November 2008

Harold Frederick Roellig, 78, born 23 Apr. 1930 in Detroit, MI, died Tuesday, 25 Nov 2008, of Multiple Myeloma. He grew up in Detroit, MI, the son of an auto worker. He himself worked in car factories from 1948 to 1950, when he began his career as a “professional student”. He earned an A.A. at Concordia College in Bronxville, NY, and then a B.A. and theological diploma from Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis in 1957. While there he took concurrent and summer courses at Wayne, Washington and Purdue Universities in the earth sciences and psychology. From 1957 until 1967 he studied at Columbia University in NY, earning a Ph. D. in Paleontology. He was a Lutheran College Chaplain in the 60’s; then became an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY. In 1983 he took early retirement and moved to Monmouth, OR, to do independent research, especially and exhaustively into the history of the early church. He was part-time pastor of Trinity Lutheran in Sheridan, OR, (1984-1992) and vacancy pastor at Faith Lutheran in Monmouth, OR (1999-2001).