Cemetery Walk Scripts
- dbowers
- Oct 29
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 31
Welcome to St. Lucas UCC’s cemetery and our Totenfest Tales! Totenfest is a German word that means “Festival of the Dead”. The tradition goes back to 1816 in Prussia. We are remembering a small sample of members who came before us at St. Lucas. We will focus on a handful of people buried close to the building when the cemetery was relatively new, and another handful who were part of St. Lucas in subsequent generations. We give thanks for their lives and the ways they contributed to our church and community.
The information about the early members of St. Lucas is based on previous work done a couple decades ago by the St. Lucas Heritage Committee and the Sappington-Concord Historical Society. That was augmented by a Heritage project on our founders in 2017 for which Jan Wenk did a lot of research. We continue to discover new information as we research to fill in some gaps.
If you have a family member or close friend buried in this cemetery, consider writing a biographical sketch of the person and sharing it with the with Heritage Committee. We would like to host a future cemetery tour in which you, or someone else, will have an opportunity to present that information about your loved one.
A bit about our heritage and history here - Once Europeans started settling in this part of Missouri, the area around St. Lucas UCC was settled largely by the family of John Sappington, who served at Valley Forge alongside George Washington and then with Daniel Boone in Kentucky. He received some land grants in return. The community was increased by German immigrations to Missouri between 1830 and 1850. In 1838, a group of these immigrants founded St. John’s German Evangelical Church in Mehlville (now on Lindbergh Blvd. near I-55). Within 40 years, the congregation was large enough to start another church. And the snowy winters and springtime flooding of Gravois Creek made it hard to travel all the way to St. John’s. So, St. Lucas German Evangelical Church was formed at our present location.
Our founders first met on March 1, 1880, in an old stone schoolhouse near Grant's
Farm, where they formed committees to solicit funds for a church and schoolhouse, to formalize the congregation and to call a pastor. By the end of the month, a constitution and by-laws were adopted, and the congregation was officially organized. Five acres of land were purchased on Denny Road in 1880 where the new, wood frame church building was dedicated on July 24, 1881. Block 1 of the cemetery, which is the section behind the large, clear, arched window by the entrance, was surveyed and plotted by August of 1881, which was also the month of the first burial.
A new stone church was erected in 1905 and dedicated on the 25th anniversary of St. Lucas. An education building was completed in 1955 to accommodate our growing programs. More classrooms were added in 1965. The sanctuary was expanded and remodeled in 1971. The building was made more accessible in 2008 with an elevator, new bathrooms, and an expanded entrance.
Many individuals buried in Block I led interesting lives and played important roles in both the community and the growth of St. Lucas Church. The current congregation of St. Lucas has these fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to thank for the sacrifices that they made to organize and fund this church. Their investments of time, effort and money have led to the rich heritage which has grown into the community of faith we now share. May we also be one in the spirit as we continue to build on the heritage that these founding families began.
Please be cautious as you walk in the uneven ground surrounding some of the graves.
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