous Grimm’s German Dictionary.  He unearthed hundreds of words. 

Mr. Kurrelmeyer was the founder and first president of the Goethe Society of Maryland and the District of Columbia (1923-47), the only such society to continue to function during WWII.  In 1939, he was elected president of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, where he served until 1952.  His hobby was to search for first editions of the works of prominent German writers.  He had the largest private collection of Goethe’s first editions.  The books were bequeathed to the Johns Hopkins University library.  He was a regular subscriber to the symphony and the Metropolitan operas when performed in Baltimore.

Professor Kurrelmeyer is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.

Rev. Benjamin Kurtz, D.D., LL.D. (2-28-1795 to 12-29-1865)

Source:  Centennial History of the Evangelical Church in Maryland 1820-1920, Wentz

He was chairman of the committee that drafted the first Constitution of the Synod. Five times he was President of the Synod and he was always prominent in the work of the body. He was a nephew of Daniel Kurtz, the first President, and a grandson of the John Nicholas Kurtz who was ordained by the Pennsylvania Ministerium at its first meeting in 1748. Few men have exerted a greater influence in the Lutheran Church of America than Benjamin Kurtz. His public career extended over half a century and during that period he was identified with all the more important events in the history of our Church. His life story has been related by Hutter and Stoever and Morris, and the influence of his career has been estimated by many others.

Benjamin Kurtz was born in Harrisburg, February 28, 1795.  His youth was marked by seasons of deep religious convictions.

He studied theology under George Lochman and was licensed by the Pennsylvania Ministerium at Frederick in 1815. For several months he was the assistant to his uncle in Baltimore, but that same year accepted a call to the Hagerstown charge.  He was then the only pastor in Washington County and his charge embraced five congregations. Sixteen years later when he left that field the number of Lutherans there had been multiplied by four and six pastors were required for the field.

For two years (1831-1833) he was pastor at Chambersburg, but the precarious condition of his health made it imperative for him to lay aside the active duties of pulpit and pastorate. Just then Dr. Morris invited him to take charge of the Lutheran Observer and as editor of that paper for twenty-eight years he wielded his chief influence. When Dr. Kurtz took charge of the paper it was a small bi-weekly with seven hundred subscribers; when he laid down the editorial pen in 1861 it was a large weekly with more than eight thousand subscribers.

Dr. Kurtz was not only prominent in organizing the Maryland Synod but he also took a leading part in the formation of the General Synod. The General Synod was organized in his church at Hagerstown. He was present at almost every convention of that body until his death and was twice its President. For many years he was President of the Home Missionary Society and of the Parent Education Society.

In 1826 Dr. Kurtz was appointed by the General Synod to visit Europe in the interest of the Gettysburg Seminary and after two years he returned with $10,000 and a great number of books.

Late in life he was instrumental in establishing the Missionary Institute at Selinsgrove.

Dr. Kurtz stoutly maintained the "evangelical" standpoint and was an ardent advocate of the "new measures" and of "American Lutheranism”.  To his dying day he zealously advocated English preaching, Sunday school, protracted meetings, and temperance reform. He is characterized as "an eloquent preacher, a sympathetic pastor, a keen debater, and a voluminous writer." The decree of D.D. was conferred on him by Washington College in 1838, and the degree of LL.D. by Wittenberg College in 1858.  He died in Baltimore, December 29, 1865.

Rev. David Manrodt  (1921 to 8-10-2010)

Rev. David H. Manrodt, Ph.D., served the Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church for 38 years, from 1948 to 1986.  He was born in New York to Rev. Manfred Manrodt (1873-1974) and Martha (Mueller).  He came to Baltimore with his family when his father was called to the pulpit of Friedens Evangelical Lutheran Church. 

He was a graduate of Baltimore City College, graduating in 1938.  After school he went to work for the Glenn L. Martin Company and later the Johns Manville Company.

According to the 2011 Baltimore City College Alumni newsletter, after graduating from BCC, Rev. Manrodt worked to earn the money to attend Loyola College, and then studied theology at Lancaster and at the Lutheran seminary at Gettysburg.

Two sons, John and Paul, followed in his footsteps to become Lutheran ministers: Rev. John Manrodt serves in Minneapolis; Rev. Paul Manrodt in Wernersville, Pa.

David Manrodt’s wife, Miriam (Miller) Manrodt, died in 2008.  They are buried in Parkwood Cemetery, Parkville, Md.

William H. McClain (to 5-16-1994)

William McClain began his studies of German at Case Western Reserve University in his native city of Cleveland, Ohio.  He did his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, where he also received his doctorate in 1943.  He first taught German in the Army Specialized Training Program at Wisconsin.  In 1945 he was assigned to the staff of Robert Murphy, the U.S. political advisor to General Eisenhower.  He was later attached to the Consular Office in Frankfurt am Main.  After the service he began his academic teaching career at Harvard University (1946-1952).  He then taught from 1953 to 1982 at the Johns Hopkins University and served for seven years as the chair of the German Department.  He initiated courses in German literature taught in English, hoping to stimulate interest.  His excellence as a teacher earned him many awards among them a special citation from Hopkins, the Lindback award for distinguished teaching and also the student council’s Gilman Award.  He was awarded the distinguished alumni award in 1967; and in 1981, the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association honored him with its Heritage award for exceptional service to the University.

He made significant contributions to the study of German American literary relations.  He co-edited the letters of Gerstacker, Bodenstedt, and Mühlbach and published articles on the importance of their work for the American audience.  He wrote many reviews for the Baltimore Sun concerned with the works of prominent German writers.

He co-founded the Maryland Chapter of American Association of Teachers of German and served for many years as faculty advisor of Delta Phi Alpha, the national German honor society.  He served as President of the Goethe Society.  He served on the Executive Committee of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland.

See Note on Hopkins University in Footnotes.

Rabbi Michael Meyerstein ( to 5-27-2006)

Rabbi Michael Meyerstein, a member of the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet, is the rabbi of Adat Chaim, Reisterstown, MD, and president of The Aleph Group, Inc., a fundraising consulting firm.

The Rabbi’s father, Ralph Meyerstein was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, Ralph was expelled from school because he was a Jew. He was present in his family's home on Kristallnacht in 1938 when storm troopers wintered and threw family possessions out the windows. in 1939 his parents sent him to England. They wrote to him, saying they were being thrown out of their home, that they would write again when they were relocated and telling him that their life insurance was in good standing. Ralph came to America

ultimately to Owings Mills, MD, a Baltimore suburb, where he died May 27, 2006. 

Charles Hermann Miegel (2-20-1897 to 1958)

Mr. Miegel was born in Baltimore.  His grandfather, John emigrated from the eastern part of Germany in the early 1870s.  His father Theodore was the superintendent of Wilkens Hair Factory on Frederick Rd.  Mr. Miegel was education at the German English Public Schools and entered Baltimore City College, where he graduated in 1915.  He completed his studies at Johns Hopkins and went to the Law School of the University of Maryland.  He was admitted to the bar in 1922.  He started a small firm, Miegel & Rollins and later associated with the law firm of Moylan and McKeldin.  It was during this time that his career path changed and he wanted to teach.  He spent a brief period teaching in elementary schools and then went to Polytechnic Institute in 1922, where he taught English.  He spent thirty years at Poly.  He also gave courses in Journalism and Public Life at the Baltimore Evening High School at City College and taught German for Berlitz and later in the School of Foreign Languages.  In 1925 he joined the faculty at Peabody Institute where he taught German. 

He was in love with music, literature and the theater.  He was involved with the Morris Mechanic as assistant manager of the New Theatre.  He wrote plays for the amateur stage.  Most of the annual ‘Poly Follies’ had him as author during his tenure at Poly.   He was involved with Zion Church as a member of the Church Council, Sunday School teacher and member of the Volunteer Choir.  He founded the Young People organization at Zion and each year the group would present a play.  They played to many full houses (held at the Maryland Casualty Company 1200 seat auditorium).  For the 175th Anniversary of Zion, he wrote a series of historical scenes in a pageant titled, ‘The Walls of Zion’.  

