Allen County, Indiana Genealogy

Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Facebook posted over 30 History Notesduring 2020 using the hashtag #SoestHistory.

1. Throughout 2020, we'll have a weekly post about the history of our congregation and surrounding community, beginning in...

   Posted by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Thursday, January 9, 2020

   Thursday, January 9, 2020post by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Facebook:

   Throughout 2020, we'll have a weekly post about the history of our congregation and surrounding community, beginning in the 1830's up through to the present day. You'll be able to follow along with these Historical Notes using the hashtag #SoestHistory.

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   The first white settlers to come to this part of Marion Township arrived in the mid-1830s. Prior to this, the land was occupied almost exclusively by Miami Indians, who had controlled the Fort Wayne area since at least the early 17th century. The Miami had many villages and cities in the area, including Kekionga (really a series of villages, located near Lakeside Park in Fort Wayne) and a large city of several thousand inhabitants located near Stone Street Quarries in Poe. In addition, an old Indian cemetery once stood opposite Emanuel Road from our current church, somewhere just north of Wayne Trace, so there may have been a Miami village there as well at one point.

   Sadly, after the Miami’s defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, they began to find themselves harassed and oppressed, and many left the area more-or-less voluntarily. The rest were forced to leave their ancestral homeland at gunpoint—700 in 1837 and the remainder in 1846. Thus, when most early white settlers arrived, the area was largely, though not entirely, abandoned, consisting mainly of woods and swampland, cut through only by Indian trails and by Wayne Trace—the first road in the Township, cut by Anthony Wayne’s army during their war with the Indians.

   Most of the early inhabitants of northern Marion Township were speculators who purchased land from the government at $1.25 per acre and then subsequently sold that land to the incoming German settlers for a tidy profit. One of the few exceptions was Nathan Coleman. Though Mr. Coleman never became a member of our church, several of his children married their German-speaking neighbors and ended up joining the Lutheran Church. Many interesting facts can be told in connection with the Coleman family. For one, the Colemans were members of a United Brethren congregation, now almost entirely forgotten, that used to stand on the west side of Wayne Trace, half-way between Hoffman and Monroeville Roads. Due to the heavy German settlement in this area, that congregation closed its doors sometime around 1860. For another, the Coleman house is the oldest brick house in the township, built by hand by Nathan Coleman. It is the rear house on the Marion Hills Reception Hall property.

   The first known Lutheran immigrants to come to Marion Township were the members of the Weisheit family, who came to Marion Township from Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, in 1832. The Weisheits came over with several German Catholic families and settled with them near the town of Hessen Cassel. Other early Lutheran settlers include the Neireiters, the Trautmanns, and the Herrs, all of whom settled here in the mid-1830s.

   Next week’s Note will focus on the Weisheits and the Hessen Cassel immigration.

   Image: 1876 map of Marion Township in Allen County. Red X is current church location, green arrow is where the first Soest church and cemetery was located.

2. History Note #27 – World War I World War I began on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Within...

   Posted by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Thursday, July 9, 2020

   Thursday, July 9, 2020 post by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Facebook:

   History Note #27 – World War I [ See World War I page ]

   World War I began on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Within a week, Russia, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom joined the fray. Watching from afar, most Americans preferred to stay out of the war, though some strongly urged American intervention. Anti-German and anti-German-American bigotry began to spread during this time (considerably aided by the bigoted speeches of former president Teddy Roosevelt), but for the most part, life continued as before. All that changed on April 6, 1917, when the United States declared war on Germany. That same day, Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation defining as “alien enemies” all non-naturalized German immigrants over the age of 14, and mandating registration of the same. Allen County’s registration records have been destroyed, but thanks to the preservation of Fort Wayne’s records, we know that at least one former Soest family was impacted by this decree.

   As the war progressed, anti-German hysteria grew. Local high school students were praised in the newspapers for burning their German textbooks, librarians removed German books from circulation, and German-American farmers were arrested for sedition after speaking out against the purchase of war bonds. The Indiana State Council of Defense declared that “the use of German as any part of a church service may rightfully be regarded as un-American,” and the Allen County Council of Defense sent spies to congregations who nevertheless continued to hold services in German.

   Locally and nationally, Lutherans of all stripes were looked at with suspicion. The Missouri Synod had to repeatedly defend itself against the charge of secretly supporting and carrying out orders from the Kaiser. Lutheran churches suffered repeated vandalism, while in some states, Lutheran pastors had to hide in woods and fields to avoid lynch mobs. Locally, Zion Lutheran School in Schumm, Ohio (near Van Wert) was dynamited early one Sunday in October 1918.

