German Language Books - Kamphoefner

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The majority of children at this time probably attended parochial rather than public schools.  The educational efforts of the Lutheran church are well-known.  Lutherans in New Melle maintained a parochial school past the middle of the twentieth century.  But German Evangelicals and Catholics were not far behind in their educational efforts.  At the turn of the century, nearly every Evangelical church in my area still maintained a school; in Cappeln, there were about 30 pupils, in Femme Osage around 45.  In most cases instruction was entirely in German, except for one hour of English daily.  I have not examined just when these schools were closed or when they converted to English.  The First World War no doubt played some role, but perhaps not such a drastic one as in other parts of the U.S.

In general it is impressive how long the German language held on in the churches of this region.  In the Lutheran congregation in Augusta where I was brought up, the language transformation proceeded much as in New Melle.  English services were introduced in 1916, before American entry into World War I inflamed anti-German hysteria.  English traded off every other Sunday morning with German, but was compensated by a German service in the evenings.

The German Evangelical churches, although theologically more liberal than the Lutherans, were very similar in questions of language.  The minutes of the Cappeln congregation reported the introduction of an English-language Sunday school in 1927: “And so after seventy years existence [or to be exact even longer!] also in this highly conservative congregation the beginning of the use of the official language of the country was made, and St. John’s congregation of Cappeln as the last of the congregations in the St. Charles pastoral circuit gave up its exclusive use of German.”  However, it took until 1932 before the first monthly English church services were introduced.  In neighboring Femme Osage, the center of the Tecklenburger settlement and the first German-Evangelical congregation west of the Mississippi, the German language was not abandoned until 1948 – 115 years after it founding.

Excerpts from “Chain Migration, Settlement Patterns, Integration” by Walter D. Kamphoefner, part of Von Heuerleuten und Farmern, edited by Walter D. Kamphoefner, Peter Marschalckm, and Birgit Nolte-Schuster