Today is a driving day for my wife and me, so I am not publishing a new story. It’s not new, but it is embellished. I will be adding several documents that have not appeared in a blog post about Rev. Ottomar Fuerbringer’s life.
Today is Ottomar Fuerbringer’s 216th birthday, but I am not able to identify his parents. I am going to display a biography of him that was shown in a previous post highlighting Ottomar’s wife, Agnes, Happy 200th Birthday, Agnes.
The above bio says that prior to coming to America, Ottomar was an instructor for boys at the church in Eichenberg, Germany where Pastor Gotthold Heinrich Loeber was the pastor. That means that Teacher Fuerbringer had one of Pastor Loeber’s sons, Christoph Heinrich Loeber, as a student in Germany.
Ottomar came to America as part of the Gesellschaft in 1838-1839. He was a passenger aboard the ship, Republik, as is seen on the passenger list below. He was part of the group of passengers that were housed in the cabin of the ship. You can see that the Loeber family was also in this list, along with the von Wurmb family. Johanna von Wurmb was Pastor Loeber’s wife’s sister. I have to think that Ottomar was doing some teaching of some children aboard that ship on his voyage across the Atlantic.
Ottomar, along with Johann Friedrich Buenger and Theodore Brohm, built a log cabin during their first year in Perry County that was to be used to train future Lutheran church workers. The first class in that school included Christoph and Martha Loeber. I have to think that this was not the first time that Ottomar had those two as his pupils.
In 1840, Ottomar officially became a Lutheran pastor and took a call to St. Salvator Lutheran Church in Venedy, Illinois. Now, we have to take a look at Rev. Otto Herman Walther, another pastor who came to this country as part of the Gesellschaft and had become the first pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis. Rev. Walther had married Agnes Buenger in 1839, not long before the Log Cabin College opened. The Walther couple had one child, and then in early 1841, Pastor Walther died, leaving Agnes as a widow. In 1842, Rev. Fuerbringer married Agnes Walther in St. Louis, with Rev. C.F.W. Walther conducting the wedding. Several children were born to Ottomar and Agnes while they were in Venedy. Below is a baptism record for Maria Angelika Fuerbringer, who was born in 1849, not long after St. Salvator became one of the charter members of what would become the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
We find the Fuerbringer’s in the 1850 census living in Venedy with 3 children. The child, John W., who was born in Missouri, is actually the son of Otto Herman Walther with Agnes. Ottomar is called a Lutheran preacher.
In 1851, Rev. Fuerbring became a pastor in Freistadt and Kirchhayn, Wisconsin. Then, he took a call to St. Lorenz Lutheran Church in Frankenmuth, Michigan in 1858, where he would remain the rest of his life. St. Lorenz is another charter member of our synod. I was unable to locate the Fuerbringer’s in the 1860 census, but I did find them in the 1870 and 1880 censuses. Below is the 1870 census. There are 4 children listed, one born in Illinois, one in Wisconsin, and two in Michigan.
Here is this family’s 1880 census entry.
I will let you read the other posts about the Fuerbringer’s to review their death and burial information.
One more thing. Last year, when the University of Wisconsin’s women’s volleyball team was participating in the NCAA tournament, they had a setter on their team who was named Fuerbringer. I would love to know if that girl is part of Ottomar Fuerbringer’s family tree.