   Despite these pressures, many young German-American men joined the armed forces, including Allen County’s first war casualty, one Carl Winkelmeyer. Soest members who joined include William Ahrens, Lansing Behrman, George Feldt, Albert Lepper, Charles Lepper, John Roege, and George Rohrbach (all but one of whom were buried in our cemetery), plus nine others whose names we do not currently have record of. As the war drew to a close, many hoped for a return to normalcy and for the safe return of their soldier family members and friends. Neither came fully to pass. In late 1917 and all of 1918, an influenza pandemic raged throughout the United States and Europe. On October 28, 1918, word was received that William Ahrens had succumbed to the flu at an army base in Kentucky; a month later, word came that Lansing Behrman had died of pneumonia while stationed in France.

   Image 1 – 1918 pamphlet in our church archives, defending the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod from the charge of secretly supporting and taking orders from the German Kaiser

   Image 2 – Memorial stone of Pvt. Lansing Behrman and tombstone of Pvt. William Ahrens in our church cemetery. Behrman was buried in France, but his family erected a stone at Soest as well.

   Image 3 – Newspaper notice of Lansing Behrman’s death. Source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/53744672/lansing-behrman

3. History Note #28 – Spanish Flu For the past five months, the world has been gripped by news of the coronavirus and...

   Posted by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Thursday, July 16, 2020

   Thursday, July 16, 2020 post by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Facebook:

   History Note #28 – Spanish Flu [ See Spanish Influenza page ]

   For the past five months, the world has been gripped by news of the coronavirus and dramatically altered by shutdowns in response to it. These days, large numbers of deaths from disease are uncommon, but that was not always the case. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, northeast Indiana suffered multiple waves of diseases, including several rounds of an international cholera epidemic in the mid-1800s, a smallpox epidemic in the 1880s, and the famous Spanish Flu in 1918–19.

   Historians and virologists disagree on the geographical source of the flu, with France, the United States, and China all proposed as possibilities. What is known is that it quickly spread through the trenches in Europe, military camps in the United States, and then into the civilian population, eventually infecting up to 500 million people, or a third of the world’s population at that time. Death toll estimates range from 17 to 100 million people, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

   Locally, residents read about the spread of the flu in Europe throughout the summer of 1918, and by early fall, concern began to set in as reports of deaths in army camps within the United States made the newspapers. Starting in October, Fort Wayne newspapers began reporting a steady slew of influenza victims originally from the Fort Wayne area, many of whom died in army hospitals in the U.S.

   On October 6, the Indiana Board of Health banned all public meetings and closed all churches, schools, and places of amusement, permitting only factories and retail stores to stay open. The order went into effect in Fort Wayne on October 8, but at the request of the Allen County Health Commissioner and many leading businessmen of Fort Wayne, the State Board of Health permitted everything in Fort Wayne to reopen two days later. A mere two days after that, Fort Wayne officials changed their minds and reinstated the ban after two adjoining counties reported hundreds of cases of the flu.

   For the next month, Fort Wayne citizens had to settle in for a dreary routine, with some stores and all places of amusement shuttered, social gatherings and church services banned, and all schools closed. By the end of October, Fort Wayne had had 109 recorded cases of influenza. By comparison, the combined caseload in all army camps in the U.S. had surpassed 400,000, on top of nearly 45,000 cases of pneumonia and nearly 17,000 deaths. In light of the staggering number of cases outside of Fort Wayne, the city decided to extend the shutdown into November, prompting quick protests from many of the unemployed workers.

   On November 10, seventy labor representatives, who together represented some 12,000 men, met with the Allen County Board of Health to discuss the effects of the shutdown on the unemployed workers, many of whom hadn’t been to work in five weeks due to the ban. Theater workers, musicians, builders, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and painters had been prevented from working, while many other businesses remained open and fully staffed. The labor representatives suggested shutting down all businesses in order to entirely stop the spread of the flu. When that was brushed aside, they threatened legal action against the city for unfairly targeting their professions.

   The next day—November 11, 1918—all worries about the flu were forgotten as the entire city celebrated Armistice Day and the end of World War I. Four days later, Fort Wayne lifted the shutdown entirely. For the next three weeks, everything seemed to be returning to normal, until outbreaks in several of the small towns in Allen County caused another shutdown on December 2 in the county and on December 4 in Fort Wayne. This time, the shutdown within Fort Wayne city limits was limited to the closure of the schools. The students were no doubt dismayed by the news. Not only had they been restricted to their homes for four weeks in October and November, but memories of the summer of 1916 surely flashed before their eyes, when an outbreak of infantile paralysis caused the city to place severe restrictions on all persons aged 16 and younger. For weeks, Fort Wayne children had been forbidden to leave their homes. Now some of the same restrictions were being placed on them twice in rapid succession! Adults fared rather better, only being required to wear masks wherever three or more were gathered.

