William F. Nolker

Nolker, William F., manufacturer, was born December 6, 1840, at Osnabrueck, Germany. He received a good education in private schools, and, when a little more than sixteen years of age, came to this country, landing in Baltimore, Maryland, in the year 1857. He then came to Cincinnati, Ohio, and obtained employment at the Western Hotel, which was then under the management of one of his brothers. He became messenger in the banking house of Fallis, Young & Co., now the Merchants' National Bank, of Cincinnati, and remained until 1863. He then became cashier in the wholesale hardware store of E. G. Leonard & Co., and during the time saw three months' service in the Civil War as a volunteer soldier in the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Regiment of Ohio Infantry. In 1865 he was made general manager of the Vulcan Manufacturing Company, and occupied that position until 1867, when Mr. Shoenberger retired, leaving him in full control of the business. In 1873 he disposed of his interest, and established his home and business in St. Louis, where he became interested as a partner in the brewery plant operated by Brinckwirth & Griesedieck. The reorganized firm became known as Brinckwirth, Griesedieck. & Nolker, which continued to be its style until after the death of Mr. Griesedieck, when it became Brinckwirth & Nolker. In 1882 this partnership was succeeded by the Brinckwirth-Nolker Brewing Company, with Mr. Nolker as its president. In 1889, in connection with other St. Louis breweries, it was merged into the St. Louis Brewing Association, the largest corporation of its kind in the world. Retaining, after the consolidation, a large interest in the business, Mr. Nolker has since been officially identified with it as treasurer. In addition to his connection with this enterprise, he is a director of the German-American Bank, a director and member of the executive committee of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company, president of the Gilsonite Roofing & Paving Company, vice president of the Gilson Asphaltum Company, vice president of the Lithosite Manufacturing Company, and is also an officer and director in something like twenty other corporations. Mr. Nolker married, June 5, 1873, Miss Louisa Brinckwirth, daughter of Theodore Brinckwirth. Mrs. Nolker died in 1883.

