BERTRAM, John Henry, Reverend 1879-1951

BERTRAM

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 9/20/2009 at 14:04:19

#1 of 2 items:
(Obituary)

Former Pastor at Osage Dies

Osage—Funeral services for the Rev. John Henry Bertram, 72, former Osage pastor, will be held Monday at 2 p. m. at St. Paul's Lutheran church, Fort Dodge.

He died at Fort Dodge Friday morning.

Mr. Bertram was pastor of St. John's church near Osage from 1912 to 1923. In 1913 a new church was built which still stands. In 1923 he went to Fort Dodge, then the largest congregation in the state with 1,000 baptized members.

The pastor's last work was at Iowa City where he served as institutional pastor from 1939 to 1948 when declining health forced him to retire and the family moved to Fort Dodge.

Survivors include the widow and 9 children, 32 grandchildren and 5 brothers.

Mason City Globe-Gazette
Monday, May 7, 1951

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#2 of 2 items:
(Biographical news story)

The Rev. Mr. Bertram was born at Adelaide, South Australia, to 1879. He attended a British school on the Island of New Zealand for four years. At the age of 13 he came to the United States. His preparatory training for the study of theology was received a Concordia college, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he graduated in 1899. Three years later he graduated from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Mo., where he completed his theological studies.

The Rev. Mr. Bertram's first parish was in Woodstock, Illinois, where he remained for 10 years. He then served the congregation at Osage, for 11 years. In 1923 he accepted a call to the congregation in Ft. Dodge, where he served until the present time.

He is the father of nine children, three sons and six daughters. His oldest son is a missionary in India; the next is a teacher in one of the church schools, and the youngest is a pastor of a congregation at Creston. Three unmarried daughters will remain in Fort Dodge.

Iowa City Press-Citizen
Saturday, January 7, 1939