You can find the Hill of Peace Lutheran Church in Friedenberg, just a few miles down a country road outside Perryville. The congregation has a rich history that began in the 1830s when Bavarian Lutherans left their homeland in southeastern Germany to start a new life in America.
In 1844, 13 families formed the Evangelical Lutheran Peace Congregation. Their first church was built in 1846 on the north side of Cinque Homme Creek. It wasn’t long before they outgrew this structure and constructed a second church in 1852. Over the years, the congregation experienced a decline in numbers.
The last service occurred in April 1980, and the membership voted to disband in 1981, passing a resolution to transfer the church property to the Concordia Historical Society. In May 1981, the property was designated as “Hill of Peace, " and the church was dedicated as a historical site. Since then, worship services have been held in the church only a few times each year.
It was just over a year ago when Don Fassold and a couple of other men were rummaging through a storage area beneath the back steps and discovered something that piqued their interest.
“They were back there looking around, and they came across the light, Fassold said. “They pulled it out and were looking at it. I asked, ‘What are you guys looking at?’
One of the men told Fassold that they believed it was the old chandelier that used to hang in the church. After identifying it by examining an old photograph, Fassold asked them if they had found all the pieces of the old oil lamp. One of the men responded, saying, “Yeah, but what are you going to do with it?”
Fassold replied, “I know a company that can restore it, and we can make it electric.”
One of the men said, “Oh, they can’t do that.”
Fasshold assured them that the St. Louis Antique Lighting Company, located in St. Louis, was highly skilled in restoration and had extensive experience with the work it completed for a congregation of Mormons in Washington County and the state capitol in Jefferson City.
“I’m sure they can handle the project,” Fassold told them.
The men remained skeptical about the idea and expressed their concerns that it would require significant funds.
“Well, we’ll see,” Fassold said. “We need to get it up there first and see what they can do with it. We took it up there in pieces and started putting some of it together, but one piece was broken.”
The men were assured that, despite the missing broken piece, it wouldn’t be a problem. They were informed that a mold would be created, and the substitute piece would be seamlessly attached.
“You’ll never even know it was missing,” they were told. The men were also informed that replacing the chandelier from an oil-fueled lamp to an electric one could be accomplished without altering the lamp's appearance.
Fassold said, “And, boy, when they called me up and said it was done, I went up there. It looked beautiful.
When asked how he assembled the team of men from the church to install the chandelier in the sanctuary, Fassold replied, " You know, that is a really remarkable story. It's as if the good Lord brought everyone together.”
Talking to a friend about the project, Fassold said, ‘We’ve got to hang that thing from the ceiling, and I don't know what's up there. We can't put it up there and have it come crashing down on somebody's head. We'll be in trouble."
His friend replied, "Well, I know just the guy that can do it — Mike Schamburg."
Fassold said, “Mike jumped on board, didn't ask a second question, came down, and sized it up. He bought the crank. He got this right crank for the weight. A little bit overkill, but hey, better safe than sorry. Then he went up there, reinforced all those beams in the attic above the ceiling, and mounted that thing up there. The cable was all stainless steel. He put 500 pounds on that cable.”
Fasshold soon had others join his team — a friend of Schamburg named Rob French, Mike Bullerdieck, Danny Kiefer, Dale Koenig, Sonny Kaufman and John Rauh.
Last Friday morning, the chandelier was delivered, and Fassold’s team surrounded the truck, ready to carry it into the church and install it just in time for the church’s early Easter service planned for Sunday. However, there was one problem. As the driver began to prepare for the chandelier's removal from the truck, he realized that a piece had broken off during the ride down from St. Louis.
Fassold was crestfallen.
“I said, ‘Now what do we do?’ He replied, ‘Well, the only thing I can do is take it back to St. Louis.’ I said, ‘You can’t make it — get up there, have it fixed today, and try to bring it back down today.’ He responded, ' Oh, no. That won’t work. I’ve got to get it up there and see what’s going to happen.’”
Fassold said, “There’s going to be a lot of disappointed people this Sunday.”
At 2 p.m. that afternoon, Fassold received a call from the restoration company informing him that a full crew was working on the chandelier and inquiring if he could assemble his crew on Saturday morning to install it.
“You’re kidding me,” Fassold replied.
When the team was called about gathering at the church the next morning to install the chandelier, Fassold described them as “ecstatic.”
“They couldn’t believe it,” he said. “They said they would be there, so I called her back and said, 'Everybody will be there.”
Early Saturday morning, the truck carrying the chandelier was at the front entrance of the church once again, but this time it had arrived in perfect condition. The men worked diligently to complete all the tasks needed to hang the chandelier from the church’s high ceiling. Everything proceeded flawlessly until they attempted to add the 12th and final shade, only to discover it was the wrong size. Luckily, one of the team members said he had a piece of equipment that could shave the shade down to where it would fit on the chandelier.
“He takes it home, and then he calls me on the phone,” Fassold said. “He says, ‘You’re not going to believe this, Don. We lost our electricity here.’ I said, ‘Oh, no! So, we’re dead in the water again?’ He said, ‘No, I have one that’s battery-operated, and it’s fully charged, so I can still use the same tool except on battery. I know I can grind that out.’ He brought it back. He had that thing perfect, right to the inch. It fit perfectly. You’ve never heard so many hurrahs in all your life!”
The chandelier was hoisted up to the ceiling, the lights were turned on, and it looked beautiful. On Sunday morning, the church’s pastor — Dr. Daniel Harmelink — arrived at the church, unaware that the men had managed to install the chandelier for that morning’s pre-Easter service. He couldn’t believe his eyes. However, it was the response of a 95-year-old woman, who had been 10 years old when the chandelier was first installed, that touched Fosshold so deeply.
“She was baptized in that church,” he said. “She grew up in that church. She remembered how the old light looked. She said, ‘When they told me they were going to hang that original light back up, I thought, I’ve got to see this. If they're going to hang that old thing up, it won't be very impressive.' And when she came in and saw it, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She stood there in amazement and said, ' The light looks better now than it did when I was a young girl.’”
Fassold credits his crew for ensuring that, despite all the last-minute setbacks, everything ultimately turned out exactly as it was meant to.
“I could have put an ad in the paper and said I need people to help me set up a historical light in the church,” he said. “I could have interviewed 200 people and never come up with a group like I came up with, and they were just volunteers.”