Nollaa, Louis E.* clergyman and philanthropist, was born July r, 1810, in Reichenbach, Prussia, and died in St. Louis, February 10, 1869. At three years of age he was left a half-orphan by the death of his mother, but in later childhood his father's second wife gave to him all of a mother's tender care and consideration, and her deep piety had much to do with forming his character and inclining him to enter the ministry. When seventeen years of age he entered the Prussian Army as a regular soldier, and after serving three years he was retained by his former commander, who gave him the secretaryship of the general's ofhce. Having become in his twentieth year a devout Christian and followed of the Master, he became convinced that it was his duty to enter the Christian ministry, and his desire was that he might be permitted to spread the gospel among the heathen. With this object in view, he pursued a course of study in theology at Barmen, and was ordained to missionary work, to find the first field of labor to which he was assigned among the Indians of North America. This brought him to the United States, and to St. Louis in 1837. Here his missionary colleague was stricken with an illness, and Mr. Nollau attended him tenderly and lovingly for nearly a year, when his brother missionary was called to his reward in heaven. During this time Mr. Nollau had gathered together a congregation of his countrymen living in St. Louis County, to whom he preached at regular intervals. Thus it came about that he found his field of labor not among the heathen, but among Christians who needed a leader and shepherd. In 1849, feeling that he was under obligations to enter the missionary work for which he had been educated, he returned to Germany and offered his services to the society under which he had studied. He was then sent to South Africa, but as he found there all the missionaries needed in that field, and his heart was still with his people in America, he returned to this country before the close of the year, and took charge of his former congregation in the Gravois settlement, in St. Louis County. Here he labored until 1852, when he accepted a call from the Evangelical St. Peter's Church of St. Louis, located at Fourteenth and Carr Streets. Here he had a broad field, and that it was well cultivated is evidenced by the fact that in a single year he baptized into the church upward of 600 persons. He was a believe in practical Christianity and in the theory that the pastor should care in a measure for the bodies as well as for the souls of those who came under his charge. Accordingly, in 1857, he founded the Good Samaritan Hospital, which was the first homeopathic hospital established west of the Mississippi Kiver. Having established a reputation as a public benefactor, his appeals to the generosity of men of means in St. Louis met a hearty response, and in laying the foundations of the hospital he was greatly aided by Francis Whittaker, Adolphus Meier, Samuel Plant, Frederick Bolte, Sr., Franz Hackemeier and others. Two years after the founding of the Good Samaritan Hospital Mr. Nollau took the initiatory step which resulted in the building up of that noble charity known as the German Protestant Orphans' Home. Always solicitous for the fatherless and motherless little ones of his congregation, on one occasion, when he made inquiry at an orphans' home for some children whom he had placed there, he was told that they had been supplied with homes in different families, the result being that children belonging to the same famy had been widely separated. This, he said to himself upon returning home, was all wrong, and that an institution should be provided for the care of such children, in which they should be kept together and which would be a home in the real sense of the word until they were able to go out into the world and take care of themselves. This was the basic idea upon which the German Protestant Orphans' Home was founded, and orphans admitted to that institution were not to be taken from it for purposes of adoption with the result that children of the same parentage should be separated and lose all knowledge of each other. Henry Sam was the first inmate of the orphans' home, which was established in the rear of the Good Samaritan Hospital, and the next inmates were four children entirely orphaned by the death of their mother on a Mississippi River steamer. In 1860 Mr. Nollau resigned his pastorship of St. Peter's Church, and from that year until his death devoted all his time to the charitable institutions which he had founded. During the years of the Civil War the Good Sanuuitan Hospital was leased to the government as a military hospital, and the old hospital quarters, at Sixteenth and Carr Streets, were again occupied by its patients, while the orphans, having to vacate the building on the site of the hospital, found temporary quarters at Sixteenth and Carr Streets, opposite the building occupied as a hospital. An epidemic of smallpox visited the home in 1863, and on July 8th of that year the roof of the building caught fire, and the loss of clothing, bedding and provisions occasioned thereby seriously interfered with the upbuilding of the institution. It was no small task to find immediate shelter for the fifty-three orphans thus deprived of their "home, but Mr. NoUau went forward, trusting in the giver of all good, and renewing his appeals to the charitable people of St. Louis. In 1861 the institution was regularly incorporated as the German Protestant Orphans' Home, and in 1866 the board of directors purchased the La Beaume farm, situated on the St. Charles Rock Road, nine miles west of the St. Louis courthouse, for its occupancy. The same year sixty wards of the institution were transferred to this new location, which was in every way admirably adapted to the purpose for which it had been selected. The farm comprised sixty-five acres, on which was a large main building and suitable outhouses, and an orchard of about 1,000 fruit trees. The price paid for this property was $23,000, divided into four installments. Mr. Nollau set about collecting the necessary funds to meet this obligation, and his earnestness, coupled with superior executive ability, enabled him to realize his expectations. Among those who co-operated with him most actively in this work were Mr. Franz Hackemeier, who succeeded Mr. Nollau as superintendent of the home, and has occupied that position for more than thirty years past, and Mr. Fred Bolte, who was always tenderly solicitous for the welfare of the institution. The rapid increase of the number of orphans to be cared for has made it necessary to add to the main building, and it is now in all respects an ideal institution of its kind. Mr. Nollau died in his fifty-ninth year, and was mourned by all classes of people in St. Louis, every one who knew him appreciating his usefulness and the value of the services which he had rendered to the public A leading St. Louis newspaper said of him: "Pastor Nollau was indeed a good man, and has set an example which should never be forgotten. A strictly conscientious man, he was one who gave proof of his faith in his deeds. Personally he was amiable and agreeaj)le, and his departure will bring grief not only to those who knew and honored him for his work, but to thousands of poor and homeless who, through his self-denial and untiring energy, have been cared for in the institution which he founded."

Non-Sectarian Church. — A church maintained, as its name signifies, independent of any religious denomination. The church which bears this name in St. Louis was established January i, 1890, and among its founders were Dr. J. J. Lawrence, Dr. R. M. King, Joseph Maxwell, S. T. McCormick, C. A. Battle, J. M. Battle and T. T. Ruby. Its members subscribe to no creed, and submit to no doctrinal tests as a condition precedent to being admitted to church fellowship. To every individual is conceded the right to think for himself, so far as matters of doctrine are concerned, and all that is required of members is that they shall earnestly endeavor to learn and do what is right. Three hundred members were enrolled in this church in 1898, and the congregation worshiped in a handsome edifice located at the corner of Lindell Boulevard and Vandeventer Avenue, with Rev. R.

C. Cave as pastor in charge.

Noonday Club.— This dub was organized January i, 1893, with the following gentlemen as incorporators: Edward C. Simmons, J. QifFord Richardson, Rolla Wells, Pierce P. Fruber, Joseph L. Lawrence, Lewis

D. Dozier, John R. Lionberger, Robert McK. Jones, John F. Lee. It was incorporated for a period of fifty years for the purpose of advancing by social intercourse the bodily and mental health of the members, of obtaining and enjoying a place for friendly intercourse with each other, and for the advancement of the commercial and business interests of the city of St. Louis by the discussion of any questions concerning such interests, and for advancing the information and scientific education of its members by maintaining a library. All discussions at any meeting are limited to matters affecting the commercial interests of the city or club, in no case allowing any religious or political questions to be debated. The club is now one of the strongest commercial and social organizations in the dty, and has richly furnished apartments in the Security Building, comer of Locust and Fourth Streets. The dub now has a membership of some 350.

As printed in Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri (1901). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.