Month: March 2023

Part One

What someone does to earn a living can be called many things – a job, a career, a profession, or a vocation. But the ministry is totally different. It is a calling, and in Lutheran circles, it is a Divine calling from the Lord himself.  For my dad, his work was his life and his life was his work. When my mom was in the nursing home, the staff referred to my dad as Martin. But there was one nurse there, who happened to be a member of his congregation, who would always call him Pastor. I remember him saying he appreciated that. Just because he was retired, he was still a pastor. In fact, at nearly 87 years old, just a week or so before he entered Glory, he was still conducting Bible classes at a retirement home.

Dad was my pastor from my birth in Cicero until my marriage in Round Lake in 1974. And then our family had the opportunity to return to Round Lake in 1979 and he was our pastor at St. Paul until he semi- retired in 1984. So for 27 years of my life he was my pastor even though I called him Dad. Although Dad’s ministry began many years before I came on the scene and continued in another congregation, the ones I am personally acquainted with are the years that I attended Redeemer Lutheran Church in Cicero and St. Paul Lutheran Church in Round Lake, so those years are what I will be referring to in this post today.

As a young child I didn’t realize his importance until the first day of Kindergarten when I met Vivian. Her family obviously was new to our church since I hadn’t ever met her before in Sunday School classes. Before class began that day, our Kindergarten teacher sent Vivian and me on an errand to the school office. We had to go down a staircase to the first floor when we met my dad coming up. She excitedly greeted him “Hi Pastor Lopahs!” and he replied to us “Hi girls!” As we continued on our way, Vivian proudly pointed out to me that SHE knew Pastor Lopahs! I guess I must have burst her bubble when I informed her that he was my dad. But I learned that day from another five year old girl that my dad was an important person to know.

We left Cicero when I was 8 years old and just beginning the third grade so I don’t have many memories of his ministry there. My parents had made many friends in the Redeemer congregation and they traveled often to Round Lake for family get-togethers. While we were in Cicero, one of the ladies became sponsor for my brother’s baptism and another of the men was sponsor at mine. So some friendships became life-long ones. Those were busy 14 years for my dad with a fairly large congregation of 700 and a parochial school where a new addition was erected within the last year we were in Cicero. I know that at least in his early years there he held services both in English and in German. And it was a custom to show the Martin Luther film every year as you see in the flyer below.

Our move to Round Lake was a welcome one for our family. Mom particularly was anxious to get out of the city and enjoyed being so close to a lake which we frequented often during the summer months.  But of course Dad got right to work with all his ministerial duties. There obviously were the Sunday sermons to prepare for and deliver for the two weekly services. And in between services he taught adult instruction classes during the Sunday School hour while laymen taught the adult Bible classes. During the year there were also special weekday services during Advent, Lent, and on Ascension Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day.

Also during the school year he held Chapel services every Wednesday morning and taught confirmation classes three days a week for our parochial school students in grades 6-8 and Saturday mornings for the public school students. At home my dad was, in my opinion, a strict disciplinarian and when I began confirmation classes myself I found out that he was even more so as a teacher. Students learned pretty quickly that during confirmation classes you didn’t talk to your neighbor or get out of your seat to sharpen a pencil without permission. It was to your advantage to keep a low profile during class. (I have heard that he mellowed a bit in later years! In fact, the dad I grew up knowing was not the grandpa my children knew.)

A story Dad liked to tell was when a student had the audacity to yawn without attempting to conceal it in any way. Dad paused his lecture only long enough to give the young fellow an assignment of writing 100 times “I am not a hippopotamus” due by the end of the day. When school was out that day and Dad was in his office, the assignment was turned in as requested. Dad asked the young man, “Now what did you learn from this assignment” and he was given the answer “I am not a hippopotamus!”

At the time I can’t say I appreciated growing up as a P.K. (Pastor’s Kid). There were times when I would join a group and someone would whisper “Shh! Kathie Lopahs is coming!” So I went through my growing up years without hearing bad words or off-color stories until I attended Round Lake public high school.  Now I know what a blessing being a P.K. actually was! My last couple of years in grade school I enjoyed the results of the construction of the school building program Dad was instrumental in bringing about.

What I have related so far of my dad’s ministerial duties is only a part of how he spent his days. Afternoons he made his sick calls to the area hospitals and the homes of shut-ins who could not attend services taking them communion. Sometimes he would attend pastoral meetings with other area pastors and also synod conventions.

There were also the monthly meetings in the evenings of Sunday school teachers, voters, PTA, and the boards of the Elders, Education, and Trustees. He would have devotions at the beginning of Ladies Aid monthly and the Dorcas Society weekly. I believe he also met with the day school teachers on a regular basis. He was involved with instructing the VBS teachers in the summer and organized two children’s Christmas services, one on the Sunday before Christmas for the younger children and the other on Christmas Eve for the older children held before the Candlelight service. The only church groups in which he did not participate, I believe, were the adult choir and the youth group which was called Walther League led by John Barth.

