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| Ulrich Leupold earned his PhD in music at the age of 23, at the University of Berlin. He was the head of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary and an international authority on hymns and organ music. |
Ironically, he moved from Berlin, Germany to Berlin, Ontario. But the Ontario city changed its name in WWI when people refused to buy any product stamped "Made in Berlin." The name was changed to Kitchener, leading them unwisely to brag the town was "clean as a kitchen." We loved the people there. I worked in the largest Lutheran church in Canada and visited people by walking and riding the bus. In only one generation that congregation was radicalized - St. Peter, Kitchener.
Dr. Leupold was highly respected as the head of the tiny seminary. He and Otto W. Heick (a WELS favorite author) had more brains than most seminary faculties put together.
Dr. Leupold died from neurological degeneration the same year I began studies at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary - 1970.
- I knew him when he was teaching brilliantly and still playing the organ,
- helped him as he grew weaker,
- and visited him in the hospital before he died.
This linked article tells how much he endured in his too-brief life. I told him my brash plans at the hospital, and he moved his thumb rapidly in a handshake to show his approval. He could no longer speak, and we were all heart-broken.
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| Waterloo Lutheran Seminary in Waterloo, Ontario |
People suspected Dr. Leupold of arranging jobs for people without telling them. My wife Chris got a neat library job just like that. She was worried, in his office, about getting work in Canada. Later, he grinned and said, "I toooold you not to worry."
He went through my transcript and skipped me out of all the introductory courses. That gave me time and opportunity to take the advanced courses and do independent study, including Hebrew classwork (not required and therefore not worthy of academic credit).
I graduated officially in 1972, receiving my diploma and stole in New Haven, Connecticut, where Martin was born in 1973. His mother and I both worked at the Yale Medical Center, where he and George W. Bush were born - but not the same year, of course.
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| Yale School of Medicine is where Chris and I worked. Martin and George W. Bush were born nearby. In the Byzantine Empire, the fortunate were born to the purple. In New Haven, they are born to the blue. |
