Here is the second interview done during our 40th Anniversary year (1995) by Bob Glissmann. This interview is of charter member Dorothy Neumann.
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| Q | Were there a lot of people moving out to this area? |
|---|---|
| A | It was the booming part of Omaha. 1955, right? That was when things really started going after World War II. Everything went west. That's why they decided to do it. First Lutheran had gotten to be quite a big church by then. |
| Q | You moved out here before that? |
| A | We went to St. Sidles. That's what we called it. The kids started calling it St. Sidles. |
| Q | That's where you went to meet (the Sidles warehouse near 74th and Pacific)? |
| A |
We never went any other place. When the church was done we left Sidles and came here. |
| Q | How was that arranged? |
| A | We took their auditorium. They had an auditorium they used to display all their refrigerators. Television was becoming so popular then, and I think they had washers and dryers. . . The kids would sit in church and check them out. Then George Vogt, who was custodian at First Lutheran, built the altar. It was collapsible. And he built a lectern that was collapsible. They would let us have a lithe closet where we could put these. Arthur (Neumann, Dorothy's late husband) printed the programs and on the programs were all the hymns, so we didn't need hymnals. |
| Q | That was a group of about 50 some? |
| A | Urn hmm. Then we'd just take the center of the auditorium. Sometimes there'd be an awful lot displayed - televisions especially - so we'd have a smaller space, but we always had room. I'm trying to think where we got the offering plates. They were just plain wooden plates. Everybody came to church early because there was work to do. We stayed until everything was cleaned up. We had to have everything cleaned up before we left. |
| Q | These were young families moving out to this area? |
| A | Most of us had young children. We had a Sunday School. Ella Hansen was our superintendent. Pastor Lawrence Acker at that time had a bookstore at First Lutheran. He always had extra. We used those for our Sunday school supplies because we didn't have much money then. We were on a strict budget. But (eventually) the money came, fast and furious |
| Q | Most of the people were from First Lutheran. Did they tell the congregation, "Someday, we'd like to start another church in west Omaha"? |
| A | (Pastor Lawrence) Acker had been thinking about this for a long time. He knew there had to be some growth in west Omaha. It was his baby. You know where Mount Calvary is, on 56th and Leavenworth? |
| Q | Yes |
| A | He started that one, too. Omaha was moving west. We couldn't move too much the other way. Omaha couldn't go east, that was for sure. He was always far-sighted. I think it came up at a voters' meeting. Those that wanted would be "peacefully released." And, of course, my husband was in on the very beginning of it, so Art said, "Well, we're going to go." And I said, "That's fine with me." |
| Q | Did Acker say he was going to go out and start this new group? |
| A | I think he just brought it up to the elders at First Lutheran. There was an original steering committee that wasn't the committee to build. Bill From was on the committee but did not join our church. In the very beginning Acker formed an exploratory committee. This was just like a dream, a possibility, and they explored a lot of different things. Then, when they decided they were going to do this, another committee was formed. That's where John Wiebe got on. At that time, Westside, the school system, was really getting going. Loveland School was getting so big, so they knew the potential was here. And Synod was behind it 100 percent. |
| Q | It was kind of handy for you then, since you live so close. |
| A | We had our first confirmation classes at Tegtmeier's house. Bill Tegtmeier was in it (the new congregation) from the very beginning. He had a house just east of here. We used his basement for Pastor Acker to teach confirmation. |
| Q | So you'd use Sidles for the worship services ... |
| A | But we couldn't use it during the week. It was a large, large room. It was all wholesale. You couldn't buy retail from them. |
| Q | Oh, it was a wholesale place. It wasn't really a showroom, then. |
| A | It was for dealers, not for the public. So what we saw wasn't even in the stores yet. |
| Q | So during worship you were surrounded by washers and dryers... |
| A | And televisions, more. The television was what got the kids. Especially the boys. They hadn't seen these sets. "Look, look!" |
| Q | So it was hard for them to concentrate on the service. |
| A | Yes. We didn't have a choir, of course, at the beginning. But we had music. We even had permission to have a Christmas program. That ran a little over our time, but they allowed it. |
| Q | You were in there for a year, year and a half? |
| A | More than that, weren't we? |
| Q | This history says the first meeting was at the auditorium on April 17, 1955, and the first worship services were there on April 24, 1955. Oh, and this says the Sidles Company auditorium continued to be the meeting place until the new sanctuary was completed in June of 1957. So you were there more than two years. |
| A | That's what I thought. We were there quite a while. |
| Q | So once they picked the site out over here and they started building, were people pretty excited? |
| A | Yes. And then the contributions came in. |
| Q | And you started drawing people in from other places? |
| A | Um hmm. As much as we could send out literature, we did. We didn't really canvass the area, but to all LWML meetings, AAL meetings, things like that. Because we were interested in the Lutherans. We got some people from St. Timothy's over here on Dodge. There was no other Lutheran church out here but St. Timothy's. (NOTE: The original St. Timothy's building, built in 1954, was just north of the existing, round church at 93rd and West Dodge.) And First Covenant, which is a form of Lutheranism (the parent church separated from the Lutheran church in the 1800s), didn't come (to 90th and Indian Hills Drive) until after we got here (in 1958). And St. Mark didn't come until after us. Bethany started St. Mark there (at 90th near Blondo). Before that, Mount Calvary at 56th and Leavenworth was the furthest one west, except St. Timothy. |
| Q | Was there a big bash when you finally got into the church? |