   On December 14, in light of a new report showing over 5,000 cases of flu in Fort Wayne, the city’s Common Council passed detailed new rules to fight the contagion. Public meetings, schools, and libraries were closed. Children were forbidden to attend churches, movies, theaters, or retail stores. Churches could only hold services if all those present stayed at least two feet apart. Occupancy restrictions were placed on stores and theaters. Bowling alleys and pool halls were forbidden to allow spectators. Basketball games, boxing matches, and dances were forbidden. Elective surgeries were cancelled and visitors forbidden at the hospitals and jail, though exceptions were made for close relatives of the deathly ill. Because Lutheran Hospital had been shut down since early November due to an outbreak among the nurses, an emergency hospital was set up in the Concordia College gymnasium, though it never was used.

   On December 17, Fort Wayne hospitals reported 185 new cases and five deaths from the flu; the day after that brought another 85 cases and five additional deaths. In response, the city banned all Christmas celebrations, only permitting church services to be held under the same restrictions as before. By the end of December, there had been over 1,800 recorded cases of the flu in Fort Wayne, plus an additional 489 cases in Allen County. Out of the towns in the county, Yoder (158 cases), Monroeville (110 cases), Woodburn (80 cases), New Haven (58 cases), and Hoagland (45 cases) were the hardest hit. Finally, on January 1, 1919, in light of decreasing numbers, the last of the bans was lifted.

   The flu continued to spread in Fort Wayne and Allen County for the next four months, but the number of cases fell from 2,316 in December to 722 in January, 960 in February, 663 in March, and a mere 8 in April. Just as quickly as the flu had come, it was gone. Another, much less deadly, wave of the flu hit northeast Indiana in January and February 1920, but the fatality rate was low.

   When looking back on the Spanish Flu, one thing that sets it apart from many other diseases is the uniquely high death rate among young adults. Unlike many diseases that kill both the very young and the very old (and unlike the recent coronavirus, which seems to largely target those over the age of 65), the Spanish Flu killed the very young, the very old, and young adults. In 1918–1919, fully 99% of the deaths from Spanish Flu in the United States were those under the age of 65, with nearly half of fatalities occurring among those aged 20 to 40. The 1920 strain killed more elderly, but those under age 65 still made up 92% of deaths. This pattern had dramatic long-term effects on the population. Because the disease targeted young adults, soldiers were particularly vulnerable. By the end of the war, half of Allen County’s war casualties had died from the flu. Also, between the war and the pandemic, average life expectancy in the U.S. dropped 12 years, to 36.6 for men and 42.2 for women.

   Despite the massive international implications of the flu, the community around Soest seems to have been largely unaffected. It is unknown how many members contracted the flu, but the only fatality within the congregation was William Ahrens, who caught the flu and died while serving at an army base in Kentucky. The main impact seems to have been the temporary closures of the church and school, with school in session for a mere 180 days in 1918, in contrast to the usual 200.

   Image 1 – Monthly recorded cases of influenza in Allen County, June 2018 through June 2019.

   Image 2 – Obituary of Pvt. William Ahrens, sole Spanish Flu fatality at Soest. Source: https://www.findagrave.com/.../50988156/william-henry-ahrens

   Image 3 – Brief newspaper article about Albert and Charles Lepper, members of Soest who served in WWI. The article notes that Albert Lepper was being hospitalized in France after having caught the flu. Source: Kathy Lepper

   Image 4 – Indiana State Board of Health poster with instructions on dealing with the flu. Source: https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/spanish-flu/

4. History Note #29 – Ban on German Even before America’s entry into World War I, anti-German bigotry began its slow,...

   Posted by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Thursday, July 23, 2020

   Thursday, July 23, 2020 post by Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest), Fort Wayne on Facebook:

   History Note #29 – Ban on German [ See German Heritage page ]

   Even before America’s entry into World War I, anti-German bigotry began its slow, insidious spread throughout American society. Anti-German sentiment played a large and explicit role in Indiana Prohibitionists’ successful 1917 effort to enact Prohibition throughout the state, with alcohol consumption condemned as “unpatriotic” and “Hunnish.” The fact that most of Indiana’s brewers and many of Indiana’s tavern owners were of German descent made this campaign’s push all the easier. The law went into effect on April 2, 1918—almost exactly a year after the United States declared war on Germany—and was a considerable blow against German culture in the state. Three days later, a German-American miner in southern Illinois was lynched by an angry mob. The Journal Gazette ran several investigative features on this story, reporting on the mob’s subsequent threats to tar and feather the local Lutheran pastor, just as they had tarred and feathered many local German-descended residents before.

   History note #27 told of the anti-German activities in the area during World War I, and history note #28 focused on the Spanish Flu that accompanied the tail end of the war. The largely Germanic residents of Soest, reviewing the course of preceding two years at the end of 1918, must have breathed a sigh of relief that the war was finally over, the Spanish Flu was receding, the anti-German measures would no doubt soon be dropped, and life would finally return to normal.

