The Lutherans: St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1878

St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church organized 1878 — first church dedicated August 21, 1878, at Jefferson and William streets — congregation removed to Laurel Road, new church dedicated October 1990

St. Paul’s: St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Bend was organized in 1878 by the Rev. Henry Siek — the name is spelled Sieck in the congregation’s own church book. The original church, built on the southeast corner of Jefferson and William streets, was dedicated on August 21, 1878. The Rev. Paul Heid was the second pastor, and he was succeeded by the Rev. Traugott J. Thieme, the pastor of Howard’s day, whose name stands over most of the baptisms in the church book for 1879–1903. The congregation had a large and substantial church building downtown and a parochial school attached to it, whose history is coeval with that of the church itself: in the parish’s infancy Siek taught the school himself, afterwards a teacher was employed, and by 1907 two teachers were constantly engaged. The church book, the Kirchenbuch der Evangelisch Lutherischen St. Paul’s Gemeinde in South Bend, records baptisms, confirmations, and marriages in German from 1879.

The removal north: In the early 1980s the congregation decided to seek a location on the north side of South Bend, and in 1984 it purchased the site on Laurel Road at the north edge of the city — reported in the genealogical quarterly first as Laurel and Cleveland roads and corrected to Laurel and Auten roads. Pastor Gregory Fiechtner was installed on August 13, 1989; the church was built under his leadership and dedicated in October 1990.

The English and Swedish churches: Howard’s 1907 survey places the Holy Trinity English Lutheran Church at the corner of Sherman Avenue and Lindsey Street, the Rev. William Brenner pastor, and the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Gloria Dei Church at the southwest corner of Chapin and Kerr streets, the Rev. John F. Borg pastor, a numerous and zealous congregation that had erected a beautiful concrete stone church. St. Paul’s states its affiliation in its own name and record as a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod congregation; the English and Swedish congregations of 1907 belonged to the older English and Augustana traditions that later formed part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. No founding dates for the later twentieth-century Lutheran congregations of the city were established from district or congregational records for this survey, and they are therefore not dated here.

Sources:

1. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), Sec. 7 — St. Paul’s organized 1878 by the Rev. Henry Siek, the August 21, 1878 dedication at Jefferson and William, the pastors Heid and Thieme, the parochial school, and the Holy Trinity English and Swedish Gloria Dei churches.
2. Kirchenbuch der Evangelisch Lutherischen St. Paul’s Gemeinde in South Bend, Ind., 1879–1903, as transcribed by the South Bend Area Genealogical Society — the German register, the pastors Sieck, Heid, and Thieme, and the quarterly’s history note on the 1984 Laurel Road purchase, Fiechtner’s 1989 installation, and the October 1990 dedication.
3. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church (LCMS), South Bend, the congregation’s own presentation of its name and affiliation.