REV L M RECK, b 8 Aug 1835

RECK, STAPITZER, VOGEL

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 9/16/2004 at 18:12:16

The career of this gentleman has been one filled in with good works and a large experience. He has devoted the greater part of his life to the Master's service. He was the first German Lutheran minister in Southern Minnesota, where he organized and established ten congregations, besides two in Iowa. On coming from Germany he became a member of the German Lutheran Synod of Iowa, to which he still belongs, and is also identified with similar bodies in other States. He is the father of a large and interesting family, is very domestic in his tastes and habits, and a loyal adherent of the pure, clean, Martin Luther doctrine. Notwithstanding his pious labors in this direction he is a thorough and practical business man, and in his youth in his native Germany was connected with some of the large wholesale houses in his native Kingdom of Bavaria before entering upon his theological studies. These he completed at the Mission School in Neuendeltelsau, and entered upon his ministerial labors, as a Missionary to the Northwest, in 1865.

Our subject has been pastor of the German Lutheran Church at Spragueville, this county, for the last eleven years. He is still in the prime of life, having been born Aug. 8, 1835, in the little village of Buttendorf, in the Province of MIddle Franken, Bavaria. He is the son of Johan and Fredricka (Stapitzer) Reck, who were also natives of Bavaria, and the father a farmer by occupation. The latter died in his native Province, in 1872, at the age of sixty-two years. The mother lived to be seventy-nine years old, dying in June, 1883, in Bavaria. Our subject was the eldest of their family, four of whom grew to mature years. He is the only one living in America.

The early education of our subject was conducted in the parish schools where he was born. He was reared in the doctrines of the Lutheran Church, and confirmed at the age of thirteen years. He remained under the parental roof until reaching his majority, then entered the army and served one year. The four years thereafter he spent as a clerk in a wholesale house at Furth. At the expiration of this time he entered the Mission Seminary at Neuendeltelsaw, where he continued as a student three years, and was graduated.

Our subject emigrated to the United States in July, 1865, and was sent as a missionary to Iowa in 1865. His first duties were in connection with the Orphan Asylum at Andrew, where he continued five or six months. In the spring of 1866 he received a call to Southern Minnestoa, and organized congragations in the counties of Freeborn, Faribault, Fillmore and Martin, making ten churches in all. His services subsequently were most confined to Iowa, and he established two congregations.

The marriage of our subject with Miss Sophia Vogel, of Dubuque, took place May 24, 1868, and they are the parents of nine children: the eldest of whom, Stabitza, is living in Dubuque; Agnes is in Jefferson County, Wis.; Adolph, at home; Ossian; Rosa; Martha and Mary are twins; Effie and Benedict are at home with their parents. Mr. Reck, in the fall of 1878, became pastor of the church at Spragueville, which numbers 289 members, comprising fifty families. Each winter, in connection with his regular pastoral duties, he teaches young people and children, to whom he gives religious instruction and lessons in the German language for five months each year. He is growing popular among the people, and each year adds to his standing and influence. In politics he is a Democrat.

("Portrait and Biographical Album of Jackson County, Iowa", originally published in 1889, by the Chapman Brothers, of Chicago, Illinois.)