Bethel Lutheran Church & cemetery
Bethal Lutheran Church
Bethel is a locality and former settlement in South Australia, west of Kapunda. Its name is derived from the German word for Place of God.
Bethel was settled by German-speaking people in around 1854 seeking to establish a Moravian Brethren community. From 1856 there was also a group of people of Wendish origin. They also spoke German. The Moravian settlement was led by Pastor, Christoph S D Schondorf and wishing to keep his Brethren together, purchased three square miles of land on 14 November 1855. Here they built their village settlement in the centre of Section 260, Hundred of Light. The settlement included homes, blacksmiths, carpenters, bootmakers and bakes as a self-supporting community.
The Bethel congregation severed its links with the Moravians and called a Lutheran pastor in the 1890s. The new church Bethel Lutheran Church was dedicated on 2 June 1895. Johanne Elisabeth and her son Ehrenfried, his family and descendants attended the Bethel church for many years.
Matriarch Johanne Elisabeth Arnold (nee Andres) died in Bethel in 1875. The commemorative plaque was unveiled in 1993.
Johanne Elisabeth ARNOLD b1797 Matriarch Bethel
3 Ehrenfied 3rd brother tombstone Bethel
- Johann Ehrenfried Arnold
Born: 9 April 1824 at Neundorf, Silesia
Died: 15 June 1917 at Kapunda, South Australia
Third son, Ehrenfried arrived in Australia on 19 December 1885 accompanied by his mother, Johanne Elisabeth Arnold. On 24 November 1864 Ehrenfried purchased Section 350 in the Hundred of Light from his father in law. This property is situated approximately three kilometers south-west of the Bethel Lutheran Church and is where they built a stone and pug house with a straw roof which remained standing until recent times.
3 Anna Arnold wife Ehrenfried.
Anna Mathilde Louise Arnold (nee Reich)
Born: 11 October 1837 in Dambritsch, Neumarkt, Silesia
Died: 26 June 1907 at Kapunda, South Australia
Anna arrived in Port Adelaide on 17 August 1856 on the barque ‘August’ with her father Gottfried Reich and step mother Christiane Reich.
On 23 June 1858 Anna married Ehrenfried in the private house of a Mr Arnold near Langmeil, by Pastor Carl Mueke.
3.6 Ernest Wilhelm Arnold
Born: 23 December 1868 at Bethel, SA
Died: 23 October 1950 at Stockport, South Australia
Sixth son of Ehrenfried and Anna he began his education at the Morvavian school at Bethel. He married Albertine Bertha Louise Wehr on 1 February 1894. They settled in nearby Stockport only a mile from where Bertha was born.
Albertine Bertha Louise Arnold (nee Wehr)
Born: 15 September 1871, Stockport, SA
Died: 22 December 1931
Bertha lived her married life on the family farm in Stockport. They had nine children of whom only two married.
3.6.5 Esther Irene Arnold
Born: 15 February 1902, Stockport, SA
Died: 6 July 1982 at Angaston, SA
Fifth child of Wilhelm and Bertha, Esther worked for various families yet mostly at home helping her parents. She lived on the family property all her life.
3.6.7 Arthur Alwin Arnold
Born: 28 May 1905, Stockport, SA
Died: 24 March 1975
Seventh child of Wilhelm and Bertha, Arthur worked on the family farm and for the local District Council. He worked with Benno on the family property all his life.
3.6.8 Benno Heinrich Arnold
Born: 13 December 1907, Stockport, SA
Died: 31 July 1970
Eighth child of Wilhelm and Bertha, Benno worked and lived on the family farm all his life.
3.6.9 Edith Agnes Arnold
Born: 18 March 1910, Stockport, SA
Died: 25 April, 1996
Ninth child of Wilhelm and Bertha, Edith remained in her parents’ home most of her life, moving to Nuriootpa in 1976 on the deaths of her brothers.
Bethel-cemetary-Ehrenfried-scaled.