| A | We had a big service, yes. We had a little, tiny kitchen, about half the size of my kitchen. So, as far as serving much, we couldn't do it. The kitchen was right there wherethe library is now. One of the men from Chicago came to talk that day. He was a good friend of Pastor Acker 's. He came that Sunday to preach. |
| Q | So you were able to sit in real pews and you were able to look around and there were no TVs around you. |
| A | That was one thing that was brought into the service. We now didn't have the distractions. Because, you know, for the kids, that was something to do. |
| Q | Once you were in there, did the membership blossom? |
| A | Yes. It just started in. Pastor Acker continued preaching for a while. And then he had us call (Pastor Donald) Fichtelmann. That was his choice. He did not intention to be a full-time man. He was a great help in getting Pastor Fichtelmann to come. |
| Q | But Fichtelmann was chosen by the board. |
| A | Yes. But he put in some recommendations. |
| Q | That was in '58. So you got in there in '57. |
| A | Pastor Acker preached. If he couldn't, there there were other ministers who came. |
| Q | Then the history says by June 22 the ladies of the congregation had organized the women's guild, with a membership of 53. |
| A | It went real fast. Gertrude Drake was our first president. We began with circles right away. |
| Q | Did you meet at the church? |
| A | There was no place to meet at the church other than the sanctuary. That extra room wasn't there at all. |
| Q | So the old church ended at the library. |
| A | Not at the end of the library. You have that entrance way to the west, that was really it, right there. There wasn't much at all. There was the sanctuary and then what was down below. Those restrooms were in down below, and the furnace room must have been there but it wasn't as big as it is now. When they added on they enlarged that. So there wasn't much to work with. |
| Q | Where did they have Sunday School? The coat room? |
| A | The coat room, into the church, we put a couple(of classes) in the church. It worked. |
| Q | About the women's guild |
| A | We broke into circles right away. We had a lot of circles. We had no trouble getting members, no problem at all. We had this little kitchen, it wasn't very big. Then afterward, where the library is now, on the end of that, there was a sink and a stove and a refrigerator. We did a lot of serving as best we could in the space we had. It was an active guild. Active members of the Lutheran Women Missionary League. And the meetings were well attended. |
| Q | How many different circles were there? |
| A | In the very beginning there were probably only three or four, but then as we got bigger and bigger, at one time I think we had eight circles. One circle didn't take over the altar, there was an altar committee. They would ask the different circles if they didn't have somebody interested and there was always somebody interested, and so they'll work on that, and then whenever we had a dinner or anything everybody worked. No problem. |
| Q | The circles were groups of women ... |
| A | About 10, 12 women. There were, I think, at one time, two evening circles. There must have been about three, and there were a couple of morning circles, to try to meet the women's schedule. Because a lot of women had children and couldn't come, only at certain times. |
| Q | Were they social groups? |
| A | No, we always had Bible study. Of course, we would have, once in a while, a general meeting in our small space, or else we would be in the church. But each circle didn't have a specific duty other than to support everything at the church. And then the Sunday School was by itself. |
| Q | And they had elected a board at the church ... I would think that would be while they were still at Sidles... |
| A | When we were still at Sidles and there was any big meeting, Harvey Tegtmeier had a pretty large house, and he had a big basement. And a lot of the meetings would be in his basement. Of course, as soon as the church was done, then everything went to church. |
| Q | Were the people pretty active in the church? |
| A | Very active. We didn't have any trouble getting members. They just came. Pastor Acker kept preaching up until Pastor Fichtelmann came. He was a good speaker, too. |
| Q | Fichte!mann came in '58. He was installed July 20, 1958. It says the congregation had grown to 352 communicant members by '59. Sunday school enrollment had increased to a level where every available space could no longer accommodate all the classes. Then it says they started planning for an educational wing in '62. |
| A | We even had a Vacation Bible School. Right after we started on the building. By then, we were pretty well set up financially. Not too many problems. And Pastor Acker always let us have all the stuff out of the bookstore. |
| Q | It sounds like he was a big help. |
| A | If he hadn't given what he gave ... I told you Art did programs. Pastor Acker had the service folder, then he'd have the secretaries at First Lutheran make it up. Then he'd bring it to Art and Art would print it for him, no cost. So we put all the announcements on the back, all the hymns were inside. You had to remember the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. It wasn't printed on there. First Lutheran did donate a lot of things to us. They were very generous. Things that we needed seemed to come. If Pastor Acker ever happened to mention that we needed something, there it would be. |
| Q | Somebody in the congregation would get a hold of it ... |
| A | Either that, or they'd get a hold of him and say, "Go ahead and buy it and send me the bill." A lot of things came that way. It was kind of nice. Of course, we had a good leader (in Pastor Acker), and that's what it takes. He was very, very dedicated to getting it going. |
| Q | Then he retired close to the church, and then he and his wife would walk to church. I remember that. |
| A | The house was bought by First Lutheran for the Ackers. By then, First Lutheran had gotten all these other ministers. And Pastor Acker was in retirement. They bought that house and it was to be the Ackers to live in as long as he lived and his wife could live there, but then they sold it when she died. |
| Q | Did the church have any annual events they would do? |
| A | In the beginning we didn't have too many, because there was no place to really cook food. So that's why. Then the women's guild, when it got going, always had their salad luncheon. That was a big thing. The Easter breakfast came out of some of the DCEs (Directors of Christian education) who were working with young people (youth groups). |
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