Tradition blocks the renaming of two Perry County towns

Out on Route C is a crossroads that still matters.

If you head north into Perry County, up into the winding hills and scattered woods, past sun-bleached barns, grain bins and sensible farm houses, past where the ribbon of highway curls unhurried around corn fields, dry-stalked and dormant this time of year, you'll find it.

And then you'll have to choose, just like always, and go left to Frohna or right to Altenburg.

That crossroads wouldn't have mattered much if the sister cities had undergone the merger city officials worked to coordinate. If residents hadn't come together to preserve the towns' names, both forks merely would have landed at opposite ends of a newly minted "Saxony Hills," "Saxony Ridge" or some other of the proposed names for the unified town.

But a rich tradition is woven into the names Frohna and Altenburg, and it's one of which the towns' citizens -- about 600 combined -- are proud.

A city limit sign for Frohna, Missouri, hangs on Highway C. Years after residents in both towns approved a consolidation, they balked at renaming the communities. (Glenn Landberg)

'Holy Land'

In 1838, chafing under royal decrees and a hostile religious climate, several hundred Lutherans from Germany's Saxony region banded together to build new lives in America. They left home as pilgrims, but most became successful merchants and tradesmen, including Johann Fiehler, a blacksmith whose great-great-great-grandson still lives in the town the group built.

"I'm pretty sure it's three greats," Gerard Fiehler said, mentally double-checking his forefathers. "But there are plenty of people around here who are direct descendants from that first group of immigrants."

Fiehler, now retired, usually can be found at Altenburg's Lutheran heritage museum, which he tends cheerfully.

"I was just here looking on Ancestry.com," he said. "I live not 300 yards away."

He's always willing to sit down and recount the history of his town and, by extension, his family.

"Those first years were rough, though," he explained.

The group of immigrants lost one ship at sea on the voyage to America.

Upon arriving, their leader and pastor, Martin Stephan, was exiled for the improper handling of church funds and female congregants.

The people struggled to adapt to agrarian life.

Despite these trials, their first settlements, including Altenburg and Frohna, became the foundation for what is the Missouri Synod, the second-largest Lutheran denomination in the country.

It's so large and well known, its reputation reaches far.

When Fiehler's son, Nick, moved to a Texas border town for work, the local pastor there had him introduce himself to his new congregation one Sunday. When Nick mentioned he'd grown up in Altenburg, Missouri, the pastor interrupted.

"In front of the whole congregation, he says, 'Altenburg? Folks, this guy's from the Holy Land!'" Fiehler said with a laugh. "[Nick] told me, 'Dad, I'm 1,800 miles from home, and I still can't get away from it.'"

The towns enjoy a certain reputation among the faithful, so when a decade-old ballot measure jeopardized the names "Frohna" and "Altenburg," residents responded in true Lutheran form: by organizing a petition.

Name matters

Put to a vote in 2001, it was an otherwise unassuming question: "Should the City of Altenburg, Missouri, and the City of Frohna, Missouri, consolidate?"

Perhaps the ballot measure should have been more explicit, but as former Frohna mayor Marvin Scholl wagers, most people didn't realize consolidation applied to the nomenclature as well.

"If there had been something about a name change on that first ballot, it would have sunk like a rock," he said. "If you mess with the name, that dog'll wake up and bite you."

He remembers the sister towns pursuing consolidation several times under hyphenated Frohna-Altenburg combinations, but they were unable to reach a consensus.

So they let that dog lie, and it suited most folks fine for the better part of 13 years.

But by that time, the ballot's passage had landed the towns in a statutory gray area.

There's no time frame in Missouri law governing the consolidation process, but the obligation to abide by the voters' decision remained.

The problem was the statute's language -- it only addressed how to consolidate; it said nothing on how to avoid doing so.

So in 2014, believing consolidation was the only available course of action, city officials decided to put the matter to rest.

Having seen how sibling rivalry had stymied other talks of agreeable hyphenation, the boards of aldermen decided in a joint session neither "Altenburg," "Frohna" nor any combination thereof would be a part of the new name.

City officials, though under no obligation to involve the residents in the renaming, asked residents to propose names for the new town as a gesture of good faith and held hope ruling out existing names would expedite the process.

It might have worked in another town.

Perhaps the whole saga would have gone smoother in a place not descended from iron-willed German pilgrims. But in Frohna and Altenburg, people dug in their heels.

Door-to-door

On Altenburg's side, resident Mike Hughey and a small cadre of friends and relatives collected signatures door-to-door for a petition to stop the renaming.

Seventy-four percent of Altenburg's registered voters signed it.

"There's too much history here to just see it go like that," he said.

In Frohna, city tax manager Doris Lungwitz joined former mayor Scholl and others in circulating a similar petition.

Not to be outdone, 75 percent of Frohna's registered voters signed theirs.

In the basement of Frohna's city hall, while the board of aldermen privately discussed the petition they had presented, Lungwitz and Scholl chuckled with fellow signatories about the tenacity of their grassroots campaign.

"We had a map with all the city divided up, and we went out to people's homes," Scholl said.

Even in a town where everyone's familiar from work, town or church, it took days to fill the petition.

Even then, not everyone signed, Lungwitz said. But the solidarity of sentiment that emerged in defense of the towns' shared histories is undeniable.

"I feel that seeing the way we came out in those petitions, we should be listened to," Lungwitz said.

"We don't want to build a bunch of walls. Long before we voted to consolidate, we were sharing utilities, and that would continue," Scholl said. "But if we made a mistake 13 years ago, let's correct it. Let's bury the hatchet and move on."

Judgment Day

Having received the petitions -- and endured a number of prickly public forums -- city officials decided to pursue a different course of action, even if it meant stepping outside the letter of the law.

"Now we know how the people feel," said Altenburg Mayor Harold France after a January board of aldermen meeting. "We have to go with what the people want."

City attorneys determined the best option would be to petition for a declaratory judgment in the Circuit Court of Perry County, in which a judge would hear the situation and likely release the two towns from their obligations to consolidate.

The petition, filed together by Frohna and Altenburg, was submitted Thursday. If all goes smoothly, the judgment could come within a month.

Frohna Mayor Hank Voelker said he was glad to be nearing the end of the ordeal, as he, along with France and their respective boards of aldermen, have taken the brunt of the public's reaction.

"It's just one of those things," Voelker said, "since we really weren't the ones that started it. But we'll be the end of it."

And when it ends, things should go back to normal. Altenburg still will be Altenburg and Frohna will be Frohna, like they always have been.

Like a majority of their residents say they should be.

tgraef@semissourian.com

388-3627