Lutheran Archives

Our school listing and rehousing project continues on with the South Australian and Tasmanian sections of the collection now completed.

Here’s the minutes from 19 June 1937 of the first meeting of the Tanunda Lutheran School Committee, still written in German!

Here’s another gem from our collection.

This is the title page to the Books of Moses from a 1702 bible owned by the Hanckel family. The illustrations are hand-coloured using watercolour paints. This bible made the trek to Walla Walla NSW from SouthAustralia with the Hanckel family, after having made the voyage from Germany.

We are about to start another project of rehousing, this time of our bibles and rare, old and fragile books (Our ‘old’ book collection dates back to the mid 1500s). As part of the process, we will also be making image sof the covers, title pages and inscriptions to allow better accessibility.

If you have a connection to or interest in the Lutheran churches in Gawler, you may be interested in the launch of a short book about the Zion Worship Centre at the Gawler Church Hill State Heritage Area.

Bob Fielke has researched the history of the area and the building complex from 1839 to 2024 and will be launching the results on 21 November.

See the attached flyer for details of times, registration and book costs.

Well the 2024 Friends of Lutheran Archives Public Lecture series is over, with a cracker from Samuel Doering. Don’t forget you can see recording of the live streams here:

https://m.youtube.com//streams

You can also subscribe to the FoLA YouTube channel to be kept up to date with regular and occasional events.

FoLA will be back with the 2025 series in February.

Friends of Lutheran Archives Friends of Lutheran Archives (FoLA) is a volunteer organisation which supports and promotes the work of Lutheran Archives, the national archive of the Lutheran Church of Australia. FoLA hosts a program of ten public talks each year on topics related to the history of Australian Lutherans and their l...

Here’s another little gem we just assessed in the collection.

This is a record of 1787 US service personnel who attended the Bethlehem Church in Fortitude Valley (Brisbane) between 1942 and 1945.

Each record includes the military postal address, home congregation and next of kin, and often the date they attended a service or event.

Bethlehem was the ELCA Synod congregation in Brisbane, so more personnel may have attended St Andreas/St Andrew’s (UELCA congregation) as well. Just to be confusing, St Andrew's was named Bethlehem up to 1882, and the St Andrews (UELCA) and Bethlehem (ELCA) merged to form St Andrew's (LCA). Whew!

We couldn’t share this exhibit to the general public at this time, but we hope that reflecting on the journey of the Lutheran church in Australia and New Zealand allowed delegates and visitors to ponder on the important decisions placed before them.

And we are very excited about having an exhibition space in the new Churchwide Office at 139 Frome St., Adelaide where we can more easily share the story of the Lutheran faith in Australia.

Here's a story about how old objects just keep turning up (this time in Germany from the 12th century): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/man-discovers-900-year-old-stone-carving-beneath-his-house-in-germany-180985043/

It's a bit older than our oldest item, but interesting things are often removed from beneath Lutheran buildings in Australia such as the time capsules that were usually placed behind foundation stones in churches. Or, in the case of the attached photos, the foundation stones themselves.

The congregation of St Johannes in Wasleys, South Australia, made a decision at some stage that they would remove the foundation stone of their church with its detail in German, inscribe the reverse with the same details in English and replace it in the building, becoming St John's Wasleys.

From a preservation point of view, we have left the concrete that remained on the original side as it gives context to the process and helps tell the story.

Upcoming temporary closure!

The Lutheran Church of Australia General Pastors Conference and Convention of General Synod are being held in Adelaide from 29 September through to 7 October.

Lutheran Archives staff will be in attendance in a variety of roles meaning we will be closed from 1 October through 10 October, reopening Tuesday 15 October.

The Hahndorfer Ahnenarchiv is officially open to the public. Contact [email protected] to make a booking.

There is now a growing network of South Australian community archives with a strong Lutheran focus.

Lobethal Archives and Historical Museum
Hahndorf Archives
Luhrs Cottage Museum & Light Pass
Barossa Museum

Trying to make sense of the way the Bethany (SA) registers have been indexed and correcting some typos.

The first marriage register was actually completed by the bride and groom, which is great as we get to see the handwriting of individuals who may not have left much other written work.

Then again. It took us a while to realise that the name in the top right column is meant to be Augusta…

Definitely need to upload a new version of the Names Index this week!!