The first service held in the South Red Deer Lake area was on 1 May 1895 at the home of Mrs. Henrietta Fürst Sigalet. Volga Germans from Yagodnaya Polyana were among those who founded the parish of St. Peter Lutheran Church in 1897. The following year, St. Peter's congregation was granted 40 acres from the S.W. 1/4 Sec. Twp. 42 Rg. 22 W 4th for mission purposes. Early in 1903, construction of a 24- by 40-foot building was started.
A parsonage was constructed in 1911, but burned down on 11 September 1911 just as it was being completed. A new building was constructed which served as the parsonage until 1944 when a new one was built in the town of Bashaw.
St. Peter's is currently affiliated with Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
Location
4 miles North and 6 miles West of Bashaw
Address
Box 450
Bashaw, AB T0B 0H0
Telephone: 780.372.3845
The congregation of St. Peter's Lutheran Church has been served by the following pastors who have, since 1920, been shared with Zion Lutheran Church in the town of Bashaw:
Gustav Runge (1903-1905)
Fredrick Bredlow (1905-1910)
Heinrich Walbaum (1911-1913)
H. R. Karstens (1913-1914)
Alex Schlange (1914-1918)
Rudolph Kersten (1918-1921)
Paul Baehnisch (1921-1922)
Karl Rasche (1922-1925)
George Mueller (1925-1929)
Paul Hannemann (1929-1931)
Siegfried Cyrus (1931-1933)
Otto Winter (1934-1939)
Axel Wolfram (1939-1940)
Arnold Wilke (1940-1944)
George Weidenhammer (1944-1949)
Karl Freitag (1949-1956)
Karl Sterzer (1957-1962)
Garfield Remus (1963-1966)
Kenneth Nelson (1967-1971)
Arno Bablitz (1971-1974)
George Johnson (1974-1982)
Julianna Wehrfritz-Hanson (1983-1986)
Larry Soveran (1986-2002)
Monica Denk, Deaconess (2002-2006)
Alvin Oberhammer (2006-2008)
Larry Soveran (2009-2010)
Jeff Decelle (2011-)
- St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Bashaw, Alberta (1897-1997): 100th Anniversary booklet.
- Scheuerman, Richard D. & Clifford E. Trafzer. The Volga Germans: Pioneers of the Northwest (Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Press, 1985): 174.
- St. Peter's Lutheran Cemetery (findagrave.com)
A cemetery was established for St. Peter's in about 1906. In 1908, those members who had been buried on the Falk farm were moved to the St. Peter's Cemetery.
