The heritage of Henry and Vera Lange

Vera and Henry Lange (center)
Rosella, Carolyn, George, Jeanine, Lavera, Steve (left to right)

Banquet speech delivered by Pastor Lange, grandson of Henry and Very Lange, on the occasion of the July 30, 2022 reunion. Ninety-three descendants from four generations gathered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

We are exactly eleven days from Henry George Lange’s “eleventy-first” birthday. Moreover, Vera Marie Bertha Holtz’ 110th birthday is less than two months from now. We have gathered to celebrate two lives and the family that they brought up. 

Where do I begin to tell the story of just when my life began?

Georg Heinrich Lange was so Lutheran he was born on Reformation Sunday, 352 years after Luther's hammer blows. He arrived in New York harbor when the Statue of Liberty was still shiny new. He had five dollars in his pocket and a new hat on his head. The hat never made it to shore, while the $5 bought a ticket to Davenport.

There he met Augusta Wilhelmina Bremer, daughter of a Civil War vet from Ord, Nebraska. The teen was 500 miles from home, helping her widowed grandma run a boarding house. We’re not sure if they met there, or at Trinity Lutheran Church in Davenport. But eventually, Georg and Augusta boarded a train to Ord to ask John for her hand in marriage. He never went back.

Meanwhile, 300 miles downriver, William Hermann Heinrich Holtz was born in Maryville, IL. He prepared for marriage by acquiring 640 acres of land at Kilgore, Neb. (near Valentine) under the federal Kincaid Act. He then went to Hazard, Neb. to marry his love, Auguste Pauline Minna Lade. She had been born and baptized there and she wanted a church wedding— “God willing, and the Creek don’t rise…” 

Four generations: W.H. Holtz (center)
Vera (nee Holtz) Lange (right)
LaVera (nee Lange) Elliott (left)
Carmen, Wade, and Eric Elliott

Well, God was not willing. And the creek did rise. But, Pastor Lienhardt saved the day, fording the creek on horseback. He brought the Church to her and she was married in her uncle’s home.

The newlyweds bade farewell to their parents and were off to Cherry County. Vera was the third child, born just a year after Imogene. Vera is Latin for “True,” “verily, verily,” Amen, Amen and she remained so. Her middle name, Marie, is the mother of Jesus, God in the flesh. And Bertha, contrary to popular imagination, is not a Viking opera singer, but an old Germanic word for “bright or glorious.”

Meanwhile, back in Valley County, Hank was born, the sixth of eight children. He was born in the house that his dad had recently built. (The very same house where Vera would bear both George and Jeanine!) At St. John’s he was baptized as “Henry,” the Americanized form of Heinrich, a name with a heritage. The second name of his grandpa, Peter Heinrich Christoph (Kristoff), and the middle name of his dad, Georg Heinrich.

Henry was not only the first name of grandpa, but the middle name of firstborn, George. Henry passed his name on as middle name to his firstborn son, but it never made it into the next generation, or the generation after that. (Interruption... Here the speech was paused by late-breaking news.) 

Correction! Pending verification from independent fact checkers, it seems that the name reappeared in the fourth generation as Jacob Friedman’s middle name. This, notwithstanding that Henry was eschewed by the second generation, has been a curiosity to me. I can imagine the “naming negotiations” as Langes lobbied their spouses for Henry to no avail.

By 1969, it had fallen below 100 on the Top Baby name charts. IMHO it deserves revival. If you are currently pregnant, or become so in the future, consider this as my personal appeal to keep Henry in the running, during the baby-name sweepstakes.

Linguistically, Heinrich is related to Anaheim and Manheim. A Heim is a home. Anaheim is “the home of Anna” (the mother of Mary). If you’re a fan of Norse myth, Jotumheim is the home of the ice-giants.

When you put Heim before an R, “heim” becomes “hein” – “Heinrich.” The “rich” in Heinrich is the shortened form of “Reich” meaning ruler. 

While Heinrich skipped the third generation, George made the cut--that’s my middle name. Alex got it in the fourth generation. George is the Greek word for “farmer.” He’s a worker (ergates) of the earth (ge i.e. Gaia).

