September 29th is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. On that day back in 1887, about twenty families in Winchester, Texas founded a new Lutheran church in town.
Efforts to establish a congregation there had begun some eleven years earlier. Folks in town were briefly served by the Rev. Simon Suess, and then Revs. Stiemke and Buchschacher of the congregation that is now Holy Cross in Warda held services there occasionally, despite being told that nothing would ever come of the efforts.
But one hundred and thirty-two years later, St. Michael’s Lutheran Church is still an active and vibrant congregation (in fact, some of our friends, the Hankemeiers, are members there).
Hi I’m trying to track my family down. Rev. Gottfried Buchschacher. He is my great, great, great grand father do you have any pictures of him or any information on him please his son Emanuel Buchschacher changed our name to what is now Bushacker.
Peter,
I’ve seen one picture of him – the one that’s shown here:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/66691419/gottfried-buchschacher
The ELCA’s Southwest Texas Synod archives seems to have some information on him, though I don’t know how much:
https://swtsynod.pastperfectonline.com/byperson?keyword=Buchschacher%2C+Gottfried
Most of what I know about him comes from these articles:
http://texaswendish.org/1999/09/09/history-of-holy-cross-warda-texas-daughter-of-serbin-1873-1905/
https://forum.wendishresearch.org/viewthread.php?action=printable&fid=408&tid=3455
I did read somewhere that he donated a large portion of his library to what is now Concordia University Texas, so they may also have information about him – one of these days I’m going to head up there and see what they have.
Hope that helps some! If I find any other info, I’ll let you know!
Best,
Jeremy