Month: January 2022

My father, Martin Charles Lopahs, was born in 1918 in Chicago, IL to Charles and Emma Lopahs. His father, Charles, was also born in Chicago in 1892 to Charles and Minnie Lopahs. His grandfather Charles was born in 1856 in Germany. This is the information found from one source. However, in another source both his father and grandfather are shown as Carl Lopahs and, my dad did confirm that although on his birth certificate he is named Martin Charles, on his baptismal certificate it is Martin Carl William Lopahs. I did find a William on his mother’s side of the family. In any case, he went through life as Martin Charles in every instance from birth certificate to marriage certificate to social security card to death certificate and everything in between.

Now where did his name Martin originate? I have not seen that name at all in the family records before Dad. But I would guess that growing up with a Lutheran background and having relatives set on his becoming a minister, he may have been named for Martin Luther himself. I know that in his younger years he had dreams of being a shortstop for the Chicago Cubs but at some point the idea of following in the footsteps of the Reformer became the focus of his life.

But the name Martin did not end with my dad in our family. My brother is named Martin John and he too followed in the ministry of the Lutheran church. His son is named Andrew Martin and also a grandson from daughter Deb became Lucas Martin.

In my own family we named our second son Daniel Charles, and our older son named his first son Warner Martin. My sister Ginny also has a grandson named Jared Martin.

Dad enjoyed the privilege of baptizing all four of his children as well as many of his grandchildren. Three of our four children were baptized by my dad with the exception of our oldest son, Michael, who was born 7 weeks prematurely in Kankakee, IL and so was baptized by our pastor in the hospital.

During his ministry he had baptized countless children, and adults, but not many people are aware that he had his photo taken by a professional photographer that was published in World Book Encyclopedia. The photo was taken after a baptism at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Round Lake, IL.

This page was taken out of the “R” volume under the subject of Religion. Since the encyclopedia was published in 1978, I am assuming that this picture was taken some time in the 70’s. Does anyone from St. Paul in Round Lake know who this baby is? Or the parents/godparents? Please leave a message in the comments and thank you for reading!

If you are visiting my blog for the first time, please be sure to read my Introductory Post from December 2016 shown under previous posts.

Welcome

If you are visiting my blog for the first time, please be sure to read my Introductory Post from December 2016 shown under previous posts.

The Christmas season is generally a busy one for most of us, but more so for a Lutheran minister. In addition to the weekly Sunday services and Bible classes, monthly meetings for various church groups, catechism instruction for both day school and public school students, counseling church members and visitation of the sick, Dad also had to prepare for the extra services between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Those included, besides these two, services for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and midweek Advent services. Plus he organized the rehearsals for the children’s services held on the Sunday before Christmas for the younger children and on Christmas Eve for the older ones before the candlelight service.

Mom was also busy in the preparation of the music for many of the services as she directed the children’s choir for many years, and later a teen choir, and she taught kindergarten for the day school so was involved with them for the children’s service. But that’s not all! For several years she was busy sewing matching Christmas dresses for the three of us girls and baking probably a dozen or so kinds of Christmas cookies including her favorite cut-out spice cookies, spritz cookies made with a cookie press, cookie canes, checkerboard squares, pin wheels, Mexican wedding cake, and almond ice-box cookies. Many cookies were boxed up and given as gifts along with her famous Anise candy in red, green, and yellow chopped up and put in air tight jars. For Christmas morning we always enjoyed her Christmas Stollen.

Family activities during the month were the annual trip downtown Chicago to see the decorations and standing in line to see Santa. We decorated our tree with lights, ornaments, and tinsel. When I was little I couldn’t put on the tinsel since it had to be meticulously hung straight strand by strand, but I remember getting to put the Rudolph on which I actually still have after 60 some years. For the most part our trees looked pretty good except the year my sister Ginny was rocking a little too close to the tree and rocked right into it! She came out of it okay but the tree never looked quite right again. The only outside decoration was a lit-up group of carolers which we put in the front window. Not too impressive but, as you see, Mom and Dad were pretty busy!

We opened presents on Christmas Eve between the children’s service and candlelight service. Dad took us for ice cream while Mom went home to arrange the gifts from Santa. That is, except for the year my siblings got bicycles. Then Mom took us for ice cream so Dad could bring the bikes up from the basement. Christmas Day we sometimes drove to our grandparent’s home in Milwaukee after church. Other times they came to our home with our Uncle Ed and Aunt Evie, first in Cicero and then in Round Lake.

When we all became adults and started our own families, Mom crocheted little personalized stocking ornaments for each child, in-law, and grandchild. She also made this angel counted cross-stitch wall hanging. Later she started china painting and made many beautiful items. Here are some of her Christmas projects and, over the years she also worked in pencil and watercolor. Two of them Ginny took and made into Christmas cards to send out to friends and relatives.

As time went on and the families grew, Mom and Dad downsized their living quarters after leaving Round Lake and my sisters and I started hosting the family Christmas celebration. (Marty lived too far and had his own Christmas services to officiate.) When Mom had a stroke, at first we built a wheelchair ramp on our house and hired a driver to bring her over in a van, but it became too much for her to be in the wheelchair that long. So our family arranged to use a private downstairs room at the nursing home and brought in the Christmas dinner in crock-pots. In time this included the great-grandchildren as well so we were quite a group! Close to this room was a small chapel with a piano so we ended our day singing Christmas carols with Mom and Dad while our daughter Laura accompanied us.