# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1931_S101
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Mr. Louis Thomas.

As St. Paul’s School was now in need of a
teacher and also of an assistant to the pastor, the
Rev. F. J. Lankenau, then still a student of theology,
was found to do this work. He came in March,
1888. Three years later, in 1891, Pastor Bakke fol-
lowed a call to North Carolina, and Pastor Lan-
kenau, now having completed his theological course,
became the first resident pastor of our congregation.

Under Pastor Lankenau, St. Paul’s Congrega-
tion flourished and grew as it had done under Pastor

Rev. F. J. Lankenau,
First resident pastor of St. Paul’s.

Teacher W. D. Seeberry.

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

Teacher A. V. Berger.

Bakke. The same healthy inward and outward
growth of the congregation was apparent. The Lord
was constantly adding souls to His church.

Shortly before Pastor Bakke left, the present
two-story schoolhouse was erected, and in great
numbers the children flocked to us for a Christian
training. It was evident again that the Lord, who
is “not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance,’ was by His Gospel
drawing always more and more to St. Paul’s and
to Him.

Six years later, in 1897, the Rev. F. W. Siebelitz
was called to assist Pastor Lankenau in school and
church. Pastor Siebelitz, now pastor of a large
Lutheran congregation in Port Arthur, Tex., re-
mained at St. Paul’s until, in September of 1900,
Teacher E. H. Heintzen arrived and became teacher
of St. Paul’s School.

Always laboring in the interest of the church,
Pastor Lankenau, in 1903, began in the vestry of
the church what was then Luther College. Under
him the student-body grew ever larger, so that in
the following year the building now occupied by
Luther Preparatory School was erected and dedi-
cated to serve as an institution of higher learning,
where boys and girls were prepared for the ministry
and for the teaching profession. It was at this in-
stitution where Teacher Napoleon Seeberry, the first
colored teacher at St. Paul’s, completed his teacher’s
course after having studied for some time in our
Teachers’ College at Addison, Ill. Later also

Teacher W.B.Seeberry completed, with high honors,

the teacher’s course at Luther College and, in 1908,
was installed as teacher of our school, where he has