Baer Exhibit Opening Reception at Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives Saturday

The Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives in La Grange is opening a new exhibit, “Rev. Carl Baer: German Missionary to Waldeck,” beginning Saturday, November 4. The exhibit is built around an extremely large collection of photographs, documents, and other memorabilia donated in recent years by members of Rev. Baer’s family who now live in Maryland.

An opening reception for the exhibit attended by some of Rev. Baer’s great-grandchildren will be held in the Museum and Archives on Saturday, November 4 with a brief program beginning at 10:30 a.m. They would be especially interested in meeting descendants of those Pastor Baer served.

Carl Baer was born at Dresden, but received his religious training at St. Chrischona Pilgrims Mission in Switzerland. St. Chrischona is well known for sending missionaries to Texas as early as 1850 to tend to the religious needs of German immigrants. At least ten of its graduates served Fayette County residents through the years.

Baer arrived in Fayette County in late 1894 and spent his first year tending to the congregation of St. John Lutheran Church at Ellinger. Like today, rural ministers usually had to serve at several churches simultaneously. He ministered to the newly organized St. John Lutheran Church at Rutersville from 1895 to 1912, at Eben-Ezer Lutheran Church at Berlin near Brenham through 1896, and at Martin Luther Lutheran Church at Giddings from late 1895 to 1899.

However, he is most well known locally as the pastor of the Waldeck Lutheran Church, which he served from 1900 to 1944. Besides Waldeck and Rutersville, Pastor Baer also held services once a month at the Friendship School at Walhalla, and at the Hackebeil School at Park. He is also known to have served the Paige and Dime Box communities in Bastrop and Lee counties.

Unfortunately, most of Baer’s church records before 1926 have been lost. However, the Archives staff is attempting to reconstruct lists of as many baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and burials at which he officiated using old newspapers, documents, and even photographs. The exhibit includes about 150 photographs of Baer, his family, and members of the Fayette County churches he served. The staff is hoping visitors will help identify more of the local residents in the early 1900s photos.

Most of Pastor Baer’s early services were conducted in German and the exhibit includes examples of the beautiful baptism, confirmation, and wedding certificates written in the German language that were common here in the early 1900s. The Archives staff is happy to offer help translating any similar documents area residents photograph or bring in.

The exhibit space is upstairs above the Fayette Public Library at 855 S. Jefferson St. in La Grange. Contact Rox Ann Johnson at (979) 968-3765 or email archives@cityoflg.com for more information.