Walther Lutheran High School is a private high school in Melrose Park

Melrose Park, Illinois

Melrose Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a "near-in" suburb of Chicago. The population was 23,171 at the 2000 census. Melrose Park has long been home to a large Italian-American population, though now it is majority Mexican-American. It was the home of Kiddieland...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, United States.

The Start of Walther Lutheran

Walther was founded and built in its present location thanks to the foresight of a number of leaders of Lutheran congregations in the western suburbs. St. Paul Melrose park had purchased the land from Superior Street to Iowa Street a bargain price. Since St. Paul was planning on building a new church and school, they wanted to sell this land to get funds for their building project. The church leaders in the area thought this would be an excellent location for a third Lutheran high school in the Chicago area and the wheels were set in motion.
There were several laymen from the surrounding congregations who played a key role in development of Walther. Most prominent was Bill Bussert of St. Paul, who built a log cabin on the property which could be used for church purposes, and to show the community that they were serious about building a high school there.
Other prominent laymen were:

• Art Mesenbrin and Otto Wentland (St. Paul Melrose Park)
• Ed Schmidtke (St. John, Forest Park)
• Wayne Schroeder and Harold Garbers (Grace, River Forest)
• Frank Baker (Immanuel, Elmhurst)
• Dick Laux (St. Paul, Addison)
• Ted Reimann (Christ, Oak Park)

There were many others (including the supporting pastors) but these men all played a very prominent role in raising funds and gaining support for the new school.
The Lutheran High School Association wanted to name the new school Luther West to match the Chicago schools (Luther South and Luther North) but Fred Meyer and especially Ed Schmidtke were adamantly opposed to that name. They brainstormed with other leaders and came up with Walther Lutheran High School after C.F.W. Walther, the first president of the LCMS, and because the congregation you groups in those days were called Walther Leagues. The nickname “Broncos” came because Walther was the school “out west.”
The first teachers at Walther were:
•

• Fred Meyer (principal and fundraiser)
• Kurt Grams (English/Music)
• Ted Leitz (Physical Education/Athletics)
• Adelaide (Addie) Leitz (Physical Education/English)
• Marv Schlichting (Mathematics)
• Ted Klammer (Latin/Religion)
• Ada Tjernagle (Science/English)

There were 34 sophomores and 72 freshmen that first year at Walther.