He is interred in Moreland Memorial Park Cemetery.

John Gottlieb Morris (11-14-1803 to 10-10-1895)

Dr. Morris was born in York, PA.  His father was a native of Württemberg.  The family changed their name from Moritz to Morris because it was at the time of the Revolutionary war and they did not want to be mistaken for Hessian deserters.  He received his early education in the Classical Academy at York and enrolled in his sophomore year in Princeton College.  He attended Princeton for three years, but in his senior year transferred to Dickenson College in Carlisle, PA, where he graduated in 1823.   His desire was to become a Lutheran Minister and he studied under several prominent theologians of that time, namely, Rev. Mr. Schmucker and Bishop Schultze.  He completed his studies at the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and graduated in 1826. 

He applied for a license to preach in Maryland and in 1826 was admitted to the Synod of Maryland and Virginia.  He preached to a small band of English Lutherans in Baltimore and stayed there for thirty-three years as their pastor.    The congregation was located on West Lexington Street near Howard.  A few of his parishioners formed the Second and Third English Lutheran churches.  He supported the move.  He has been called the ‘Patriarch of the English Lutheran Church in Baltimore’.  He was pastor of the First Lutheran Church in Baltimore and established a literary institute for women in Lutherville, Baltimore County.

He accepted the position of Librarian at the Peabody Institute.  He served several other parishes over the years.  He was editor of the ‘Lutheran Oberserver’ and founder of the Lutherville Female Seminary.  He served as president of the College at Gettysburg, the Maryland Bible Society, the Maryland Academy of Sciences, the Maryland Historical Society, Society for the History of Germans in Maryland, the Historical Society of the Lutheran Church and vice-president of the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.  He was a Professor in the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, the Natural History in the University of Maryland and served in many other societies.   In fact upon his death he was president of four historical societies. 

He had many works published including ‘Popular Exposition of the Gospels,’ published in Baltimore in two volumes in 1840; ‘Life of John Arndt,’ in 1853; The Blind Girl of Wirtenberg; and ‘Catherine DeBora,’ in 1856; ‘Martin Behaim,’ a discourse before the Maryland Historical Society in 1855; and ‘The Lords Baltimore,’ published in 1874.

Christian Newcomer (1-21-1749 to 3-12-1830)

Christian was the son of Wolfgang and Elizabeth (Weller) Newcomer, who also had two other sons and five daughters.  The family immigrated sometime between 1719 and 1727 and it was Christian’s grandfather Peter who emigrated from Switzerland.  They settled in Lancaster and were Mennonites.  As a young man he learned to be a carpenter.  He inherited the family farm and took up farming.  He sold the farm in Lancaster and moved, in 1775, to Beaver Creek Maryland, not far from Hagerstown.  

While ill, he reached out to preachers Otterbein and Boehm and when recovered, he felt he needed to preach.  His ministry began around 1777.

Christian was a farmer and preacher who was elected on May 5, 1813 as the third Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.  He was elected Bishop by Philip Otterbein and Martin Boehm, founders of the United Brethren Church and was one of the first three (Hoffman and Shaffer) to hold that title.

Christian married Elizabeth Baer (1752-1811).  They had four children.   Christian Newcomer kept a journal and tracked his own activities and those of the church and many public events.   After his death, his journal was translated into English, transcribed and edited by John Hildt (a member of the Baltimore Church.  In 1834, four years after Newcomer's death, The Life and Journal of the Rev'd Christian Newcomer, Late Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ was first published.

He is interred at Beaver Creek Church of the Brethren Cemetery.

Richard Ortmann (5-24-1844 to 5-30-1912)

Mr. Ortmann was born at Gusterhain, Herborn, in Hessen-Nassau. He was the son of Wilhelm Ortmann, who, as teacher, trained his son for the same profession.  Richard studied at the Teachers' Seminary in Usingen from 1860 to 1863, after which he held various teaching positions, chief among which was that at the female college at Dillenburg. He resigned in 1866 after a change of control in the schools systems occurred.  A change in the control of the Nassau schools, which passed into Prussian

His friend, Emil Dapprich, a teacher at Scheibs Schule in Baltimore, urged Richard to come to Baltimore, which he did in September of 1869.  Shortly thereafter he was appointed by Pastor Scheib to teach chemistry and history at the Zionschule in Baltimore.

Upon the death of Pastor Scheib Mr. Ortmann and August Schmidt became joint directors of the school until, through the establishment of German schools in the public schools of Baltimore, the school was finally closed.  Mr. Ortmann, who had for some years been acting as music critic for the German Correspondent, became Editor on July 2, 1901, succeeding Eduard F. Leyh.

The death of his oldest son of typhoid fever, while attending Johns Hopkins University had a severe impact on Mr. Ortmann’s philosophy of life.

Mr. Ortmann was honorary memberof the Turnverein "Vorwärts," the "Harmonie," "Germania Männerchor," and "Arion;" member of the "Funken," "Liederkranz," and "Liedertafel."

Philip William Otterbein (6-3-1726 to 11-17-1813)

Father of the United Brethren Church, Philip Otterbein was born in Dillenburg, Germany.  His father was a man of culture, who gave his son the finest literary advantages. He was brought up in the German Reformed Church and was ordained to the ministry at Dillenburg on June 13, 1749. For a time he performed the duties of both a teacher and a pastor; but in 1852 he felt compelled to come to the US in order to administer to the spiritual needs of the large number of Germans who had already left Germany and arrived in the US.   He reached New York on July 28, 1852 and proceeded to Philadelphia, under the guidance of the Rev. Michael Schlattel, whose appeal had brought him here.   There were six young men in the party, and they were sent to different posts. The Rev. Mr. Otterbein was sent to Lancaster, PA. Here he served for six years in the second most important German Reformed church in the US. During his administration the old, wooden church, which had been built long before, was superseded by a massive stone building. In 1758 he resigned in order to visit his old home in Germany; but the French and English war made travel dangerous and he accepted a temporary charge at Tulpehocken, PA and remained there two years. In September, 1765, he moved to York, PA and was the pastor of that large church until 1774, when he was called to assume the charge of the independent Reformed Church of Baltimore.  He did make it back to his home in 1770.

The Second Reformed Church of Baltimore had come into existence in 1771 and was the result of a serious division in the First Reformed Church over the conduct of its pastor.  A large minority, after appealing in vain to the synod for relief, left the First Church and established an independent Reformed church. Their first pastor, the Rev. Benedict Schwope had just come from German.  A large lot was purchased on Conway near Sharp and a small frame building was erected.  Efforts were made to reunite the congregation however the efforts were in vain.  Rev. Schwope resigned and Rev. Mr. Otterbein was urged to take the reins.  He took charge on May 4, 1774.  The German population of Baltimore was small at that time, the entire population of which numbered only 6,000. After the War of Independence conditions became more favorable and the congregation, in 1785, developed a formal organization.  A set of rules, now quite famous, was adopted January 1, 1785. The new rules departed from the tenets of the Reformed Church and established the new body. Mr. Otterbein enjoyed the support of several other church affiliations namely, Amr. Martin Boehme of the Mennonite Church (later expelled from that body because of the new views he held; George Adam Guething  of the German Reformed (later expelled for espousing fanatical views) and later of the United Brethren Church, where he spent 40 years as a preacher; Rev. Dr. William Hendel, German Reformed Church ; the Rev. Daniel Wagner, Rev. Anthony Hautz, Rev. Frederick L. Henop and Rev. Jacob Weimer. To these is to be added the Rev. Benedict Schwope.  Long before the seperation came, these ministers had formed themselves into a bond of union under the name of "The United Ministers." They met several times, the last meeting being at the parsonage of Rev. Otterbein in 1789. Here a new mode of procedure was adopted. The group consisted of fourteen ministers, seven were present.

