MEMBERSHIP 100 YEARS AGO [1875]

The only statistics available for 1875 report 71 communicants for the two parishes combined. The following year this figure was raised to 76. As nearly as can be determined from the few records at our disposal, approximately 45 of these were communicants in Sterling proper. Pastor Lussky had to contend with a shifting population comparable with the movement which affected Americans during the Second World War. It was not at all uncommon in those days for Lutheran families to come over from Germany, accept the hospitality of friends and relatives in this area over winter or for a year or two, then strike out elsewhere on their own to Iowa, Nebraska or other points West. This fact accounts for the tremendous turnover of membership so evident in the official Church records. The fact that the Sterling congregation was a "feeder" for other parishes farther west probably pleased the first Pastor rather than discouraged him, as might be supposed. Pastor Lussky's ministry was always characterized by a burning passion for souls, an eager mission-mindedness, for which we are deeply grateful. Though Pastor Lussky did not succeed in founding congregations everywhere he tried, he is the spiritual father of the first three Synodical Conference congregations in Whiteside County, the parishes in Sterling, Hopkins, and Morrison.