As if this was not enough to keep one man busy, Dad also performed baptisms, weddings, and officiated at funeral services. He did pre-marital counseling and marriage counseling. In fact he was available to talk to anyone who came in with a problem any time of the day or night, although his weekly day off was on Mondays and he tried to protect that time except in emergency situations. Also, there were a couple of years in Round Lake that Dad was given the opportunity to train and become a mentor to seminary students during their year of vicarage.

I plan on posting more about Dad’s ministry in future blogs as I have more photos, letters from members of each of his congregations in Texas, Cicero, Round Lake, and Muskego, and some video footage some might be interested in viewing. In closing, I would like to mention at this time an amazing connection that has resulted from this blog. About a year ago, I received an email from one of his former confirmands who found my blog and wanted to show his appreciation. Upon asking him how he happened to find it, he replied that he had been facing some medical issues and was thinking about my dad when he decided to Google “Pastor Lopahs” and was led to my blog! How awesome that Dad’s ministry is still having an effect on former members some 50 years later!

I am posting this article on the 100th anniversary of my mom’s birth, February 28, 1923. She entered the heavenly gates shortly after her 90th birthday.

Throughout my childhood my mother sewed. Mostly it was clothes for my sisters and me, sometimes matching, especially for Christmas or Easter. Her sewing machine was a White (although the color was actually black) which had no “bells and whistles,” it just sewed forward and back. There may have been an attachment for making buttonholes but I’m not sure about that. She taught me to sew on that machine and I am forever grateful that, of all the skills she possessed, that is the one she passed on to me. At one time she was employed by a Singer Sewing Center in Waukegan, IL as a sewing instructor and held classes for teenage girls.

 As an adult she still sewed for me on occasion. We had been going square dancing early in our marriage, before starting a family, and so she made me a square dance dress. Then, since my husband Ang had a hard time finding clothes for tall men that were reasonably priced, she made him a suit! Also, besides clothing, she made a card table house for my older daughter Laura as shown.

 While at St. Paul, Round Lake, Mom was the pioneer in establishing the Dorcas Society. A Dorcas society is a local group of people, usually based in a church, with a mission of providing clothing to the poor. Dorcas societies are named after Dorcas (also called Tabitha), a person described in the Acts of the Apostles. This group was founded by missionaries in the early 1800’s in America. The ladies at St. Paul met weekly, enjoying a Bible study with my dad, and then putting together quilts of all sizes and patterns. Sometimes they would get an order for a quilt but most of the time they made them and donated them to the needy. Mom also made several baby quilts when my children were born.

She could also do other needle-crafts such as knitting and crocheting, and I remember at one time she taught herself to do hairpin lace using a special loom. She enjoyed cross-stitch and later did counted cross-stitch projects. Here are some of the items I still have today.

It wasn’t until the 1970’s that she took an interest in the fine arts. I remember her going to a drawing class at the College of Lake County and later became interested in working with watercolors. But I didn’t know she had these items tucked away until I cleaned out her apartment when she entered the nursing home after her stroke.

Sometime in the early ‘80s she discovered the art of china painting and fell in love with it. At first she learned from a teacher but did a lot of experimenting on her own, purchased a small kiln and later another larger one, and eventually taught a class of her own.

After Dad retired from St. Paul in Round Lake, he became the visitation pastor of St. Paul in Muskego, where there was talk of someday a senior condo being built close to the church. My parents, along with other members of the congregation, were very interested in getting in on the ground floor.  So when the building process actually began at Stoney Creek, my mom requested to be able to provide hand-painted tiles for the kitchen and bathroom in their unit. Permission was granted and I’m happy to be able to provide photos of the results. It was lovely!

Mom completed numerous china painted items from plates to trivets, ornaments, vases, and piggy banks. But her biggest endeavor which, thankfully was completed not too long before she suffered her stroke, was painting a tea set for each of her four children and fifteen grandchildren! We are all blessed to have these remembrances from Mom. She easily could have painted and sold items to the public for they were of a professional quality. But she chose not to do that as she wanted to only paint for family and friends. Here are just a few of the tea sets but I will post photos of more of her china painting and other art items on the Gallery page. Please go there and enjoy!

As mentioned above, at one time Mom worked at a Singer Sewing Center and she had a boss there who had a difficult time remembering Mom’s name was Verona. She called her many other names that began with a “V” until Mom said she could just call her Vera. So that is how she got her nickname at 40+ years old and so used that name professionally thereafter.

Hope you enjoyed this post! Thanks for reading it!