As part of Pacific Hills' 40th anniversary in 1995, Pacific Hills member Bob Glissmann interviewed members in the congregation who have played a significant role in the formation and development of the church. This is the first of four taped interviews. The following are excerpts of a conversation with John Wiebe, a charter member of Pacific Hills who was on the LCMS Nebraska District's site selection committee when the Pacific Hills property was purchased.
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| Q | Why did the sites committee decide on that site? Was that the first church they decided to start? |
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| A | Actually, we were appointed as a sites committee to start looking for future sites. There wasn't any priority or sense of order, we just wanted to get some land ownership and locations in Omaha where a church might be well-positioned. The site at 45th and Grover, Peace Lutheran, I think, was opened before Pacific Hills. Once the site was selected and the group went together to start the mission, the sites committee had very little to do with it after that. |
| Q | How did the site selection process work? |
| A | The district asked the sites committee to find locations and then that was publicized. They let the congregations know that this was happening, and First Lutheran was very anxious to put together a group to go out there. They called it a daughter congregation committee, and it had 100 or 113 people from First Lutheran. The memberships were transferred from First Lutheran. And then there were a few others from other churches. |
| Q | But First Lutheran was the "mother" congregation? |
| A | That's correct. |
| Q | After you found the site, how did they come up with the name Pacific Hills? |
| A | The congregation named it. It is unusual. They usually have some other name, but this was so prominently Pacific Hills by reason of this development. (Daniel) Cary's Loveland in the Pacific Hills district was a quite well-known and highly-thought-of area. It was kind of the first elite suburb in west Omaha after World War II. And so the members of the congregation counseled with the ministers and thought (Pacific Hills) was OK. That's why it isn't St. Mark's or St. Peter or Zion or something like that, St. John's. It's just got a different name because it was a well-known area as Pacific Hills. |
| Q | Did you join the congregation yourself right away? |
| A | Yes, my wife (Harriet) and I were charter members as were most of those 113 from First Lutheran. |
| Q | Did you live out here? Why did you decide to go to the mission church? |
| A | We lived fairly close. We lived at 81st and Hickory at the time. As I got more involved in helping choose these sites, I developed a kind of conscience problem of making sure they were successful so I wanted to follow through. So transferring there, that was just the first time. I did that again and again later on, helping with the mission work. I was in the building business. We had airplanes, we looked for commercial sites by air and had the ability to count houses and population to help us with our retailing facilities. Our first (shopping) center was 42nd and Center Street across from Veterans Hospital, so it wasn't a great departure from that to find where the people were and where the churches weren't. |
| Q | You said it took years of working on Mr. Cary (who owned the property at 90th and Pacific) to finally get him to relent . . . |
| A | Either four or five years. |
| Q | So when would that have started? |
| A | It started in late 1948 or '49. We had done an aerial tour of the city and pinpointed some interesting areas that looked probable - where the housing was building and there was activity and growth, and so we pinpointed those on a map and then we got in cars and drove around to those places. |
| Q | Once it was decided that that was a good site, you found out who owned the land? |
| A | The committee divided up, with each man taking over a certain area to study, and I was appointed to that site. The other committeemen took on other assignments. |
| Q | So you found out Mr. Cary owned the land and you gave him a call and met with him. What did he say then? |
| A | Well, Dan was . . . He hadn't heard much of the Lutherans and didn't think much of the Lutherans. His first statement was the Lutherans didn't have enough money to buy that corner, which I thought was a bold statement to make before he knew anything about us. But I didn't want to enter into it. He was a very moneyed realtor. He was the first after World War II to have the lots that people wanted when they started building west of Omaha. He had invested in land west of Omaha when the war was going on or even before the war. He owned a lot of land - several hundred acres. He had it subdivided and was getting wonderful prices. He was getting people to build beautiful homes. Dan was truly in the driver's seat and he was enjoying it immensely. He was so proud of this comer, which was where his big sign was. Dan thought I was a nobody. I was 25 or 26 years old. So it was hard to get a meeting with him and hard to get his attention that first meeting, but I kept it friendly. He gave me a big, fat no, really. I knew I couldn't discuss $150,000 with him or even start negotiating. I thought maybe he'd donate the land. |
