German Heritage in eastern Perry County

Museum and memorial document 1838-39 German immigration

Bill Bock is at the Saxon Lutheran Memorial in Frohna, Missouri, replacing the windows in the two-story Fenwick cabin built around 1835. A direct descendant of the immigrants who settled the area in 1838-1839, he can speak German and has been volunteering at the memorial since 1961, when renovations of the site first began. He is also on the advisory board for the memorial and was the contractor for building the visitor�s center.

Bock has been to Germany seven times, many of those times to meet up with the German descendants of his ancestors. Bock says the man who now owns the farm his ancestors originally owned is the one who invited his family to Germany, locating them after researching an 1833 inscription on the barn with their ancestor�s name. For many years, Bock corresponded with a man living in Germany, whom he was connected with through a mutual friend. As they became friends, this man came to visit Bock and his late wife two times at their farm in Frohna.

Kathy School demonstrates a farm tool used while at the Saxon Lutheran Memorial Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018 in Frohna.Kassi Jackson ~ Southeast Missourian

�Bock is pronounced �Buck� in German,� Bock says, taking a short break from putting in windows. �As a matter of fact, my ancestor, Michael Bock, came, and his wife refused to come along. So they ended up getting separated and divorced then after that. � He just felt that he couldn�t make a living over there anymore. 1838 November is when they left. He was on the first ship.�

Bock�s story is just one example of the pride the people of eastern Perry County take in their heritage, and the effort they exert to document it and pass it onto the next generation. The Saxon Lutheran Memorial is a living demonstration of this; it is comprised of 15 buildings that can be toured, most of them original, including six 19th Century cabins, a working blacksmith shop and a machine shed housing many pieces of early 20th Century farm machinery. All of the buildings come from eastern Perry County, and the Twyman, Bergt and Josiah and Sarah cabins, Twyman/Bergt barn, as well as the granary which now functions as a country store museum, are original to the property.

Just a six-minute drive away in Altenburg, Missouri, is the Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum, a collection of artifacts and history documenting the German immigration to the area from the Saxony and Thuringia regions of Germany in 1838-1839. Carla Jordan, historian and museum director, says the pastors immigrated for religious freedom. The people who followed these pastors to America, Jordan says, came primarily because they were craftspeople losing their jobs in Germany due to the Industrial Revolution.

Four ships sailed to America; one was lost. Once the people on the three remaining ships arrived in eastern Perry County, they experienced disease and the betrayal of Martin Stephan, the pastor they�d followed to the new world. After this the people, Jordan says, wanted to go back to Germany but did not have enough money. Through this test of faith, C.F.W. Walther stepped up as a leader to help unite the people. He also wrote a publication that connected Lutherans who had settled across America, and eventually became the first president of Concordia Seminary, as well as the first president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It is in Perry County that this church, the second-largest Lutheran body in the U.S., has its roots.

The culture of these early settlers is still apparent today in their descendants in eastern Perry County.

�My elders here, people a generation ahead of me, they still speak the language,� Jordan says. �This is an authentic microculture of America. And you don�t find that very often.�

Warren Schmidt, president of the Perry County Lutheran Historical Society whose great-grandfather was one of the founding immigrants of the area, says the German language is not the only remnant of their ancestors.

�The work ethic of the people that came here still is around,� Schmidt says. �People around here know what a good day�s work is. In Perry County, you�ve got businesses that have probably come to Perryville and established themselves because it�s a great labor force.�

Why do the people of eastern Perry County take such pride in preserving their heritage?

�So we have it there to show to our descendants,� Bock says. �This place is principally set up to remember the people that settled here and the hardships they went through to settle this area. And also since it ties in to the beginning of the Lutheran Church here in America, something I feel is very important for the younger generation to learn. It�s also set up to show how the people did live in the very beginning, something that�s kind of lost over time.�

Kathy Scholl, volunteer at the Saxon Lutheran Memorial, agrees.

�It�s part of history,� she says. �If we lose this, a whole story is gone.�

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Kathy Schlimpert shows the scissors used for the sherenschnitte art form Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018 at the Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum in Altenburg. KASSI JACKSON ~ kjackson@semissourian.com

Scherenschnitte. Not �schnitzel.� Not �schnibbles.� Scherenschnitte.

It means �scissor cuttings� in English, and it�s something scherenschnitte artist and teacher Kathy Schlimpert of Altenburg, Missouri, makes sure her students can correctly pronounce and spell before they ever pick up a pair of scissors and paper pattern. She says they oftentimes mispronounce the word, mistakenly using other words that begin with �schn-� rather than the proper name. Schlimpert teaches her classes periodically at the Riverside Regional Library in Altenburg, Missouri.

Kathy Schlimpert shows an in-process sherenschnitte piece at the Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum in Altenburg, Missouri.Kassi Jackson ~ Southeast Missourian

Schlimpert discovered the art approximately 30 years ago while trying to buy plastic flowers to take up floristry. While walking through the store, she spied a scherenschnitte kit with a pattern for a pineapple, bought it, and once at home, discovered she enjoyed the craft. She never did buy the flowers.

Scherenschnitte dates back to A.D. 200 in China, where it was invented and used on official documents. In the 1600s, the craft found its way to Austria and Germany, where newspaper was cut without a pattern for Christmas decorations. Finally, it came to America through Swiss and German immigrants during the 18th Century.

It is because of its German history that Schlimpert�s scherenschnitte creations adorn multiple cases and Christmas trees at the Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum of Altenburg, Missouri. Her newest tree includes designs of woodland creatures.

To create scherenschnitte, Schlimpert says the artist needs pointy-bladed scissors and a paper pattern. The hand holding the scissors remains still while the paper is guided into the scissors. The artist should begin cutting along the lines in the middle of the pattern and work their way to the outside, or else the paper will become too thin and difficult to hold onto. Sometimes, Schlimpert says, the artist will have to poke a hole in the paper to make the tiny, circular cuts.

Schlimpert, whose mother�s family came from the Saxony region of Germany, says before her work was exhibited in the museum, she was not interested in her genealogy and heritage. As more of her work was displayed at the museum, she became more engrossed.

�It�s always kind of interesting to know where you actually came from,� she says. �So I guess I have to thank the scherenschnitte for me becoming interested in that.