1931

Pastor Horace M. Oberholtzer, D.D., pictured left, conducting services.

The church in May celebrated the 125th anniversary of its founding. Unfortunately, "Beloved Pastor" Dr. Oberholtzer was sick at home in Schenectady and could not attend. Otherwise, according to the official notes, it was "a day filled with choicest blessings." The morning service opened with an organ prelude followed by a cello solo by Harman Kirkendall, after which the congregation processed to hymn number 129 ("Beautiful Savior"). Former Pastor Walter Frederick, 55, pictured right, who had conducted services three decades before, spoke (and his address has been cited frequently as source material for the historical data on these pages).

Here is a picture of the congregation taken outside the church during the 125th anniversary celebration. (To enlarge this picture, just click it.)

The "English Lutheran Church" sign is still posted. This sign had probably been installed during World War I, when German-speaking Lutheran congregations--and German speakers in general in the United States--had been subject to hate crimes by many patriotic and jingoistic Americans. English-speaking Lutherans had not wanted to be "stewed in the same kettle" as the German-speaking Lutherans; they had wanted to make it known to the general population that they were not German but rather American, that they did not support the Kaiser and his policies. The congregation of Christ's Lutheran Church in Woodstock had been English-speaking since its founding, and it might have been during the Great War that they had begun advertising that fact with a sign out in front.

Here is the program for the 125th anniversary celebration. (To enlarge this picture and see what was happening in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening, just click it.)

Pictured above is how the church looked in its neighborhood on Sunday, with all the "tin lizzies," during the first half of the 1930s. Notice that these automobiles were parked where carriages had once been, including in the carriage shed at the rear of the church. To enlarge the picture, just click it.

In the picture you can see the carriage block, a large piece of bluestone sitting atop a platform of smaller stones between the driveway and the sidewalk leading to the church door. By now the automobile had pretty much replaced the horse-drawn carriage that the carriage block was intended to enable passengers to get into or out of easily. The carriage block was no longer necessary, but according to the later reminiscence of Erwin Holumzer, 11 years old during this year, it was

not useless as it afforded a resting place for weary people coming up or down Mill Hill Road, or a place for a visitor to just sit and look about. It also made a joyous "jumping off stone" for the kids before and after church services.… I believe the last members to use this "carriage block" as such was Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Mosher of West Hurley, N.Y.(1)

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Quoted in The Scroll, November 1977. (Unless otherwise indicated in a footnote, excerpts from church records or from The Scroll are cited in Anderson, Mark J., For All the Saints: Christ's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, New York, 1806-2006 [Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006], in this case p. 183.) (Close)

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Pictured above is how the parsonage looked in its neighborhood in 1931, with even more "tin lizzies." (That parsonage is now the Catskill Art and Office Supply store.) To enlarge the picture, just click it.

The congregation voted to install electricity in the parsonage (the church had been electrified six years earlier).

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