They adopted the first creed of the self-constituted organization. It is entitled: "The Doctrine of the United Brethren in Christ."

William Otterbein was elected bishop of the new church at a formal conference held in 1800 at the home of Peter Kemp near Frederick.  It was at this conference that the name United Brethren Church was also solidified.   

The church were Otterbein officiated at Conway and Sharp was replaced by a large brick building that remains there today.  It was built in 1784 and is popularly called ‘The Otterbein Church’.

Rev. H. J. Siegfried Otto (9-11-1934 )

Pastor Otto was born in Liegnitz, Germany (now Poland).  His father was killed in 1945 in a land mine explosion in a French prisoner of war camp.  That same year his family fled to Bavaria as refugees.  He attended school in Germany and graduated from the Theologische Augustana Hochschule in 1958.  A year later he graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon Saskatchewan.  From 64-67 he conducted the Metropolitan Toronto Study for the Board of American Missions and then from 67-68 he was the chaplain to the Lutheran Seamen’s Centre in Toronto and Halifax from 1967-1978.  He was the Pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Montreal from 79-85.  His ministry at Zion in Baltimore began in 1986.  One of his first tasks/directions was that Zion should begin a twenty-year program of restoration for the 250th Anniversary.  He left Zion and went to St. John's Lutheran Church in Sweet Air. 

He is past president of the German Society of Maryland (2010-2012). He is married to Baerbel.  They were married in 1960.  They have four children, Ulrike, Paul Gerhard, Susanne, and Benjamin. 

Rev. Friedmann Heinrich Penner (4-29-1929 to 11-19-1984)

Pastor Penner was born April 29, 1929 in Tilsit, Germany and immigrated to Canada in 1951.  He was ordained in 1953 from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.  He served several parishes in Canada and in 1959 became pastor of Trinity Church in Edmonton, Alberta, the third largest bilingual Lutheran congregation in the province.  He was Chairman of the Social Missions and the Evangelishm Committee for the Western Canada Synod.  On December 14, 1962, Pastor Penner formally accepted the call and prepared to move to Zion’s newly renovated parsonage.  He was installed as the 10th pastor of Zion on March 31. 

Pastor Penner maintained many of the ‘traditional’ events at Zion such as Easter service and a communal breakfast, but he did make some changes and somewhat quickly.  He changed service times, prepared Bulletins in both English and German and ordered new Hymn books for the German service. 

In 1964, Pastor Penner and Zion became founding members of the Central Churches of Baltimore, consisting of 12 downtown churches dedicated to the betterment of the Christian Church in the downtown area.  Pastor Penner served as their President in 1971.

In 1969, Pastor Penner became actively involved at Gettysburg Seminary with the training and examining ministerial candidates.   In 1983 the congregation held a celebration in honor of Pastor Penner’s 20th year at Zion.  Pastor Penner died on November 19, 1984.  He is buried at Lorraine Cemetery.

Pfahler, Matthew F. (12-10-1815 to 2-13-1890)

Rev. M.F. Pfahler was born in Württemberg, Germany.  His parents were staunch Lutherans and came to the US in 1818.  They settled on a farm near Millerstown PA.  Matthew entered the school at Gettysburg in 1836 and graduated from the seminary in 1844.  He served several charges in the Somerset County area.  He was a member of the Synod’s Examining Committee on Personal Piety.

Rev. Pfahler was an exemplary example of goodness.  He was so popular the Synod purchased a house for him, which is where he lived out his retirement.  He died February 13, 1890.  He was survived by two daughters and two sons.  One son, John, was a leader in the Lutheran Church of Meyersdale.

Francis W. Pramschufer (8-9-1918 to 1-24-2001)

Mr. Pramschufer was born at Locust Point in Baltimore.  His father Francis, Sr., (1-17-1892 to 1-1979) was born at Locust Point.  His father’s parents were German immigrants, coming from Westphalia in 1887.    

He was a 1936 graduate of Polytechnic Institute and received an engineering degree from the University of Maryland at College Park.  Mr. Pramschufer was an educator teaching special education at a Community College and also acting as an instructor for construction trades and skills at Carroll Park High School in Baltimore.

Mr. Pramschufer, Jr., served in an air service unit aboard a Navy carrier stationed in California.

After the war he worked at the Glenn L. Martin Co. and worked on the Gemini space program.  He then went to Carver Vocational High School to teach.  He retired in 1984

He married Ellen (Martz) Pramschufer.  Together they had one son, Alfred. 

Considered the ‘Founding Father’ of the Maryland Oktoberfest, he was the President for 20 years.  He designed the huge fruit tower (fruchstsaal) which graced the entrance of the festiaval each year.  He also belonged to the Deutschamerikanischer Buergerverein Von Maryland; Club Fidelitas, a German-American social organization; the Baltimore Kickers Inc.; Edelweiss Club; and German Radio Klub.  He was a lifetime director and past vice President of the German Society of Maryland.  Mr. Pramschufer was the last president of the Deutches Haus, a longtime meeting place for German societies and immigrants until its closing in 1972.

Charles F. Raddatz (11-18-1838 to 1-14-1914)

Charles was born in Rostock, Mecklenburg, Germany.  He arrived in Galveston, TX. in 1858 at the age of twenty.  At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined a military company formed by the merchants of Galveston for coast duty. He served as First Lieutenant in Cook's Battalion of Artillery, Department of the Trans-Mississippi.  At the close of the Civil War he paid a visit to Europe but came back to his real home the United States of America. In 1870 he came to Baltimore.  From 1870 till the time of his death in 1914, he was head of the Department of German at the Baltimore City College, and for eight years was vice president of that institution.

Prof. Raddatz was more than a teacher; he embodied a rare personality. In the classroom he was an inspiration, and he enjoyed as he compelled the good will and respect of all the student body. Prof. Raddatz was always in affiliation with the Johns Hopkins University and until his death was a contributor to the Philological Journal edited by Prof. Gildersleeve. He was an in demand lecturer on historical subjects, and was also esteemed as a music critic. He had marked facility in translating lyrics from other languages into good singable English.

Charles married Clara 'Duff' Raddatz.

He is buried in Loudon Park Cemetery. 

Abraham Joseph Rice (Reiss) (1800-1862)-Rabbi

Rabbi Rice was the first ordained rabbi to serve in a rabbinical position in the United States.

Rice was born around 1800 at Gochsheim, near Würzburg, Bavaria. He studied at the Würzburg yeshivah, and was ordained by Rabbi Abraham Bing. He later continued his studies at the yeshivah of Rabbi Wolf Hamburger in Fürth, and then headed a small yeshivah in Zell.  In the 1830s he married Rosalie Leucht, and in 1840 they immigrated to the United States. After a brief attempt at reviving the Jewish community in Newport, Rhode Island, he accepted an appointment as the first rabbi of Congregation Nidche Israel in Baltimore.

Rice usually delivered his sermons in German, later occasionally in English, and insisted on retaining all the traditional piyyutim in the prayers. His constant battle against assimilation and lax observance of shabbat and kashrut brought him into conflict with many of his congregants. When he decreed that Sabbath-breakers should not be called to the Torah, there was such resistance that he had to back down; but he insisted that while they could be called up, nobody should answer "amen" to the blessings they recited. After an 1842 incident in which he objected to Masonic rites held at a Jewish funeral, some members left the congregation and founded the Har Sinai Verein, the first lasting Reform congregation in the United States.

Rice was known throughout the United States and Germany as a learned Talmudist.   In 1845 he established a Hebrew school, one of the earliest in the United States.

In 1849, finding it impossible to resist the demand for reforms at Nidche Israel, he resigned his position, founded his own synagogue which was strictly orthodox; to support himself he opened a dry goods store, and then a grocery.  In 1862 he was asked to return to the rabbinate of Nidche Israel, with the promise that it would remain strictly orthodox; but he died a few months later. In 1871 an organ was introduced and the Reform prayer book was adopted, and Nidche Israel became a Reform temple.

