124 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETV. 



day School in an old vacated Scandinavian church, but did not 

 find that suitable. Before the second Sunday the Seven Day Advent 

 church was offered to him. He opened Sunday School there with 

 only thirteen children and four teachers. By Christmas he had 

 an enrollment of sixty. After he had kept Sunday School in this 

 place for three years the officers of the church refused to rent it 

 to him any longer for the reason that he taught a different doc- 

 trine from theirs, and they did not want two doctrines taught in 

 their church. This placed him in a very difficult position, tor it 

 was mid-winter, and he had no place to go to. He began to fear 

 that he would have to close up, but just then he found a room in 

 a private house. The room was so small that a great many of the 

 children had to stand up. He soon began to see that if the Sun- 

 day School should exist any longer, it was a necessity to have a 

 building of his own, but was little aware of the hard task it would 

 be to collect the money necessary to erect the building. The 

 session of the English Presbyterian Church gave him the privilege 

 to collect the money with which to build the Sunday School, but 

 as soon as he had started to build and collect money the pastor of 

 the German Presbyterian Church objected to the work on the 

 ground that he only had the right to do mission work among the 

 German people. This did not hinder his building, but it stopped 

 the- collection of money from any source. This put him in a 

 serious position. There were bills due on the building amounting 

 to $225 besides the insurance, rent of the lot. and only $75.00 col- 

 lected. He did not ask anyone for help but paid the above men- 

 tioned bills with his own money. It was his firm belief that if the 

 Lord wanted the work to be carried on by him he would provide 

 for it, and he did. It was his last wish that the work might go on 

 and flourish and be a blessing after he had passed away. 



Nov. 27, 1875, he was happily married to Miss Anna Krueger, 

 of Horicon, Wis., who survives him, as do also his son, Walter 

 A. Yahnke, and four daughters, Mrs. Albert Martin, Celeste H.. 

 Modesta A., and Myrtle E. Yahnke ; also two brothers and one 

 sister. 



His death occurred at 8:15, Tuesday evening, Feb. 26, 1907. 

 He had been in poor health since the preceding May, during which 

 time he underwent two operations, which did not remove the cause 

 of his sickness. As a last resort to save his life, another operation 

 was undertaken Feb. 22d, in which the doctors discovered he had a 

 cancer. 



The foregoing brief notes of the life of our departed friend 

 indicate strongly the peculiarities of his character — a forceful. 