| Q | The $150,000, was that what he was asking? |
| A | We went to his office and talked about everything else, he got his file out, a big, fat file. He said, "These are all people who want to buy that corner." He started filing through there and slid this one paper across the table and he said, "Do you want to pay this kind of money for that land?" It was an offer from Standard Oil for $150,000. I just answered him I didn't have in mind buying it, I had in mind that he would give it. That kind of ended the meeting. At the second meeting I started working on him - he should be the one who wanted to give it and so forth. I felt kind of hog-tied when he wanted to look at one of our new (mission churches) and I didn't have any to show him. But I told him he had customers who built nice homes around there and I would see that it was a substantial church. Dan was totally against it to begin with and I just kept working on him and finally he wanted to see a church site there and of course, he wouldn't give it to us. It cost us $25,000. |
| Q | He had all these offers to buy the land. Why do you think he held off? |
| A | I have no idea. I think that I planted some seed of doubt in his mind about a lighted corner with a filling station. And I think he negotiated with lots of oil companies because that was a great oil company site, that sort of corner. They paid anywhere from $145,000 to $175,000 for a corner for an oil station in those days. I think he weighed that and he was weighing the flak he would get from his neighbors. I believe he could have gotten zoning (for a filling station). I think that slowly he bought my idea that a church on that site would enhance the rest of his community the most. I think the $25,000 came from him calling his accountant and saying, "How much have I got in this site? I don't want to pay capital gain on it, so do a pro-rating of all the land and tell me where I could come out zero-zero on the site." That's just a guess. |
| Q | Once the site was selected and the construction began, what connection did you have then aside from being a charter member? |
| A | The church got organized and elected officers - in fact it had been organized and had been meeting down there in Sidles' warehouse. We had a great president, Carl Klatt, a good businessman, a very level-headed man. |
| Q | They met at a warehouse? |
| A | Sidles' warehouse. A couple blocks east there on Pacific where Sidles had a warehouse. They gave us temporary space. We met there for a year or two while the building was being built. Carl Klatt stands out, our first president. He was a very stabilizing force. Between his influence and Pastor (Lawrence) Acker. Pastor Acker agreed to serve as interim pastor. He had already been retired at First Lutheran and was called a pastor emeritus, an honored, elderly pastor in the Omaha circuit. He had seen me sweat trying to get the land and had gotten interested in it himself. We asked him if he would be our leader. When he said yes, I knew it would be a success because he was a very loved man. He served twice that way - he served Pacific Hills, and then he served Beautiful Savior. At Pacific Hills, they elected me as chairman of the building committee and the finance committee. I answered to the officers of the church. We had a building committee of five ... We went to two or three towns in Nebraska where Don Hollis had designed mission churches or additions to churches. Don Hollis was our architect. He was from Kansas City. |
| Q | The architect for Pacific Hills? |
| A | Yes. |
| Q | Was there one church the Pacific Hills building was modeled after? |
| A | No. We really came down more to function - how many square feet we wanted in the nave, what we wanted in that coat room behind the nave, how the sacristy should function. We wanted the option of the choir being on the side or in the loft because there was a big argument in those days over where the choir belonged. I said, "Well, since half of the congregation wants it here and the other half here, let's get a design where it can be either place through the years." In our church it can be. The choir can be in one of those side wings, and was for a number of years. |
| Q | The pews in the wing were faced perpendicular, not as they are now . . . |
| A | And the pews were stepped up. The choir got moved to the loft because that became the popular place for it and I think is the best place for it in that design and has improved acoustics quite a little. The debate over the choir was just absolutely 50-50. Q. Why was that? A: The choir being visible to the congregation was so important to some, so they wanted them in the wing. Others said they didn't need to be visible, just have their voices come out over the congregation from the loft. Then the others said, "Well, their robes and all are beautiful and the children's choir, half the fun of a children's choir is seeing it." I couldn't solve the question without having a design where it could go both ways. I thought we'd do that rather than get hung up on it and have a divided group. Don Hollis was a great architect. Actually, our church is not too far from the old Roman cathedrals, if you stop and think about it. |