Rabbi Reiss is buried at Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery.

William Rosenau (5-30-1865 to )

Rev. Dr. William Rosenau was born in the village of Wollstein, Silesia, Germany. His father, Nathan Rosenau, worked as a merchant in Newburg, N. Y.  He emigrated to America when William was eleven years of age.

William had attended school in the Fatherland, and on coming to America graduated from the grammar schools of Philadelphia, where the family then resided. In 1882 Mr. Rosenau entered the Colleges of Cincinnati and graduated from the Hebrew Union College with the rabbinical degree in 1889. He received a call to Temple Israel at Omaha, Neb., where he remained until his call to Baltimore in 1892.

Dr. Rosenau presided over one of the largest and finest temples in Baltimore, The Eutaw Place Temple, place of worship of the Oheb Shalom (Lover of Peace) congregation.  The congregation was organized in a hall on Gay Street on October 30, 1853 (worship services being held over a Childs’ Coach Factory).  The first service was held on November 12, 1853.  In 1858, the congregation moved to Hanover Street, below Lombard.  The congregation was under the leadership, until 1892, of Dr. Szold, a Hungarian native and Rabbi emeritus.   Dr. Szold was one of the most beloved Rabbi’s in Baltimore’s Hebrew history. 

The present house of worship was begun in July, 1892, the cornerstone laid with imposing ceremonies September ist, following, and formally dedicated September 8tli and 9th in the year 1893.

Doctor Rosenau was married in Omaha to Mabel Hellman.  Doctor Rosenau was instructor in rabbinical studies in Johns Hopkins University. While in Omaha he became a member of the Masonic fraternity, St. John's Lodge, No. 22; Ancient Order of United Workmen, and the Hebrew Order B'nai Berith.

In politics he believed in republican principles. A number of Doctor Rosenau's sermons have been published, also his paper on Semitic Studies in American Colleges.

He focused his attention on education and saw the need for a modern school founded upon and directed after the German methods of education, taking natural history as the basis for instruction.    Exact science rather than theology seemed to him to be the source of truth.   He founded Zion School (also called Scheib School), which could be considered the first higher school of Baltimore city, if not in the country.  It raised the intellectual standard of the entire community.  It was the pioneer school of Baltimore and after it’s fiftieth anniversary stood far above the ordinary parochial school.  

Mr. Scheib's belief was a religion "of freedom and love, opposed to force and fear; the worship of the Father in spirit and truth, and the Christianity of Jesus Christ as a teacher." He preached extemporaneously, aided by a retentive memory. He had a fluent command of language. He was graceful in movement, earnest and powerful in delivery. Mr. Scheib was an artist, he had an ear for music and loved the beautiful; he was fond of his friends and of his family.

(History of Baltimore 1729-1898, Elliott  (Published 1898 S.B. Nelson, Publisher)

He married Lisette D. Isenbrandt.  According to Ms. Schreib's obituary, she is buried at Green Mount Cemetery.

Rev. Scheib served the congregation at Zion for sixty two years.  One year after his resignation, Rev. Scheib passed away.  He is buried at Lorraine Cemetery and a monument bearing his motto of life:  ‘Truth, Righteousness and Love’ marks his resting place.

 Article Sunpaper -Death of Dr. Rev. Henry Scheib 11-16-1867

Arno C. Schirokauer (7-20-1899 to 5-24-1954)

He was a physician’s son, born in Cottbus, Germany and his youth was overshadowed by the clouds of WWI.  At 17 he passed  his examination for the Nolabitur and volunteered for the Air Force shortly thereafter, serving until he lost an eye.  In spite of this handicap he devoted himself to the study of Germanic and Romance philology at the universities of Berlin, Halle, Munich and Florence.  Schirokauer was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy summa cum laude by the University of Munich in 1921.  He was assistant librarian of the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig and became director of the department of Cultural relations of the German Broadcasting Company.  He , his wife and son emigrated to the U.S. in 1939.  His first position was as assistant professor at Southwestern University in Tennessee from 1939 to 1941.  In 1945 he came to Baltimore as a visiting lecturer at Hopkins and the following year was appointed Professor of Germanic Philology.  He ultimately became Chairman of the German Department.  He specialized in German dialects.  His term at Hopkins was cut short by his sudden death in 1954.   Mr. Schirokauer was vice president of the Society of the History of Germans in Maryland from 1951 until his death. 

Schloegel (Schlögel), Charles (2-27-1827 to 1-27-1892)

Charles (Karl) Schloegel born 2.27.1827 in Bietigheim, Wurttemberg to Karl Frederick and Christina Rosina Ribbmann.  Trained in Stuttgart at the age of 24 in 1851.  Married Christina (dod 8.4.1919), nee Fleckenstein October 1853.  They had 10 children, possibly 11.  Conflict between 1900 census and obituary in Der Deutsch Corresondent as to number of children.  Note: Emmanuel (1855), Frederick (1864-married Kate E. Mackert on 8.21.1888), William (1857 to 7.6.1932 never married, practiced law), Eleonore (1867 to 6.27.1951, never married), Caroline (1869 to 3.24.1952 never married), Anna (1874 to 8.23.1922 never married), Elizabeth (1871 married Charles Fleischman in 1911), Margaret/Maggie (1877), Maria and Christina.  

Three of the children were organists, William at St. Stephan’s Evangelical, Caroline at Church of Peace, and Eleonora at St. Peter’s.  William also played at Zion German (1898).

He was licensed 1853 and 1854 and ordained in 1855.  He was in Accident Maryland from 1854-1857; Frostburg 1858; DC 1859-1861 and then Baltimore 1862-1874.  He enlisted in the State Militia on 5.19.1861 and appointed Chaplin on May 27, 1861.  He mustered out 8-7-1861 in New York.   A newspaper article states that Rev. C.A. Schloegel had taken charge of four (4) churches in Allegany County (Baltimore Sunpaper, July 19, 1855). According to a civil war pension record, he resided at 169 S. Bond Street.  This was also confirmed by a Sunpaper article on September 9, 1879 reporting the death of a House Painter, Robert Schnoor who died when he fell from the roof of the house of Rev. C.A Schlogel, located at 169 South Bond Street, next to the St. Peter’s (German) Evangelical Lutheran Church.  

He spent 30 years at St. Peter’s German Lutheran Church.  Rev. Schloegel died on 1-27-1892 at the age of 65.  He is buried at Loudon Park Cemetery, as are his wife and several children. Margaret and Elizabeth are buried at Schloegel's cemetery.

The 1920 Federal Census lists William E, his son (63) (as an attorney) and living with him at 4308 Park Heights Avenue are sisters Eleonora (44), Caroline (42) and Annie (38).

Many conflicting reports of the church and the cemetery.  Any information you may have, please share with germanmarylanders@gmail.com. 

Volker Karl Schmeissner  (11-28-1935 to 2-4-2017)

Volker was a native born German, born in Stuttgart, son of a Methodist minister and a middle school teacher. He grew up in Tübingen and studied electrical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart. He studied French, Geography and Sport at the University of Tübingen. Volker emigrated to the United States in 1961. He received his Master’s degree in German literature from Yale, where he also spent additional years in advanced studies.

He began teaching at the University of Maryland in 1967. In the 70s and 80s he taught German at several regional colleges and universities. In the mid-80s he joined the staff at Northern Virginia Community College. His love of teaching German language and literature led him to provide classes at the Zion Lutheran Church in Baltimore, the Baltimore Kickers Club, and during numerous Oktoberfeste in the region.

