I recently found my Grandma Erenstina Wendtland and her faternal twin brother Wiehelm/Wilhelm Wendtland confirmation gift booklets given on April 27, 1902 by the Lutheran pastor in Lyndon Station, WI. The readings are all in German and printed out of St. Louis, Missouri by Concordia Publishing house. The church was part of the Missouri synod at the time. Both children’s parents immigrated from Germany/Prussia circa 1880.
I really liked seeing these confirmation books, Bob, especially because I grew up going to the Grace Lutheran-Missouri Synod Church in Augusta, WI, that was right across the street from our house. Our pastor was Reverend Edwin Schedler, a staunch Lutheran, God-fearing German through & through! We grew up a generation or two later than your relatives who used these German-language confirmation books, so all of our Lutheran literature was in English. But many congregant families were very German still, indeed: At my confirmation on an extremely hot and humid June morning in the church, several of us newly confirming kids fainted up in the front of the church, and I remember Mrs. Von Haden, Harvey Von Haden’s mom, shouting out as her son hit the floor, “Ach der Lieber!” (not sure, though, that I spelled that right).
LikeLike