Caspar Braun

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, in my own words. Now, some men pick one calling and stick to it. Caspar Braun was not that kind of man.

Born on March 16, 1822, in Germany, he got his education clear over in Switzerland, and by the time he was done, he had collected enough learning to fill three careers. A physician. A teacher.

And a Lutheran clergyman. That is not a man who sits still. In 1847, he was sent to Pennsylvania as a missionary, and you might think that would be the chapter that defined him.

But Texas had other plans. In 1850, Caspar Braun arrived in Houston, and the place took hold of him in a way Pennsylvania apparently did not. The very next year, he organized the first German Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Not just a congregation, mind you. A whole synod. He was elected the first president of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Texas.

First. As in, there had never been one before, and then there was, and Caspar Braun was running it. Back home, he and his wife Margaret, born Bohmert, were raising eight children together.

Doctor, teacher, preacher, founder, father of eight. Caspar Braun died on October 14, 1880, leaving behind a church, a synod, a family, and the particular kind of mark that takes more than one lifetime to make.

What the marker says

(March 16, 1822 - October 14, 1880) A native of Germany, Caspar Braun was educated in Switzerland. A physician and teacher as well as a Lutheran clergyman, he was sent to Pennsylvania as a missionary in 1847. He arrived in Huston in 1850. The following year he organized the first German Evangelical Lutheran Church and was elected first president of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Texas. Braun and his wife Margaret (Bohmert) were the parents of eight children.