Volker lived in the Washington suburbs, but could always be found at the German events in and around Maryland as well. He was President of the German American Heritage Society at the beginning of the 21stCentury and in that position gave several presentations and speeches addressing the important contributions of Germans to both Washington DC and surrounding areas. He was also active in the Society for German-American Studies, Schlaraffia Washingtonia, the Concord Club of Washington DC, the Arminius Masonic Lodge #25, and of course, the German Society of Maryland. On a national level, Volker was a member of the German American Committee of the USA and the Steuben Society.

He was a member of the German World Alliance. Volker was awarded the German-American Friendship Award and the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande from the German Government in recognition of his work promoting the German culture and heritage.

He passed away on February 4, 2017 at the age of 81. Volker will be best remembered as a true missionary for the German language.  He is survived by his wife Hannelore, his son Peter and daughter-in-law Maria and his grandchildren.  He is also survived by his brother Hanns and sister Brigitte, both living in Germany

A memorial service was held on February 10that the United Church/Vereinigte Kirche on G. Street in Washington DC.

Samuel Davies Schmucker (2-26-1844 to 3-3-1911)

Samuel was born in Gettysburg, son of Rev. Samuel Schmucker of German descent.  The father was a prominent Lutheran minister in his day and served as president of the Theological Seminary of the General Synod of the Lutheran church for more than forty years.  

Samuel Davies Schmucker attended the Pennsylvania College where he graduated in 1863.  He spent two years in the Law School of the University of New York and graduated in 1865 with a law degree.   The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred from the Pennsylvania College in 1898.  He moved to Baltimore in 1866 where he established his practice.  He became associates with George Whitelock and formed the firm Schmucker & Whitelock.  This partnership continued until he was appointed Judge to the court of appeals in 1898.  He was elected by majority in 1883.  He was elected in 1899 for a full fifteen year term. 

He was president of the Bar Association of Baltimore and was appointed by Mayor Malster to draft a new charter for the city.  He served as president of the board of trustees of the Baltimore Orphan Asylum and the Home for Aged Men and Women.  He was active in the Society for the Protection of Children, the Home of Reformation, Maryland Bible Society, Maryland Tract Society and the Maryland Sunday School Union.  His picture hangs in the New York University of Law School. 

Rev. Dr. William Henry Schneeberger (9-1848 to 11-2-1916)

Rev. Schneeberger was born in New York city, the son of Regina and Sigmnund Schnneberger.  Sigmund was a well known merchant.

William showed a strong inclination for the ministry at an early age, an inclination fostered by his father, who saw to it that his son received a thorough education and training under the best teachers. Rabbi Schneeberger received his secular knowledge in the public schools of New York city, at Columbia Preparatory School, under Dr. Anthon, and took a course at Columbia College, where he obtained the degrees of B.A. and M.A.  After graduating from Columbia he went abroad to attain a rabbinical knowledge at the seminary of the late Dr. M. Lehman of Mayence for some time.  He then left for the city of Eisenstadt, Hungary, where the late Dr. I. Hildesheimer presided over his rabbinical college. Schneeberger followed Hildesheimer

Berlin, where he spent two years at the theological seminaryDr. Hildesheimer established there. While in Europe he attended the universities of Jena, Berlin and Vienna. He returned to New York in 1872 and was elected rabbi and superintendent of Poel Zedek.

In 1876, he received a call to Baltimore and took over the pulpit at Chizuk Emunah Congregation.  He resided there for over thirty five years.   On October 20, 1901, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his connection with the congregation was celebrated by the members of the congregation and the public in general.

During his stay in Europe Dr. Schneeberger wrote "The Life and Works of Rabbi Yehooda Hanasi,'' contributed articles to the "Jewish Messenger" and the '"American Hebrew of New York"'; "The Rabbi and the Young People" (Activities of the Rabbi), a translation of "Plessner's on Prayer."

Dr. Schneeberger's activities were not confined to his congregation. He was for a number of years president of the Education Society, where he conducted the education of the immigrants in Baltimore from their very first arrival, and was for years the superintendent of the night school of the above society; he was a member of the advisory board of the New York Theological Seminary, was a director of the Alliance Israelite L'niverselle of the Baltimore branch, was a member of the advisory council of the "American Jewish Committee," a member of the executive committee of "Orthodox Jewish Congregations of the United States and Canada," and was the secretary of the Hebrew Ladies' Sewing Society of Baltimore. In April 1882, he was married to Miss Sarah Nussbaun. daughter of the late Rabbi Charles-Nussbaun, of New York City.

1880 Census shows Sigmund and Regina with son William Henry (minister) living at 16 Lloyd Street, East side. William was 30 and Jacob and Jennie? Also lived in the house, they were 24 and 18 respectively.  The parents are both listed as 61.  Father a retired clothier.  Both parents were born in Prussia.

Rev. Schneeberger died on November 2, 1916.  He is buried at Hebrew Friendship Cemetery.

Theodor Schneider (1703-1764) Jesuit Priest 

Father Schneider was born in the Palatinate, near Speyer in 1703.  He was about thirty-eight years old when he emigrated to the U.S. at the request of Father Henry Neale, who arrived in Maryland in 1740.  Father Neale was frustrated that he couldn’t serve the German population because of his inability to speak their language 

Father Schneider held the chair of Philosophy and Apologetics at the Jesuit school at Liege and became rector of the Jesuit house of studies in the city of Heidelberg.  Rev. Schneider was a member of the faculty of philosophy of the University of Heidelberg.  In addition to being a preacher and a university professor, he was also a respected physician.  He was elected to the highest office of the university, that of Rector Magnificus[8] for 1738-1739.  He was ordered to go to the U.S. on September 19, 1740.  If you wonder why such a learned and respected man would be sent, there are two simple reasons.  In the first place, Father Schneider wanted to go and he had studied medicine in hopes of one day being able to use his abilities in a foreign mission.  There was also the fact that many German Catholics were drifting from the faith.  This was primarily due to conditions in the U.S. because at the time Catholics could not worship in a group or build a church. They were able to worship only in private. 

Father Schneider was welcomed in the U.S., not only for his ability to preach, but because of his medical background.  Being  a priest at the time was difficult and he traveled through the early settlements of Maryland and surrounding states in disguise.  Despite his extensive travels, he managed to copy tow complete missals of seven hundred pages each. 

Helene Schneidereith (5-29-1897 to 12-27-1985)

Helene Schneidereith was born in Baltimore, the daughter of Bernard (1862-1905) and Marie (Hemmeter 1867-1950) and worked in Baltimore and around the country.  She retired in 1963 after 10 years at the Methodist Board of Child Care in Baltimore.  She was credited with assisting in the establishment of this board.  Prior to her work there she spent 23 years with the Henry Watson Children’s Aid Society and 8 years with the Department of Public Welfare.  She also did consultant work in South Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington DC.  She was descendent of German families that helped to build Baltimore, including John H. Memmeter (who brought many Germans back to the US) and Karl Wilhelm Schneidereith, founder of the printing business that still exists.

She graduated from Western High School in 1914 and Goucher College in 1918.  She had a master’s in political science from Johns Hopkins University and a master of social work degree from the University of Pennsylvania. 

She lived on Tyson Street in Baltimore and had a home in Vermont.  She travelled extensively.  Her memberships included the National Association of Social Workers; Otto Rank Associates; Society for the History of Germans in Maryland; the Maryland Historical Society; Baltimore Symphony Associates; the Walters Art Gallery; the YWCA; the ACLU; the League of Women Voters; Zion Lutheran Church and Emmanual Episcopal Church. 

[Source:  The Sunpaper, January 2, 1986]

Ms. Schneidereith is buried at Loudon Park Cemetery.

Rev. Peter Stanislaus Schreiber (1804 to 9-15-1845)

Rev. Schreiber was born in Baltimore in 1804. His father was a German who in youth reached this country; his mother was the daughter of Frederick Yeiser, one of the earliest settlers of Baltimore; he was a soldier in the Revolution and present at Brandywine and Yorktown. The mother was a Protestant, but became a convert to the faith of her husband, Catholic. The son graduated from Mount St. Mary's College at Emmitsburg in 1820.

