St. Paul Catholic Church, Berger Missouri

Although the photographer who created this image of St. Paul Catholic Church in Berger, Missouri is not identified, it certainly belongs on a site dedicated to images of the Hermann area. Berger is only eight miles southeast of Hermann, across the Franklin County line.

On the back is written “Berger Catholic Church.” A childish hand has added “Miss Gatzemeyer Berger Mo.”

I acquired this photo along with a portrait of a Franciscan nun and friar. A friar can be seen standing in front of the church doors, to the right of two little girls and an older man.

A brief history of the church posted on the web by Geneaology Trails says this building was dedicated in 1888, and that Boeuf Township farmer August Gatzemeyer (b. March 1825, Germany; d. 1901) was among the trustees. The founders of St. Paul were originally part of St. George, a Hermann congregation.

Hermann’s St. George Catholic Church was served by the Franciscan Friars of the Sacred Heart (St. Louis) until 2002, so perhaps the same order served St. Paul.

It seems likely this photo was owned by one of Mr. Gatzemeyer’s descendants. August’s son Richard Gatzemeyer (b. August 1866, Missouri) became a photographer; perhaps he took this photo, and the two little girls might be two of Richard’s daughters, Josephine (b. 1890), Amanda (b. 1892), and Lulu (b. 1896).

Mark Scott Abeln has a contemporary photograph of St. Paul, taken head-on, on his excellent blog “Rome of the West.”

See also Abeln’s informative and beautifully illustrated post on St. George Catholic Church, Hermann.

Berger Priest and Nun by Charles Mumbrauer

Charles Mumbrauer took over his father’s photographic studio in Hermann after Robert C. Mumbrauer’s death in 1917. Charles ran the studio off and on until his death in 1935.

This portrait of an unidentified nun and a Franciscan priest is the first photograph I’ve acquired that is marked “C. Mumbrauer.” It was found with two early 1900s photographs of Berger, Missouri churches:  Immanuel Methodist Church of Senate Grove in New Haven and St. Paul Roman Catholic Church, Berger.

St. Paul was served by the Order of St. Francis, and the priest certainly appears to be Franciscan. He may have belonged to the same order that served St. George Catholic Church in Hermann, the Order of the Sacred Heart.

The photograph is mounted in an oversize, tri-fold presentation folder–one of a long series of mount innovations by photographic studios as they attempted to stimulate interest in portrait photography.