This book first belonged to my grandfather, Harold Miller.  It was then passed on to his younger sister, Mildred.  When she got it, she covered it with paper to make a book cover.  The Evangelical Catechism was used for religious instruction, so I gather that they used it either in a Sunday School setting or for confirmation.

According to the United Church of Christ website, this version was approved by the Evangelical Synod of North America in 1929.

“The Synod’s roots were in the ‘unierte’ or ‘united’ church tradition in Germany. As such, it reconciled the separated Reformed and Lutheran expressions of the Christian faith, and affirmed the authority of both Reformed and Lutheran confessions of faith. The Catechism reflected the spirit of German Pietism with its emphasis on personal conversion to Jesus Christ.”

Through my research, I’ve known that this family was involved with Trinity Lutheran Church in Chicago, which was a Evangelical Lutheran church, for at least three generations.  Knowing that it was deeply tied to German beliefs, hopefully it will help me with further research whenever I cross the pond.

Although the family had been active in Trinity Lutheran Church, in fact, Harold had been baptized there in 1918, I’m not sure if this was the church they were attending at the time they used this book.  There is no church listed on the book, however, there is an address, which is where the family lived in the 1930s.  The church was quite a distance away, so I wonder if they found another church closer to home.  Further research will need to be done to determine this.