Trinity Lutheran members to celebrate church's 100th year

On Sunday, April 26, the congregation at Trinity Lutheran Church in Holton will hold a centennial celebration for the church, which began as a spin-off congregation from a Netawaka church and grew from there.

Church spokesperson Coltara Segenhagen said the centennial celebration is being held a month prior to the actual 100th anniversary of the church’s organization on May 26 “because of Mother’s Day and graduations being so close to the actual anniversary date.” 

Segenhagen said centennial activities will begin at 9 a.m. that day with a slideshow presentation on the church’s history, followed by regular Sunday services at 10 a.m. with a guest organist and the return of former Trinity Lutheran pastor David Sorenson, who served as the church’s leader from 1977 to 1981. A reservation-only meal will follow the service.

Trinity Lutheran was founded as a “daughter congregation” of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Netawaka, whose pastor, the Rev. H.F. Krohn, conducted the Holton church’s first worship services for a group of 24 people on March 1, 1925. Services in English and German were held at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, located at 812 Pennsylvania Ave.

On May 26, 1926, the Trinity congregation was organized with 10 members signing the church’s original constitution. Those members included the church’s first elders — Paul Eberwein, Emil Koch and Karl Schumacher — along with church members Louis Eberwein, Emil Sacher, Wilhelm Schumacher, August Dierking, Otto Kuglin, Fred Kuglin and Edward Eulert.

Krohn served the congregation until Sept. 12, 1926, when Pastor E.A. Fritz was ordained and installed, and the church held its first Sunday school classes on Oct. 24, 1926, with eight pupils. In February of 1927, the congregation purchased the former United Brethren Church building at Eighth Street and New York Avenue for $2,087, dedicating the church on May 1 of that year.

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