Herzer, T.O.F.

Herzer, T.O.F.

Traugott Otto Francis Herzer, 1887-1958, was born in Plymouth, Wisconsin, USA. He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri in 1910. He served as an intern Lutheran pastor in Winnipeg in 1908 and then was a pastor at Bittern Lake, Alberta. He was ordained in 1910 and from 1910 to 1913 was superintendent of missions for the Missouri Synod in Alberta and British Columbia, based in Calgary. In 1913 he served as the first minister of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Calgary. He resigned from the ministry in 1914 and joined the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Department of Immigration and Colonization. From 1925 until his death he was the general mamager of the Canadian Colonization Association, a CPR subsidiary, and was based in Winnipeg. He organized and became general mamager of the Colonization Finance Corporation of Canada in 1930 and held this position until his death. Beginning in 1946 he was treasurer of the Canadian Lutheran World Relief and in 1947 he became chair of the Canadian Christian Council for Resettlement of Refugees. The refugees which his work assisted were mainly German-speaking Lutherans and Mennonites. In 1948 he received an honorary degree from Valparaiso University in Indiana for his humanitarian services with Second World War refugees. He married Martha Detjen of St. Louis, Missouri in 1912 and they had two children, Richard W. and Dorothy (Williamson).

Glenbow Archives