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Man of faith brings cows, hope to war-torn Europe

The diary of Fred Teach

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By Tom Stafford, Staff Writer Updated 9:39 PM Sunday, August 16, 2009

It didn’t matter that he was a pig farmer who lived on Detrick Jordan Pike.

When Fred Teach boarded the American Importer on Aug. 12, 1953, bound for Bremen, Germany — with heifers under the deck — he became one of the Church of the Brethren’s “Sea Going Cowboys.”

Celebrated for being part of a project church historian Donald Durnbaugh calls “a humanitarian outreach of worldwide scope and massive proportion,” more than 7,000 church members were part of the effort after World War II.

Teach was among 600 members who took as many as 1,200 cows to West Germany from May 1, 1949, to Dec. 1, 1955, according to the church. Ohio contributed 454 animals, second only to Pennsylvania’s 528.

Heifer recipients were required to donate the first calf the animal produced to another family. The program meant the descendants of American heifers helped repopulate the dairy herds of Bavaria and Bremen on a continent that had lost 6 million animals to war.

His humanitarian mission took Teach, a dedicated churchgoer, to the site of the denomination’s founding place in Swartzenau, Germany — a historic connection that made the Brethren Church, like the Lutheran Church, active in relief efforts in post-war Germany.

In a diary Teach kept during his journey, he gives thanks for being able to visit “the stream and place where our church was born.”

The diary also reflects his sense of a larger mission.

On Aug. 13, he wrote: “Came across (New York) harbor to another army pier and loaded more army supplies. More than 100 trailers, trucks, cars and oil trucks. Put this stuff on deck right above our peace heifers.

“Two armies on board, one’s aim is to tear down, the other to build up. Our little cargo only occupies a small amount of space, but has great possibilities.”

He underscores the point with a quote from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.”

While at the New Windsor, Md., staging area for Brethren relief effort Aug. 9, he wrote, “Hard to think that this was Sunday. First Sunday without services for I don’t know when.”

The trend wouldn’t continue.

Teach took part in services aboard the ship and remarked about the popularity of Sunday School classes during a rough part of the return voyage.

“This old ship is pitching like a cork ... As good as the roller coaster at the State Fair. Up and down about 50 feet. I had 100 percent attendance at Sunday School today.”

The diary provides other vignettes of his journey: riding a street car, driving on the Autobahn (which he likened to the Pennsylvania Turnpike) and seeing the heifer his congregation donated to commemorate church member Paul Funderburg.

“I have learned much about the work of our (Brethren) Service Commission and have a much greater appreciation and realization of the far reaching effects of our beloved church,” Teach wrote in his final entry.

Having just crossed the Atlantic twice, he seems anxious to cast his bread upon the waters again.

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