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St. Paul’s College Centennial History

 
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roger.pape
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Location: Liverpool, NY

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:00 am    Post subject: St. Paul’s College Centennial History Reply with quote

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading "Praise for the Past…Faith for the Future, A centennial history of St. Paul’s College in Concordia, Missouri”, by Rev. Frederick A. Baepler, 1983. This book has been posted on line at http://www.concordia-memories.org/files/SPCCentennial.pdf. Rev. Baepler was quite a historian and captured a significant amount of detail of St. Paul’s history, including many old photos. (Perhaps more than anyone would want to know about many of the meetings and celebrations, like how many slides were shown at one presentation.) The book brings back memories of the concern in Concordia about various attempts to close the school. It occurred to me that the period I was associated with the school in the 1940s and 50s (Quarter Century III) was sort of a bridge period between the old school and new school.

One can compare the photos in that book to those in the Rehkop/Peterson Photograph Collection from SHSMO. Search on 'SPC'. Some of them were also in my family’s collection of old photos. For example, I was surprised to see the picture of Gustavus Adophus Frerking (pg. 20). We have the identical photo in our personal collection. It was one of my son’s favorites. He had the look of an old English monarch, like King Edward. It was interesting that he was instrumental in the building of the old hospital.

My father got mentioned a few times. He was in the Board of Control planning meeting for the campus expansion (page 50). He had served on the Board of Control for a number of years. After the meetings, he would invite the group to our house. Mother prepared a large dinner and I had the pleasure of serving them. (See a humorous situation that occurred at one of those dinners in my posting at Personal Recollections of St. Paul’s College .)

I didn’t remember that Dad was involved in the sale of the Stuenkel property for the expansion of the school. That was the old Stuenkel homestead. It was the birthplace of Dad’s mother. The subsequent owners Edward Stuenkel was Dad’s uncle and Otto was his cousin. Earlier the Stuenkels had sold some of their property to St. Paul’s. That is how they paid for the education of several of the boys who entered the ministry (most notably Rev. Walter Stuenkel).

The buildings also bring back a lot of memories. I was in Quinta when the last classes were held in the old Administration Building. (It’s surprising that it held together as long as it did with the tie rods in the basement and attic holding the walls together.) I also remember the beginnings of Baepler Hall, having delivered material to Sievers Construction Co. during its construction.

The book also discusses several fires that had a significant impact on our family. It recalls the infamous fire at the end of the April 1949 celebration for Paul Heyne’s national oratorical championship. The fire had started in the livery stable next to the old lumber yard from flares that were used to decorate floats in the parade. They were not fully extinguished when the wagons were pulled inside the building. The lumber yard was a total loss and we spent months that summer cleaning up the debris. Second was the fire that destroyed Founders Hall in 1963. I was living in New York State at that time and didn’t hear about it until I returned home for Christmas. Mom was very concerned about the sudden decline in Dad’s health after fighting the fire all night in the bitter cold.

By the way, using OCR the text was made searchable for names, events, etc. (It has no index.)
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