REV. FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN BERG

Berg Home in Beardstown, IL

HEINRICH FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN BERG was born on 20 March 1856, in Logansport, Indiana, the son of Carl Berg and Tiene Busse. Franklin Pierce was President of the United States, and the country was rapidly headed toward civil war. The father Fred would never know died when he was less than a year old. His mother married again, but he barely remembered his stepfather who also died when he was yet a young boy. His mother was a strong influence in his life, as was Rev. Johannes Jox, the pastor of the Lutheran church in Logansport.

An early industrial accident changed Fred's future. He was working in a furniture factory when he was thirteen years old. It was August and hot inside the building. To alleviate the heat, cakes of ice had been placed around the floor. Too short to easily reach the circular saw he was working on, he slid a block of ice over and stood on it to tend the machine. The ice slipped and he fell into the spinning saw blade, severing his elbow. The wounds healed, but he was never again able to bend his arm. As a result a life's work had to be found that would not require manual labor.

Reverend Jox took Fred under his wing and encouraged him to study religion. He attended Concordia College in Ft.Wayne, Indiana from September of 1870 until June of 1875, then went on to Concordia Seminary in St.Louis, Missouri where he graduated on April 10, 1878. Fred became deeply concerned over the plight of the recently freed Negroes. On May 3,1878 he began work as a missionary among the black people in Little Rock, Arkansas. In July he was ordained as a Lutheran minister. A year later on July10, 1879, he returned to Logansport to marry the pastor's daughter, Augusta Jox.

After their marriage the couple returned to Little Rock where they remained for two years. A child was born there, Little Fritzy. His death in 1881 brought near hysteria to Augusta. She returned to Logansport for the comfort of her family and refused to go back to Arkansas. As soon as Fred could make arrangements, he returned to Indiana to reclaim his wife and seek a new assignment.

Fred found a pastorate at the St.James Lutheran Church in Decatur, Indiana and held that position for nearly ten years. Four children were born in Decatur. Then, in 1891 he accepted a call to St.Johns Lutheran Church in Beardstown, Illinois where three more children were born. Beardstown became the home that the family came to love. They stayed there twenty years. Not only was Fred the pastor of the church, he was headmaster of the parochial school. He had his office in the two story parsonage diagonally across the street from the church.

Toward the end of the family's time in Beardstown, a letter came from Germany which spoke of an inheritance waiting for Fred if he would go over and claim it. However, since claiming it would acknowledge his father's illegitimate birth, he chose to disavow it, perhaps thinking that it might cause a scandal in the church.

Fred never lost his concern for black people. After thirty years in the pastorate he still felt a need to get back to helping them. Letting his superiors know of his desire, he was offered the presidency of a new Lutheran college in Greensboro, North Carolina. Immanuel Lutheran College was a school dedicated to training Negro boys to become ministers. He spent the remaining twenty-five years of his working life at this college in Greensboro.

The years in Greensboro were not without disappointment. Fred held the presidency of the college for eight years, residing with his family in a substantial home owned by the college. Political maneuvering in 1919 cost him the presidency and correspondingly the use of the home. It speaks well for the dedication and tenacity of the man that he remained on the staff as a professor. The event, however, had a lasting effect on the family.

With the loss of the home and reduction of income, he could no longer afford a family home. The children were all adults and living elsewhere, so his need was less. Augusta was not happy with the situation in Greensboro anyway, so it was decided that she would move to Tampa, Florida to be with two of her children while he took a small apartment to use during the school year. The prejudice that the family faced in Greensboro because of the school for Negroes made Augusta's life miserable. Fred spent his holidays and summer vacations in Tampa after that.

Fred retired to Florida at the end of the 1936 school year, completing fifty-eight years in the service of the Lutherans. Then, after three years of retirement, he underwent an emergency operation for a hernia in Tampa and never recovered. He died at the age of eighty-three on 9 March 1939. He and Augusta are buried at Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Tampa, Florida.

Documents:
Marriage Certificate

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