In the early 1980s, as a part of her sabbatical, the late Concordia
librarian Margaret Horn (pic below) interviewed more than twenty former Concordia students living
in the south.
Thanks to the Minnesota Digital library, those interviews are now available to listen to and download from
the Minnesota Reflections website.
The interviews are with students
who attended the college in the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s and feature recollections of their experiences at Concordia. Among other things the former students are asked about:
- teachers they enjoyed and why
- their friendships on and off of campus
- the hierarchy among students
- the places in the Twin Cities that they visited
- the way they paid the bills (i.e. working off campus and through donations)
- extracurricular activities including athletics, clubs, and the hazing of younger students.
Even in those days, the
school was focused on not only cultivating future pastors and teachers for the
church body of which it was a part (the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod), but
also laypersons possessing the benefit of a Christian liberal arts
education. As such, there are about thirteen
interviews with those who went on to become pastors, and eight of those who went on
to do other work.
Take some time in the near
future to enjoy listening to some of the interviews! Again, here is the link for the interviews (and here a link that gets you to all the Concordia items found in the collection)
Here is a summary of one of
the more colorful interviews with Rudolph Ritz, class of 1935:
"Pastor Ritz, whose mother
was the chief cook for Kaiser Wilhelm II, talks about, among other things, why
he came to study for the ministry at Concordia, how public school teachers sacrificed
extra time to help him learn English and math, the President’s long list of
responsibilities at the school (leading chapel, night watchman, his own
secretary), outstanding profs and what made them great, the dissection of stray
animals for biology classes, how city boys at Concordia avoided hazing and who
got it the worst, classroom clowning and fun, playing sports, the difficulties
professors faced, the scandal of dating students (dancing, movies),
extracurricular night lectures by a professor on sexual matters, a “rebel”
student newspaper (the “Rebel Comet”), pro baseball and the St. Paul Saints
(Babe Ruth), work outside of school, the conversion of a co-worker to
Christianity through his preaching, and an interesting story about a personal
letter from President Nixon.”