| Q | It's shaped like a cross ... |
| A | Right. And the side aisles ... |
| Q | Why was the church situated as it was on the lot? |
| A | We looked at the plot plans, looking at the building running diagonally and the other way and this way. When we were sure we could get the lot to the south - you know, we had to acquire one more lot besides the Cary tract - then you figure in the parking. In shopping centers, parking determines everything. You almost design the parking and put the buildings in the leftovers. The parking established that the church should run this way. It made efficient rows and lanes of parking. Of course, the first church did not include the educational wing. The educational wing was built as Phase II, four or five years later. Keith Tobias was president of the congregation and the congregation was again divided, this time over whether they should build the educational unit or not. Keith and some others, I think Carl Klatt was with him, ganged up on me, took me to lunch and got me to accede to once more chair the building committee. They had already had a building committee and they had gone for about a year and had filially broken it up with indecision and great differences of opinion in the congregation. They were divided and getting nowhere, especially on the funding. You have to get the congregation together. I also headed the finance committee the second time. We just went to work on pretty much the same formula we used the first time around - we found out what the congregation wanted and where our differences were and then we resolved our differences by discussing them. |
| Q | Where did the church end before? At the end of the library, right? |
| A | Right. Just the church and the library. |
| Q | So the Sunday school classes were held in the library? |
| A | In the basement. The library and the basement. That little basement was just jam-packed with kids. The fire department came down and made us build little things for them to get out of those basement windows for secondary escape. We had a terrible time meeting fire code for children in the basement in the Sunday school classrooms. |
| Q | Acker Hall wasn't there, so where in the basement would they have met? |
| A | Those little rooms that are storage rooms that are wasted down there now. The storage rooms were Sunday school rooms. We got, the figure sticks in my mind, we had 225 children every Sunday meeting anywhere and everywheie they could. We just had to have an educational building. We hired a local architect who actually worked from a master plan. Don Hollis (who had died in a plane crash after the church building was built) did a master plan that pretty much showed the educational btulding as Phase II. All of these churches work out a site plan and a master plan that use all the land and then they just build part of it. Some of the congregations followed the plans, some didn't. Total membership at Pacific Hills was getting near the 1,000 mark. And the children were 225 at Sunday school. |
| Q | When would that have been? |
| A | 1960 or '61, '61 or '62 ... Pacific Hills once was jam-packed and I think our membership reached nearly 1,000 once. Politics in Omaha Lutheran circles, I think, struck Pacific Hills harder than some other congregations. The leftovers of the split in Synod that started in '71 rumbled through the Omaha churches. First Lutheran left the Synod. First Lutheran was the mother church to Pacific Hills so it left Pacific Hills not following its mother when it didn't go to the ELCA group. There were lots of heavy hearts over that and lots of people transferred away from Pacific Hills because they thought it wasn't leaning toward the solid, old Missouri Synod doctrine. (Today) I think it's as solid as it can be. I haven't heard a word out of Pastor Moorhead that isn't Missouri Synod. Solid as can be. I think he's a great pastor. Well-trained, very capable, alert man. . . . I see Pacific Hills growing. I think it can be revitalized and we can fill the parking lot and fill the pews. It's so well-located and it's got a good message. It can have good outreach. It'll fill again. You watch. I'm optimistic it will grow. For us, it's like coming home. When we told a voters assembly that we were going to transfer our membership to Divine Shepherd, and help with the mission out there, I said we would come back some day if they would have us. And that has all happened. We're glad we're back. |
Bob Glissmann interviews another charter member in Pacific Hills Lutheran Church - Oral History Part 2
Pacific Hills Lutheran Church is a member of the