December 30
39
Flavius Titus, Roman Emperor who crushed the Jewish
Revolt in A.D. 70, was born (d. 13 September 81).
1370
Gregory XI
(ca. 1336–1378), the
last Avignon pope, was crowned.
1678
William
Croft, English sacred music organist, choir director and
composer, was born and baptized in Nether Eatington,
Warwickshire, England (d. 14 August 1727).
1817
George Whitefield Coan, Presbyterian missionary to
Persia, was born in Bergen, New York (d. 21 December 1879).
1823
American revivalist
Charles G. Finney (1792–1875)
was licensed to preach. A former lawyer, he had taken up
preaching from his conversion.
1838
Hanover College
was chartered by the Presbyterian General Assembly of
Indiana. The school had been founded by John Finley Crowe as
a seminary for training ministers.
1843
Cumberland University was chartered in Lebanon,
Tennessee, under Presbyterian auspices. The school had been
founded the previous year.
1852 Future U.S. President
Rutherford B. Hayes
(1822–1893) married
“Lemonade Lucy,”
so called because, as first lady, she forbade alcohol in the
Executive Mansion. The Hayeses were both devout Methodists
who began each day with prayer and organized Sunday evening
worship services at the White House.
1878 Martin F. Kretzmann, secretary of the
Missouri Synod, was born in Dudleytown, Indiana (d. 4
January 1963, Cincinnati, Ohio). He graduated from Concordia
Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1901 and served as pastor in
Vincennes, Indiana (1901–1904);
East Saint Louis, Illinois (1904–1909);
Kendallville (1909–1956)
and Plainfield (1956-1962), Indiana. He retired in 1962 and
became a preaching assistant in Cincinnati. He was secretary
of the Missouri Synod 1920 to 1956 and a member of the Board
of Directors of the synod from 1956 to 1959. He was also
secretary of the Central District from 1918 to 1920. He was
coeditor of The Devotional Bible, volume 1.
1892
Andrew
A. Bonar (b. 29 July 1810), Scottish clergyman who was
identified with the evangelical and revival movements of his
day, died.
1894
K. G. Theodore Naether
(1866–1904) sailed for
India as missionary. Naether and Franz E. Mohn were the
first Missouri Synod missionaries to India.
1900
J. I. Wilhelm Thomas, New Guinea missionary, died (b. 6
June 1843).
1904
Johann Heinrich Sieker, president of the Minnesota Synod
and a founder of Concordia Collegiate Institute (Bronxville,
New York), died (b. 23 October 1839 at Schweinfurth,
Bavaria, Germany).
1933
Martin Enoch Waldeland, literary editor at Augsburg
Publishing House, died (b. 18 September 1876 at Gunder,
Clayton County, Iowa).
1937
Noel
Paul Stookey, American folk singer and music producer,
was born. Stookey first became a celebrity as Paul of the
1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. He is now a Christian
recording artist, operating his own recording studio. He
prefers his born-again name Noel.
1947
Alfred North Whitehead (b. 15 February 1861), English
philosopher and theologian, died.
1961 Instituto Concordia (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
opened.
2009 Michael J. Stelmachowicz died in Wauwatosa,
Wisconsin (b. 18 September 1927, Saint Louis, Missouri). He
was a graduate of Saint John's College (Winfield, Kansas),
Concordia Teachers College (Seward, Nebraska) and Concordia
Seminary (Saint Louis, Missouri). During his career he
served as a Lutheran teacher, principal of Lutheran High
School South (Saint Louis), professor and dean of students
at Concordia Teachers College (Seward), superintendent of
the Lutheran High School Association of Greater Detroit,
Michigan; president of Saint John's College and Concordia
Teachers College (Seward) and executive director of the
Board for Higher Education of the Missouri Synod.