He received the order of priesthood in September, 1828. Among the churches he served were St. Patrick's, Washington; a church in Richmond and later the Cathedral in Baltimore. St. Vincent de Paul Church, Baltimore, was consecrated in November, 1841. In its steeple, which is one hundred and thirty feet high, hangs a bell taken from a Spanish chapel in Spain, during one of its wars. Rev. Schreiber became pastor at St. Vincent de Paul.  [Rumor has it that Frederick Yeiser, grandfather to Rev. Schreiber, entertained George Washington very near the site where his grandson later officiated as their priest]. 

The Rev. Mr. Schreiber's received was known as a wonderful speaker regarding his faith.  He had large congregations and grew very popular.   This from a written piece in 1830, "His style is easy and fluent denoting the man of lingual refinement and extensive reading. His gesticulation is graceful, while the matter of his discourses plainly indicates careful thought in their preparation, and the workings of a heart of benevolence."

He was an ardent temperance advocate and among the first of the clergymen of his church to form Catholic temperance associations in Baltimore. He broached the subject in a sermon which he preached in St. Peter's Church and it is thought his efforts directed the movement to success. Mr. Schreiber was a gentleman of polished manners and pleasing conversational powers. He died in 1845. A tablet bearing his name and that of its first pastor is in the vestibule of St. Vincent's Church.

He is interred at the Sulpician Cemetery.

Professor C.F. Emil Schulz (6-29-1847 to 2-19-1914)

Professor Schultz was born in Görlitz, Silesia.  In his childhood, he developed a keen interest and ability for gymnastics and soon became an active leader in such work. As a physical director he directed gymnastic work in Davenport, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco. Returning to Baltimore he was director of the "Gym" at the Y. M.

C. A. for some twelve years. He afterward opened a private gymnasium at the southeast corner of Charles and Baltimore Streets. Later he became the first supervisor of physical education of the public schools of Baltimore, which position he held up to the time of his death; in all some sixteen years.  He was an honorary member of the Turnverein Vorwörts (Turner Club Ahead/Forward)[9].

 Monsignor Martin A. Schwalenberg ( )

Born in Baltimore and raised on the east side (1930 Census shows Martin with his parents at 3011 E. Pratt Street), he was a graduate of St. Elizabeth's Parochial School and played soccer, football, baseball and basketball at Calvert Hall College High School, where he graduated in 1938. After attending Loyola College for two years, he signed a contract with the old Philadelphia Athletics and pitched and played shortstop for a season in the team's farm system.

He then decided to become a priest. After studies at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Roland Park, he was ordained in 1945 and was assigned to St. Augustine's parish in Elkridge.

In 1950 he served at Immaculate Conception Church in Towson and was later named pastor of the old St. Paul's Church on Caroline Street. In 1968 he became pastor at St. Charles Borromeo in Pikesville. He was given the title of monsignor in 1982 and retired five years later.

Monsignor Martin A. Schwalenberg Jr., chaplain to the Orioles, Colts and Blast teams who in his youth played a season of minor-league baseball.

Rev. Dr. Andrea (Andrew) Schwartz (11-13-1819 to 12-29-1894)

Andreas Schwartz was born in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.  He was six when his family came to America, settling in New York, where he received his education. At 19, he entered the Theological Seminary at Schenectady, being ordained four years later.  His first charges were in New York and New Jersey.  He came to Baltimore in 1848 to take over the German parish at Bond and Lombard Streets.  He stayed there until 1851 when he founded the First German United Evangelical congregation in East Baltimore and erected the church building on Eastern Avenue, near Broadway. He served there for fourteen years, when he accepted a call to the German Lutheran congregation in Richmond, Virginia.  Because of illness, he retired from this charge and returned to Baltimore and founded the Zion Lutheran Church in Canton. Because of failing health, he resigned his ministry in 1889.

During his early ministry he studied medicine and graduated from Washington University and while serving his congregation, he used his medical background to provide gratuitous treatment of the poor.

He was married to Christina (1821-1890).  They had a daughter, Josephine who married Charles Herzog. After his retirement, he lived with his daughter.  They also had two sons Col. John A. Schwartz and William H. Schwartz, both serving in the Federal Army during the Civil War.

The New Church Magazine, 1874 (volume 2) states that Rev. Schwartz preached and believed in the Swedenborg (a  religious movement, informed by the writings of Swedish scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). Swedenborg claimed to have received a new revelation from Jesus Christ through continuous heavenly visions which he experienced over a period of at least twenty-five years. In his writings, he predicted that God would replace the traditional Christian Church, establishing a 'New Church', which would worship God in one person: Jesus Christ. The New Church doctrine is that each person must actively cooperate in repentance, reformation, and regeneration of one's life. Source: Wiki).

Rev. Schwartz served as pastor at many of the German Lutheran Churches in the area:

1835-German Evangelical Congregation in Wheeling, WV.

1851-1865-First German United Evangelical Church, Baltimore, MD.

1870-German Evangelical, Zion-Baltimore, MD.

1873-1889-German United Evangelical, Baltimore, MD.  (Also known as Batz Church on East and Dillon Sts.)

Rev. Schwartz is buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery.  This is strange because the First German United Evangelical Cemetery is often called ‘Schwartz’ cemetery after Rev. Schwartz.

Francis Xavier Seelos, Pastor

A stained glass window has been placed in the National Catholic Basilica in Washington , DC honoring Francis Xavier Seelos, a pastor for twelve years in Baltimore , Cumberland and Annapolis . He was born in Füssen , Bavaria on February 11, 1819 . He was ordained as a Redemptorist priest at St. James Church on Aisquith Street in Baltimore . He died in New Orleans while serving the victims of a plague on October 4, 1867 at age 48. A statue has been commissioned for placement at St. Mary's Church,

Annapolis .

 William Simon (2-20-1844 to 7-20-1916)

Dr. Simon was born in Eberstadt, Hessia.  He was from a long line of Lutheran clergymen.  He graduated from the University of Giessen and in 1870 accepted a position with the Baltimore Chrome Works.  He began in 1871, giving lectures and basic courses on modern chemistry at the University of Maryland.  The courses were done at his expense and provided in a spare room at the College of Pharmacy.  This was the first place in Maryland devoted to practical laboratory instruction in chemistry.  The class became very popular and because of this program, he became chair of Analytic Chemistry and moved from the little room to a facility with all the space he required.  So in 1872 he was elected director of the chemical laboratory.  He taught for the college for thirty years (1872-1902) and published a ‘Manual of Chemistry’ in 1884, which is still in use and may be purchased today.  There was, at one time, a grant at UM, “The William Simon Memorial Prize for Proficiency in Practical Chemistry”.

Dr. Simon died in 1916 and is buried with his wife, Paula (1849 to 1933), at Loudon Park Cemetery.

Father Mathias Sittensberger (1719-1775)

Father Sittensberger’s name was anglicized into ‘Mr. Manners’.  He was born in the city of Landsberg-on-the-Lech, which is in southwest Bavaria, near Augsburg.  He arrived in the U.S. in 1752 at the age of thirty-three.  He was appointed superior of ‘Bohemia Manor’ in Cecil County Maryland. 

Father Ferdinand Steinmeyer (1720-1786)

Father Steinmeyer was born in Württemberg in 1720.  He was professor at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau.  He arrived in Maryland in 1751.  He traveled and preached, not only in Maryland, but in Pennsylvania.  He was also a physician and devoted to science.  He was made a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1768, which was a great feat in light of the temperament of the government towards his church.  He visited the battlefields, the military camps and the hospitals during the War of Revolution so that he could see to the ‘Hessians’ and those Germans serving under the French Flag. 

He pledged his allegiance to the United States when he took the ‘oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’ in 1779.  He was honored by the University of Pennsylvania in 1779 and was made a trustee.

