Teacher Elroy Schroeder
Observes 25th



The members of St. Peter's Ev. Lutheran Church in Fond du Lac honored Teacher Elroy Schroeder on the 25th anniversary of his ministry in a worship service and reception on Sunday afternoon, September 24, 1978. Pastor Karl A. Gurgel conducted the service. Pastor Burton Stensburg of Schofield delivered the sermon, urging worshipers and teacher to give thanks for God's grace.



Mr. Elroy Schroeder was born in Dale, Wisconsin. He graduated from Bethany College, Mankato, Minnesota, in 1953, and has attended summer sessions at Dr. Martin Luther College, New Ulm. Mr. Schroeder taught in Princeton and in St. Paul, Minnesota, before coming to St. Peter's. Mrs. Schroeder, the former Dorothy Henke, is also a member of St. Peter's faculty. The Schroeders have three daughters, Renee, Kim, and Lisa.



"Beauty for Ashes" at Peshtigo



Not a single person attending the two overflow services at Zion Lutheran Church on October 8, 1978, had lived through the fire that had destroyed their original church and the community in which they lived. In fact, there were only a few even related to the people that had escaped in the Peshtigo fire of October 8, 1871. But history has a way of profoundly affecting those who come after. So with Zion Congregation, as was pointed out by the guest speaker, Pastor Harold E. Wicke, a grandson of one of the early pastors who shepherded Zion after the disastrous fire.



The occasion on October 8,1978, was the 110th anniversary of the founding of Zion Church. The congregation, organized in 1868 by missionary at large Pastor Carl Huebner, had taken of ficial
action in a voters' meeting on October8, 1871, to join the Wisconsin Ev. Lutheran Synod—only to be wiped out in the next few hours. But God's people
returned. Members of Zion who survived started all over again, and two years later the proceedings of the Synod record: "In Peshtigo we again have a
fine church, with a stately spire, and a friendly roomy parsonage." Its facilities today are even better, and plans are in the offing to build a new church plant on a 20-acre plot purchased recently.



But the material blessings are not the most important. The fire, called the most destructive in the history of the nation, also brought spiritual blessings. On that night the members of Zion and the residents of the community came face to face with God's Law. At the first service conducted after the fire, one of the members of Zion said to visiting pastor T. Gensicke: "Pastor, it just couldn't continue in Peshtigo as it had; sin was taking over. What happened to us is something we deserved with our sins."