DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Way back around 1888, Lutheran missionaries started making their way out to the Yoakum area, tending to the settlers putting down roots in DeWitt County. They were planting seeds, you might say — and those seeds were about to take hold.
On January 27, 1891, the Reverend Cornelius Ziesmer and about ten families came together and organized Holy Cross Lutheran Church. Ten families. That's where it all started.
In those early days, the congregation didn't have a building to call their own, so they gathered wherever they could — in homes, in the city hall, in the old community opera house, even in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Now that right there tells you something about a people willing to make do. Then came a milestone.
The congregation's first real Lutheran sanctuary was completed in October 1893, standing at the corner of Hochheim and Schwab Streets. They had their church. They had their walls and their roof and their place to worship.
And then — the following month — a tornado took it. Just like that, gone. Now here's where this story turns into something worth remembering around a campfire.
Those members didn't scatter. They worked together and built a new structure on that same site, and it was completed in January 1894. Same ground.
New walls. That same year, the Reverend W. C.
Wolfsdorf became the congregation's first resident pastor. The church was serving a predominantly German membership, and it grew — quickly. Worship, civic life, missionary work — Holy Cross had its hands in all of it.
Then in 1948, the congregation purchased property at the site where the marker stands today, and between 1951 and 1952 a new sanctuary went up to serve a membership that just kept growing. Generations have come and gone in Yoakum, and Holy Cross Lutheran Church is still there — still counting among its members the descendants of those very founding families. Some stories don't end.
They just keep going.
What the marker says
Lutheran missionaries began serving settlers in the Yoakum area about 1888. The Rev. Cornelius Ziesmer and about ten families organized Holy Cross Lutheran Church on January 27, 1891. Early worship services were held in homes, the city hall, the old community opera house, and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The first Lutheran sanctuary, completed in October 1893 at the corner of Hochheim and Schwab Streets, was destroyed by a tornado the following month. The members worked together to build a new structure on the same site, and it was completed in January 1894. The Rev. W. C. Wolfsdorf became the congregation's first resident pastor that same year. Serving a predominantly German membership, the church grew quickly. Its activities have included worship, civic, and missionary endeavors. The congregation purchased property at this site in 1948, and a new sanctuary was built in 1951-52 to serve the growing membership. An important part of local history for generations, Holy Cross Lutheran Church continues to be an integral part of the Yoakum community, still counting among its members descendants of its founding families.