Rev. Frederick Charles J. Sternat (3-29-1881 to)

Rev. A.L. Timothy Stiemke (8-24-1847 to 3-14-1908)

Rev. Stiemke was the pastor of Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church on Caroline Street in Baltimore.  He was born in Kirchhayn,  Washington County, Wisconsin.  He was the son of Charles A. and Wilhelmena, both natives of Prussia, Germany.   They went to Wisconsin with a group from Germany and settled on land procured from the government.   The Stiemkes had eight children. 

Rev. A. L. T. Stiemke was born in 1847 and was educated by his father.  He attended Martin Luther College at Buffalo, NY.  He later attended Concordia College and Ft. Wayne, IN. He graduated in 1874, from Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis.  He was ordained the same year. 

When in Buffalo he taught school and was also adjunct professor in Concordia College, Ft. Wayne, one  year.  He began his ministry in Warder, Tex., in 1874, where the congregation was predominantly Slavic, making it necessary for Rev. Stiemke to learn the language.  From there he went to Houston, Texas, Trinity Church, and two and a-half years later went to St. John's Church, in New Orleans. He remained in New Orleans for six years and served three terms as president of that synodical district.

He received his call from Emanuel in September 1888 and was installed as their pastor.   At one point the congregation had over 1000 communicants, and more than 350 in the Sunday School. 

He was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states.  He married Anna Schoening, daughter of Matthias and Margaret (Baumann), natives of Holstein, Germany, in November of 1874.  They had one child, Adopf Stiemke (1895-1967).  Pastor Stiemke is buried at Immanuel German Cemetery on Grindon Avenue.

Rev. Johann Uhlhorn (1794-1834) Pastor Zion

Rev. Uhlhorn was born in Bremen in 1794 in very poor circumstances.  His education was geared to become a teacher.  He was the Unterlehrer at the Deutsche Domschule in Bremen and studied classical subjects in the Lateinisch Domschule where he enrolled in 1808.  He decided to become a preacher instead of a teacher and turned to the study of theology.  In 1812 he entered the University of Strassburg in Alsace.  He became the assistant pastor at the Lutheran parish in Mannheim.  He became the Associate Pastor at Zion Lutheran Church in Baltimore.  He had an advantage at Zion when he became the sole spiritual leader, in that he had already served as co-pastor for ten years.  He was rather polished and fashionable and his appearance did cause concern for some of the older congregation.  He wore rings in his ears and his attire was of a more expensive nature than the common clergyman in the U.S. 

Before effecting any plans of his own, he asked for a leave to visit his native Bremen and in 1833 the council granted him that leave.  On March 22, 1834 he died from a sudden illness soon after his arrival in Bremen. 

Upman, Mary Ethel Hurst (1939 to 2024) Educator

Born January 21, 1939, in Weymouth, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of Gilchrist L. Hurst and Helen A. (Smith) Hurst and the sister of George L. Hurst, who died in 2020.She was the wife of the late Staff Sergeant Philip Martin Upman who preceded her in death in 2016.

She graduated from Weymouth High School and earned her BA degree cum laude at Radcliffe College. She studied German Literature at the University of Zurich and earned her Masters and Doctoral degrees in German Studies at Stanford University. Her doctoral dissertation titled “Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder’s Confessions and Fantasies” was published as a book in the Pennsylvania State University Press in 1971. She taught German at Sam Houston State University in Texas first as an Assistant Professor from 1967 to 1972 and the as an Associate Professor from 1972 until 1974. From 1977 until 1993 she taught German and English at Gulf High School in New Port Richey, Florida, where she met and married Phil. In addition, she served a 3-year term as Pasco County Supervisor of Foreign Languages and language Arts from 1981 until 1984. In 1993, Mary and Phil moved to Carroll County, Maryland, where she started the German program at North Carroll High School and following her retirement in 1998, she taught German at McDaniel College until 2005. In 2002 McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College) honored Mary with the “Phenomenal Woman of the Year Award.”

As Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at Gulf High School in New Port Richey, FL, she travelled to Boston in November 1980 to receive an award at the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Her department was recognized as one of the nation’s fifty best secondary school programs. The school was mentioned in William D. Sims and Sandra B. Hammond book “Award-Winning Foreign Language Programs: Prescription for Success” from 1981.

Mary was active in the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) and served as secretary and newsletter editor of the Maryland Chapter from 1998 until 2005. In 2008, she was elected to the Board of Directors of the German Society of Maryland and served for many years as the German Society’s secretary. In total, she wrote 50 articles on various awards ceremonies, seminars and immersion weekends offered by the Goethe-Institute and McDaniel College, and on concerts and festivals in Maryland and the DC Metro area. Many of these articles were published in the America Woche, a newspaper published in German in the US and Canada.

Mary and Phil were regular attendees of German-American Day which took place at McDaniel College every October from 1995 until 2019. For many years, they offered workshops for attending middle and high school students on “The Art of Making Swiss Cheese” and “Job Opportunities that Can Use German.”

Mary loved to learn foreign languages. In addition to German, she was fluent in French. In addition, she loved to travel. She took many trips to Europe, mainly to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In the last few years, she travelled with Dr. Mohamed Esa from McDaniel College to Central Europe visiting Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungry and Austria and in 2018 to Morocco and Spain. In addition, Mary played the violin for many years and gave various concerts at Carroll Lutheran Village where she lived after Phil passed away in 2016.

Mary died Thursday, July 18, 2024, at BridgingLife Dove House in Westminster, MD.  She is interred with her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.

Veditz, George William (8-13-1861 to 3-12-1937)

Henry Vees ( 8-13-1817 to 2-21-1899) Educator

Mr. Henry Vees, was born near Ulm, Wuertemberg. In 1849 he emigrated to America, making Sharpsburg, Penna., where he was engaged in teaching, his first home. A few years later he came to Baltimore, where he was also engaged for a number of years as teacher. He was a very able musician, one of the founders of  "The German Fire Insurance Company" and of the "St. James Savings Bank," where he was serving as treasurer at the time of his death.

Vogtmann, Ludwig, Rev. (6-4-1828 to 2-18-1890) 

Rev. Vogtmann was born at Herblinghausen in what was then the Prussian Province of Westphalia.  He attended parochial school.  At the age of 16 he began his classical studies at the Royal Gymnasium at Arnsberg.  He graduated from that school with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1850.  He attended the University of Bonn for his theological studies and completed those studies at Paderborn Seminary.  He was ordained a priest at the Seminary August 18, 1855.  He was immediately made assistant priest at Warburg.   He remained there for two years and then transferred to the Church Beatam Virginem in sole at Bachum in Westphalia.  

At this time, the Redemptorist Fathers in Baltimore had charge of Holy Cross Church and they heard of Rev. Vogtmann’s work and invited him to come to the U.S.  He accepted and arrived in the US, December 5, 1889. He immediately assumed charge of Holy Cross Church in South Baltimore.  The congregation at that time, numbered 1200.  Steadily the number grew to 5,000 built steadily upon the physical buildings of the church.  The new addition to the church building cost $70,000.  It was the red brick gothic style building with a tower and spire of 200 feet.  He added a handsome marble altar inside and a chime of three bells.  There was the addition of a school house that greeted 600 pupils who were taught by 13 sisters.  He worked at Holy Cross alone until his final year when failing health brought him assistance.

He was well-known and popular in Baltimore.  He passed away at the parish house on February 18, 1890.  He had been ill three weeks with abdominal trouble, which resulted from his long and severe attack of typhoid fever the previous summer.  During his illness, Cardinal Gibbons was a frequent visitor

Source:  The Baltimore Sunpaper, February 19, 1890, page 6

Rev. Hans Ludwig Wagner (2-25-1913 to 9-17-1993)

Pastor Wagner was born in Hamburg, Germany on February 25, 1913.  He received his theological training at the Universities of Hamburg, Marburg and Rostock and at the Theological School of Bielefeld-Bethel.  He earned the degree of Doctor of Theology at the University of Rostock.  He left Germany in 1838 and emigrated to Canada.  He became assistant professor of Hebrew and the Old Testament at the Saskatoon Seminary and at the same time worked toward his degree of Bachelor of Divinity.  He served in four parishes before coming to Baltimore.  He assumed his duties at Zion on December 5, 1954.  He resigned from Zion on November 1, 1961. 

