REV. GOTTLIEB ROBERTUS: 1883-1888

The Rev. Robertus began duties as pastor of St. Andrews in 1883, the year the church was formally organized and the first church building was erected. He also served St. Paul’s Church in Chelsea at this time.

The first class of confirmands took place on Palm Sunday March 29, 1885. In 1888 Robertus left Dexter to serve St. Mathews Church in Buffalo, New York. It is known that he was in Warrenton, Missouri in 1908.

A letter was sent to St. Andrews in later years from the grand daughter of the Rev. Robertus saying: He was born Sept. 12, 1855 in southern Russia whose parents had migrated there from Germany to do missionary work. Gottlieb taught in a church school in his village until 1877 and the next six years he studied at the Evangelical Mission House in Basel, Switzerland. He came to America in 1883 and was ordained that year in Detroit. His first charge was at the Chelsea-Dexter churches. He married Theresa Hass in May 1886 in Detroit, the daughter of the pastor by whom he was ordained. They had five children. In 1911 he became ill with tuberculosis and went to San Antonio, Texas where he died January 8, 1912. He was buried in Farina, Illinois.

His wife died in 1917 and is buried in Buffalo, New York."

A grand-daughter, Ellenor F. Marlow, the daughter of Ellen Robertus, who was married to Ray Stone Marlow by her father Gottlob in a German Evangelical Church in Warrenton, Missouri, wrote to St. Andrews when the church celebrated the 100th anniversary as follows: ' My grandfather, Rev. Gottlieb Robertus, was born in Goloy Karamesch, South Russia to Heinrich and Mary Robertus. They had five children, Ellen Marie, born in Chelsea, Michigan; Carl Albert, born in Buffalo, New York Amanda Mina, born in Buffalo. Gottlob-Earnest, born in Buffalo and Elsa Hermine born in Buffalo."