Our Lutheran Catechism “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts; and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” — 1 Pet. 3:15.
Dr. Eli Huber was born Jan. 14, 1884, in Pinegrove, Schuylkill Co., Pa., and belonged to that class of people known as Pennsylvania Germans, who are the descendants of the emigrants who came to this country at an early period from the southern part of Germany. Jacob and Sarah Huber are the names of his parents. His father’s ancestors are reported to have come from Switzerland. Both parents possessed good natural abilities though deprived by force of circumstances and the times of a good education. His father used to say laughingly, that he completed the usual course of that day — from the alphabet to the Psalter — in three months. But though themselves deprived of the advantages of even a good common school education, they valued it all the more highly, and used all diligence and practiced self-denial even to secure better opportunities for their children.
Rev. Charles Philip Krauth, Sr., D.D. The older Dr. Krauth was born in Montgomery county, Pa., May 7, 1797. His father was a native of Germany, and came to this country as a young man, in the capacity of a school teacher and a church organist. His mother was a Pennsylvanian. They lived in New York, Pennsylvania, and in Baltimore, Md., also for many years in Virginia, highly respected and enjoying the confideLce of their neighbors. Of his early life comparatively little is known in consequence of his singular and habitual reticence with regard to himself. He seems to have been from, a youth of an enquiring turn of mind and fond of books. He early evinced a decided taste for linguistic studies, and, in the prosecution of the Latin, Greek, and French, won for himself high credit. Having selected medicine as his profession, he commenced its study when about eighteen years of age, under the direction of Dr. Selden, of Norfolk, Va., and subsequently attended a course of lectures in the University of Maryland. But his funds having become exhausted, he visited Frederick, Md., with the view of procuring pecuniary aid from an uncle, the organist of the Lutheran church, or of negotiating a loan for the completion of his medical studies. During a visit to Rev. D. F. Schaeffer, of Frederick, his mind was led to the conclusion that the ministry was the work to which God had called him. He very soon commenced his theological studies under the instructions of Rev. Dr. Schaeffer, and, at every step of his progress, was the more strongly convinced that he was acting in accordance with the Divine will.
Rev. George Henry Gerberding. The subject of this sketch was born in Pittsburg, Pa., Aug. 21, 1847. His father, J. G. H. Gerberding, was born in Germany, but came to this country in his sixteenth year. His mother was a native of the United States. Her maiden name was Josephine Lustenberger. Her parents came from Switzerland.
Rev. Prof. A. Spaeth, D.D. The land of Brentz and Jacob Andreae has been represented in our seminary from its very inception in the person of the eminent professor of Hebrew. The incumbent of the chair of New Testament Exegesis, the Rev. Dr. Adolph Spaeth, is also a native of the kingdom of Wuertemberg, having been born in the town of Esslingen, on the 29th of October, 1839. A very thorough course of classical training prepared him for the study of theology at the University of Tuebingen, where he was graduated in 1861.
Rev. Prof. Frederick William Stellhorn was born October 2, 1841, at Bruening-horstedt, a small village of the former Kingdom of Hanover, Germany. His parents were poor, but universally respected peasants, well acquainted with the doctrines of the Lutheran Church and deeply attached to them. At the age of about six years the boy was sent to the parochial school of his native village, where, besides religion in the form of Catechism, Bible history, and the inestimable hymns of the German Lutheran Church, reading, writing, and a beginning in arithmetic formed the only subjects of instruction; but in his thirst for knowledge he devoured all the books he could get hold of. The historical portions of the Bible he knew by heart at a very early age.
Charles Frederick Schaeffer was born in Germantown, Pa., September 3rd, 1807. His father, Frederick David Schaeffer, born November 16th, 1760, died January 27th, 1836, was then Pastor of St. Michael’s Church, and remained there until 1812, when, at the close of a pastorate of 22 years, he removed to St. Michael’s and Zion’s, Philadelphia. It was within this venerable mother Church that the youth of the departed was spent. His first training for his life work was received in the Christian family of the devoted pastor, a school which has ever trained many noble men and women for blessed work in life and reward in heaven. His father was a man of great devoutness of spirit, who spent much time daily in prayer, a pietist of the nobler kind, after the manner of Spener and Muhlenberg; unreservedly devoted to the pure doctrine of the Church’s Confessions, and intensely earnest in all personal and pastoral duty. His mother, Rosina, daughter of Lewis Bosenmiller, of York, (born November 30th, 1764, died November 27th, 1835), aunt of Rev. David P. Rosemiller, was a woman of very superior mental power, who relieved her husband of all domestic cares, and was the faithful mother of noble sons, in whose training for Christ and His Church she had no small part.
Rev. Prof. John Sander, A. M., is the son of J. M. Sander, and Sophia Sander, nee Aderhold. He is the oldest of twelve children, five of whom departed this life in childhood. His father Jacob Michael Sander, is a native of Ulmet, Rhine Bavaria, Germany, and came to this country as a poor young man in 1846. During the winter of 1846-47, he walked from New York city to Williamsport. Pa., a distance of nearly three hundred miles. He was a stone mason by trade, at which he worked for several years and then bought a farm. In October, 1849, he married Miss Sophia Aderhold, of Hepburn Township, Lycoming Co., Pa. They soon after moved on the farm, which was then nearly all covered with brush, wood and stone, and many were the predictions by those of less faith and energy, that Mr. Sander would starve on his farm. But both Mr. and Mrs. Sander are still living in good health on that farm and their neighbors do not think at all that they have any need of starving.
Solomon Erb Ochsenford, son of Jesse and Mary Ochsenford, was born in Douglass Township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, on November 8, 1855. His earlier educational advantages were limited, owing to the straitened circumstances of his parents; hence the years of childhood and youth were spent in the country, near Falkner Swamp, one of the earliest German settlements in the state of Pennsylvania. The public schools afforded the advantage of acquiring the rudiments of an education. He received his preparatory training in Mount Pleasant Seminary, Boyertown, Pennsylvania, 1871-73; in the fall of the latter year he entered the Sophomore class in Muhlenberg college, Allentown, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1876.
Rev. Charles Armond Miller, pastor of College church, Salem, Va., was born March 7, 1864. His primary education was conducted under the personal care of his father. Rev. Dr. J. I. Miller, the founder and for many years Principal of Staunton Female Seminary, now President of Von Bora College, Lura, Va.
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