   If that was the attitude of these hapless farmers, they were soon to find themselves even more discomfited. On January 9, at the opening of the 1919 session of the Indiana House of Representatives, Governor James P. Goodrich delivered a speech laying out his legislative agenda for the new year. Included in that list was the banning of German in all the schools of the state. “We should have only one language taught in the common schools of our country—the language of the Declaration of Independence. If we are to think as Americans, act as Americans, and ever make this truly a nation in heart and soul, it can only be through the teaching of a common tongue to our children.” The legislature wasted no time in drawing up bills to accomplish this purpose, proposing to ban the teaching of German in all schools, public or private, up to the eighth grade.

   The Lutherans of this state likewise wasted no time in organizing opposition to this plan. August C. Stellhorn, Superintendent of Schools of the Central District (forerunner to the Indiana District of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, then still known as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States), immediately began meeting with legislators, corresponding with Lutheran pastors and teachers throughout Indiana and Ohio, and taking a survey of every Lutheran school in the state. Pastor Eickstadt, of St John's Lutheran Church & School in LaPorte, together with five of his congregants, published an open letter, complaining that “as the bill stands, instruction in religion by means by any other but the English language would be a misdemeanor and those conducting the school would be subject to prosecution. This is unjust and un-American.” Similar protests were sent to the legislature from Lutherans in Seymour, Michigan City and Adams County, the latter protest being signed by 75 individuals. Numerous other letters were sent by individual Lutherans throughout the state, protesting that the ban on German would be “a direct violation of separation of church and state and religious freedom, as it is guaranteed in the bill of rights of the Constitution of Indiana.”

   In response to these protests, several legislators sought to soften the language of the bills, either exempting parochial schools or exempting non-required subjects such as religion. Legislators and newspapers from across the state denounced these attempts with the strongest language possible. “A law must be enacted which will prohibit private and parochial schools from continuing to cultivate the baneful influence of the German language,” declared the Marion County Council of Defense, in a letter quoted by newspapers throughout the state. Many newspapers also noted derisively the efforts from “some Germans in the northern part of the state” to oppose the bills. It was likewise noted that some politicians seemed hesitant to support the anti-German measures precisely for fear of upsetting these Germans. This was a particularly relevant concern at that time, as the “German vote” was then in the process of switching from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican, a consequence of Woodrow Wilson’s actions and attitudes during the war.

   It must be noted, however, that not all Germans in the state were opposed to the bill, many even going so far as to vocally support it. Shortly before the bill was passed, 150 German-descended Seymour residents demanded immediate passage of the bill. Seeing the divisions among the Germans, several newspapers in the state resorted to a misinformation campaign in order to turn doubters into supporters. Wrote one such paper, “This is, of course, as far as the legislature could go in excluding the German language from the education of the girls and boys of the state. Its powers do not extend to the regulation of parochial schools, in some of which the German language will continue to be taught until through pure force of public sentiment it is discontinued.” This was a blatant lie, but it and similar stories managed to persuade many fence-sitters to jump on the banning bandwagon.

   Finally, on February 13, the bill—known as the McCray Anti-German Bill—passed unanimously in the House and one vote shy of unanimously in the Senate. German would no longer be taught in any of the elementary schools of the state. The voters’ assembly at Soest quickly decided to join in a lawsuit with other Lutheran churches in the state, arguing that the law was unconstitutional. Even before the lawsuit could work its way through the courts, however, the Lutherans in Adams County defiantly continued to hold religious instruction in German, as they believed was their right. At Soest, religious instruction continued to be held in German, but was held outside of normal school hours in the unheated church in order to maintain compliance with the law. The teacher also quietly and illegally continued to have reading instruction in both German and English over the next two years.

   Indiana was not alone in banning the German tongue in the elementary schools within its borders. A total of 22 states banned the teaching of foreign languages at the elementary school level, including California, Nebraska, Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin. In 1920, a Nebraska Lutheran schoolteacher named Robert T. Meyer was arrested and fined for reading the Bible in German in his classroom. Instead of paying the fine, Meyer worked with the Missouri Synod to challenge the constitutionality of the law. The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled against him, but on June 4, 1923, the United States Supreme Court overturned his conviction and struck down all laws banning foreign language instruction in the nation.

   Image 1 – “Beat back the Hun” Prohibition poster

   Image 2 – Soest’s 1918 school questionnaire from August C. Stellhorn’s files.

   Image 3 – Newspaper article from the Alexandria Times-Tribune about the Lutheran schools in Adams County, October 2, 1919.

   We have more on the Emmanuel Ev. Lutheran Church (Soest) on our Church page.

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