Hymns from the Recently Stolen Church - St. John in Milwaukee

Born: May 7, 1889, Mil­wau­kee, Wis­con­sin. Died: Au­gust 2, 1941, Mil­wau­kee, Wis­con­sin.

Leav­ing school af­ter eighth grade, Hoppe worked as a sten­o­graph­er in Mil­wau­kee, Wis­con­sin. She be­gan writ­ing pa­tri­o­tic vers­es in ear­ly child­hood; by age 25 she was writ­ing spir­it­u­al po­e­try. Some of her po­ems ap­peared in the Northwestern Lu­ther­an, a per­i­od­i­cal of the Wis­con­sin Evan­gel­ic­al Lu­ther­an Sy­nod, of which she was a mem­ber. These came to the at­ten­tion of Dr. Adolf Hult of Au­gus­ta­na Sem­in­a­ry, Rock Is­land, Il­li­nois, who in­flu­enced her to write her Songs for the Church Year (1928). Sev­er­al hymn­als in­clud­ed her work, which was usu­al­ly set to tra­di­tion­al chor­ale mel­o­dies, al­though she al­so made a num­ber of trans­la­tions. Hoppe said of her work:

Ma­ny of my hymns have been writ­ten on my way to and from church and to and from work. I util­ize my lunch hours for typ­ing the hymns and keep­ing up cor­res­pondence…still I find a min­ute here and there in which to jot down some verse.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/h/o/p/hoppe_abd.htm

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Daryl Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Luther's Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity...":

I can never read this text without thinking of the beautiful hymn by Anna Hoppe, "O'er Jerusalem Thou Weepest", TLH 419, wedded to an equally beautiful tune. Miss Hoppe was a life-long member of St. John's, Eighth & Vliet, Milwaukee, baptized and confirmed by Johannes Bading, buried 52 years later by John Brenner. She was a voluminous author and translator, having written at least one hymn for every Sunday and festival of the Church Year. Many more of her hymns appear in the Augustana Synod hymnal of 1925. All this with an office job and little more than an eighth grade education.

"O'er Jerusalem Thou Weepest"
by Anna Hoppe, 1889-1941
1. O'er Jerusalem Thou weepest
In compassion, dearest Lord.
Love divine, of love the deepest,
O'er Thine erring Israel poured,
Crieth out in bitter moan:
"O loved city, hadst thou known
This thy day of visitation,
Thou wouldst not reject salvation."

2. By the love Thy tears are telling,
O Thou Lamb for sinners slain,
Make my heart Thy temple-dwelling,
Purged from every guilty stain.
Oh, forgive, forgive, my sin!
Cleanse me, cleanse me, Lord, within!
I am Thine since Thou hast sought me,
Since Thy precious blood hath bought me.

3. O Thou Lord of my salvation,
Grant my soul Thy blood-bought peace.
By Thy tears of lamentation
Bid my faith and love increase.
Grant me grace to love Thy Word,
Grace to keep the message heard,
Grace to own Thee as my Treasure,
Grace to love Thee without measure.

Hymn #419
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Luke 19:41
Author: Anna Hoppe, 1919, alt.
Tune: "Freu dich sehr" (Comfort, comfort, ye my people)
1st Published in: Genevan Psalter, 1551

WELS kicked their mother church out of the synod.

Recently two WELS pastors worked secretly to steal the congregation
and its endowment fund.