Father Wilhelm Wappler (1711-1781)-Jesuit Priest

Father Wappler was born in Westphalia in 1711.  He chose Conewago as his central location after arriving in the U.S.  Conewago was close to the Susquehanna River.  Father Wappler traveled all over the land, including settlements in York, Lancaster, Cumberland and Bohemia Manor.  The Conewago Chapel was the parent church from which the Catholic religion spread over Southern and Western Maryland. 

Father Wappler wasn’t in the best of health and because of his health he returned to Europe in 1748.

He and Father Theodor Schneider were the first priests in Maryland to administer to the needs of the German Catholics. 

Hans Karl Weber (5-24-1887 to 4-2-1955)

Mr. Weber was born in Belleville, Illinois, the son of Rev. William Weber and Louise, who was born and emigrated from Westphalia around 1885.   He graduated from Belleville High School in 1906 and received his B.S.  in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Pittsburgh, intent on becoming a teacher.  He learned to speak German from his German born parents.  His first teaching assignment was with the Conway Hall Preparatory School in Carlisle, PA.  During WWI, he served with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, teaching convalescent soldiers.  From 1921 until 1953, he taught Mathematics and Physics at Polytechnic Institute.  He retired after a heart attack in 1953 and died in Baltimore in 1955.

Peter Augustus Witmer (3-28-1834  to 10-3-1898)

Carrie May ‘Kurrelmeyer’ Zintl (9-26-1904 to 2-28-1992)

Mrs. Zintl was born on September 26, 1904 to William and Carrie (Hermann) Kurrelmeyer, both of Germany.  Carrie received her early education from the Baltimore City public schools.  She graduated from Western High School on May 31, 1920 at the age of fifteen.  It was customary in those days, that once graduated from High School, one could go on to substitute teach, which is what Mrs. Zintl did.  She graduated from Goucher College and in 1924 began her graduate work in Classics at Johns Hopkins.  During this time she spent several semesters studying abroad including at the University of Munich, the University of Vienna and the University of Leipzig.  She passed her oral examination and received her doctorate in the Classics in 1929 from Johns Hopkins University.

She married Ernst Zintl of Marienbad, Czech Republic in 1929.  He was the son of Josef and Valerie.   He had received his doctorate from the University of Prague in biochemistry and was a pharmacist.  Their daughter, Erika Margarete was born in 1931. Unfortunately, Ernst died the following year and Carrie and Erika returned to Baltimore. 

She began her teaching career here as Assistant Professor of Classics and German at Wilson College in Pennsylvania and then went to Mount Saint Agnes as Professor of German and Classical Mythology.  Mount Saint Agnes joined Loyola and Mrs. Zintl taught classical mythology.  She retired from Loyola and went on to join the faculty of Johns Hopkins as a lecturer in Greek and Roman mythology.  She taught there until 1987. 

She was a member of many organizations, especially within the German American community. The German Society of Maryland welcomed her as the first female member and the first Executive Committee Member.  She was the treasurer, secretary and finally president of the American Goethe Society of Maryland.  She served on many scholarship committees and committees to keep the German language an option in our schools.  She received several awards including three from Johns Hopkins and the medal for distinguished service from the German Society of Maryland.  Also, as the first female president of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland, their Report 42 was dedicated  to Mrs. Zintl.

She passed away on February 28, 1992.

Adolf Zucker (10-26-1890 to 5-13-1971)

Mr. Zucker was born in Fort Wayne, IN.  He received his early schooling at Concordia College and earned his degree from the University of Illinois in 1912.  He earned an M.A. a year later from the same school.  His specialty was Germanic Languages and Literatures.  In 1917 he completed his doctorate.  He accepted a position that same year as instructor at Tsing Hua College in China and for five years was the assistant professor of Composition and Literature at Peking Union Medical College.  Because of his tenure in China, he wrote, ‘The Chinese Theater’ in 1925. 

In 1923, just three years after the Maryland State College of Agriculture became the University of Maryland, Professor Zucker became Professor and Head of the Foreign Language Department.  In 1929, he published, ‘Ibsen, The Master Builder’, which became his best known work.   He left College Park in 1935 to serve two years as Head of the German Department at the University of North Carolina and then one year at Indiana University.  He came back to Maryland in 1938 and accepted the position of Head of Foreign Languages at the University of Maryland, where he remained until his retirement in 1961.

At the end of WWII, he served for two years as Textbook Censor with the Allied Control Council in Germany, lectured in 1947 at several German universities and was chosen in 1949 to represent America in the bi-centennial of Goethe’s birth in Frankfurt. 

He was a member of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland and served as their President from 1956 to 1962.  He was a the Director of Research of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation in Philadelphia.

In 1950, he edited and assisted in authoring the ‘Forty-Eighters’ for Columbia University Press.  He also wrote, in 1966, “General DeKalb, Layfayette’s Mentor’.

His portrait hangs at the entrance of the German Department of the University of Maryland.  

FOOTNOTES

[1] White Marsh Church is between Washington and Annapolis.  The church realized it would be impossible for the Vicar Apostolic, seated in London, to exercise jurisdiction over the church in the new country.  Accordingly a General Chapter of the American Clergy was called at White Marsh.  John Carroll was appointed Prefect-Apostle and in 1789 the first Bishop of the newly created diocese o Baltimore, thereby becoming the first Bishop of the United States.

[2] Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use.

[3] An academic degree ranking below that of doctor given by some European universities

[4] There are several Orders of the Crown, however, most are linked to military service.  The Order of the Crown of Westphalia (German: Orden der Westfälischen Krone) was instituted in Paris on the 25th of December, 1809 by King Hieronymus I of Westphalen, better known as Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte.

[5]Christoph Martin Wieland (September 5, 1733 – January 20, 1813) was a German poet and writer.

[6] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (August 1749  – 22 March 1832) was a German writer. Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, pantheism, and science. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"). His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable..

[7] Zion Deutsche Schule is still in operation, having just celebrated it’s 80th year in 2009.  The school teaches the German language every Saturday morning.

[8] The title is used widely in universities across Europe, including Germany.  At some universities it is phrased in a loftier manner, as Rector Magnificus or Lord Rector.

[9] Turners, an athletic and political organization founded in Germany during the second decade of the nineteenth century. Turners quickly established societies (known as Turnverein) in the American cities in which they settled. These societies served as athletic, political, and social centers for German communities in the United States. The Turners most important contribution to American life in their communities has been their advocacy of physical education and fitness.

From Undercurrents of German Influence in Maryland (A paper written by Prof. Albert B. Faust-Cornell University, February 21, 1911)

Almost all of the earlier faculty members of JHU had taken their doctorate degrees at German Universities (Gildersleeve, Remsen, Adams, Morse, Haupt, Wood, Warren, Ely, Renouf and Williams.)

Quote from James B. Angell..veteran president of Michigan…at a special ceremony..JHUs 25th Anniversary, no mention was ever made, even by implication, that this university ideas derived directly from Germany, yet emphasis was laid on statistics showing that the number of American students attending German universities had decreased. Was it too obvious to mention…this German university idea, has a hard struggle for recognition in most parts of the country.   The University of Chicago more generous in acknowledgement of German influence on the graduate school.  At the 50th convocation, March 22, 1904, a group of representative German professors were invited and honored by the University of Chicago and a celebration instituted which was called ‘Recognition of the Indebtedness of American Universities to the Ideals of German Scholarship’.