Golden Embers, 1953, p.66
Reinhold Marxhausen said A.R. Kretzmann kept him alive spiritually and physically after he finished schooling at the Art Institute. He was living in a basement room and sometimes a meal at the Kretzmann's was it for the week. Before he headed to Seward to teach Kretzmann bought him a good set of clothes to teach in. The Correspondent, Aid Association for Lutherans, Vol. 70, No. 467, p.5, 1972
The other presenter was Dr. A .R. Kretzmann, who was my pastor in Chicago. He designed the new church they built when I was away at college, and I suspect he also designed the Valpo chapel, since my church was just a smaller version. I know he designed both of the church windows. Amanda Husberg January 30, 2015
Yes, he was a multi-talented designer. I knew he was involved in that chapel some way, his brother was O.P. Kretzmann, the president of Valpo. A.R. designed our church, the windows, the altar, the pulpit and baptismal font, as well as skinny, tall stained glass windows in the narthex, when you first came into the church. The Pulpit and baptismal font had big cloisonne shields on them, gorgeous! and he had special candle holders too. In fact, the windows were so bright (in a geometric design, flaring out from dark to light) that they had to make little metal shields to fit behind the flames of the altar candles because you couldn't see if they were lit. I took slides of the main windows and sent him the best one. He sent me back a nice letter saying it was the best slide in their collection. In fact, he was such a historian too, there were little antique gems all around the chancel. It was so busy you could hardly see anything. Ah, the old days. I don't know where they ever got the money to build such a church and they even had to build it about 12 ft. back from the sidewalk because there was always talk about the city widening the side road and taking property by "eminent domain" so they just did it a little narrower. The church has clear story windows and the worst part was that the church was so high and narrow you couldn't hear people singing three pews behind you. That was a disaster, but the organ was big and good and supported all the singing. Amanda Husberg February 2, 2015
Reinhold Marxhausen presented at Long Beach Southern California Lutheran Teachers Conference in 1960. A.R. Kretzmann presented also. (source material courtesy of Kim Violette)AR was the brother of OP Kretzmann, the Valparaiso University president (one of six or seven brothers, almost all of them LCMS pastors). He was pastor of St. Luke's Lutheran on Belmont in Chicago for many years, was a liturgical consultant and involved in conversations about art and architecture and spoke frequently about art and architecture. I believe his records are still in boxes, uncatalogued, in the basement at St. Luke's, but I'm not sure. He was a big man in both personality and stature. Not well known as a designer himself, but well known in those circles. You can ask Martin Marty about him, too. Gretchen T. Buggeln, Christ College, Valparaiso University, May 11, 2015
What MORE SHOULD be said about A.R. Kretzmann?
At the 1960 So Cal conference, another speaker was Don Taebel, who at the time was the Band Director at LA Lutheran High School, where Brommer also taught. Taebel later did the Ban Program at Seward, I believe. Taebel and Brommer taught a Humanities class at LHS, which I took as a junior in 1963. It was excellent. Dave Kohl
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