We continue with a series of biographies of the pastors who attended the reorganization convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in 1918. There is evidence for the presence of at least thirteen pastors along with two hundred guests at this convention.
In 1918, L. S. Guttebo recently became the pastor of Western Koshkonong Lutheran Church, southeast of Madison, Wisconsin, having served at Paint Creek congregations near Waterville, Iowa. He later served at Concordia Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and was instrumental in organizing Pinehurst Lutheran Church in Eau Claire. Pastor Guttebo served on various boards of the synod, as the field secretary for the Home Mission Board, and as a member of the Board of Regents of Bethany Lutheran College. He married Anna Vangsnes. He died in 1947.
In 1918, George Lillegard was the youngest pastor present at Lime Creek. He had returned to the United States from the Norwegian Synod’s mission field in China and was attending the University of Chicago. He spoke about the religions of China during the synod’s 1918 choral union concert. In 1920, he returned to China as the first ELS foreign missionary serving in a Missouri Synod mission field. He then served as the pastor of Harvard Street Lutheran Church in Boston, Massachusetts (today, Pinewood Lutheran Church in Burlington, Massachusetts) for twenty-four years before accepting a call to Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary in 1952. He was the editor of the synod’s Norwegian language newspaper, the Evangelisk Luthersk Tidende and served as the secretary of the ELS, 1934-52. He married Bernice Onstad. He died in 1965.