Grandpa was Christened “ruler of the household.” And “farmer” is his middle name. Grandma was baptized True Mother and glorious.

Henry and Vera were destined to build a home—a heim—together. But how did they find each other? That’s a marvel with its own story. Without that miracle, none of us would be here. A RE-union requires a UNION. Life requires a union. Nurture requires a union. Rearing requires a union. 

Henry and Vera

As young Henry and Vera grew in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they reached the most critical transition of every young person’s life. How to form a new home without losing the rich heritage that you have received? The Walther League helped them—it was affectionately known as the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s own “marriage bureau.” 

The eligible bachelors of St. John’s in Ord could have had their pick of “Valley” girls. And the Holtz beauties certainly had plenty of suitors in Shelton. But four of the six Holtz the sisters of Zion Lutheran, Shelton married four men from St. John’s in Ord. Vera married Henry Lange, Dorothy married Herbert Bredthauer, Bernadine married Eldon Lange, and Ella married Jim Bremer.

Stop and think how remarkable that is. It wasn’t purely a matter of course. It’s young people who took to heart what they heard at every wedding. “Marriage is not to be entered into inadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God.”

They built a home and ruled it—Heinrich—by first ruling themselves. They toiled in the field, built Ord, contributed to Nebraska, served St. John’s. Grandpa went into the public square as part of building his home.

This life privileged you with the incalculable riches that you have today. Each trip to the coffee shop, to the barber shop, to St. John’s, to Grand Island for the reclamation district, or to Washington to lobby—each weed pulled in the massive garden, or each new cleaning of the brooder house—was building your inheritance, not for time, but for eternity.

These were the inheritance that they added with their own labors—that both carried forward from their own family experiences—both of joy and sorrows. When grandma was just shy of her 16th birthday, she watched her beloved older sister die performing a daily household chore. The kerosene-soaked corncob, a flash, and spilled fuel, mortally injured Imogene. Hours later, dying of her injuries, she told her parents and sisters, “Jesus saved me, He suffered for my sins, God will deliver me.” 

That inheritance was deeply embedded in our 15-year-old grandma. Now, it is yours. It is as real and valuable as any land or house bequeathed to children.

In 1940, Grandma and grandpa faced a similar sorrow. Ronald was translated to heaven on his birthday, May 26, 1940. Grandpa saw to that by giving him the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Heidi Anne joined Ronald 31 years later, December 10, 1971. All of you, likely, have your own, more private aches of Langes who have been taken from us before we knew their faces. They, our elder brothers and sisters, have both received an inheritance and have become a part of this, our inheritance. 

They, as we, were privileged by myriads of decisions and commitments made before they were born, and without their assent or participation. The farm has been sold, and the physical inheritance disbursed. But the intangible benefits are still present for you to give thanks to God.

You can thank Him by acknowledging the “Lange Privilege” and guarding it. You have already received untold riches without even being aware of it. There is still more available to you. Through conscious reflection. You can start with the wonderful and painstaking work of Jeanine in collusion with siblings and cousins.

She has opened windows to the fresh air of the past. It can blow through your house and home today. It’s not just musty history and faded photographs, but a living legend. In reading it, and reflecting on it, what will jump off the page is this: The Lange heritage is inextricably set in the Church.

This is the True (Vera) household that nourishes and forms you. Christ Himself is the True Heinrich, the Ruler of the Household of God who spends His life in renewing the dirt and cultivating community, Who gives you birth and rebirth into the wondrous world that He built for you.

When Grandpa’s time came to be buried in the Ord cemetery, Grandma and the girls chose the sermon text: “Vera, Vera, I say to you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John 12:24)

In a sense, the “much fruit” of Henry and Vera is gathered here—93 strong. But, of course, that’s not what Jesus was talking about. The True Corn of wheat was the One who was planted in the ground at Calvary. Vera truly knew this, and so did Henry.

And this faith, this Church, is the greatest heritage of Henry and Vera. Their names convey this meaning. But His is the Name is that actually makes us who we are.

“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”