The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1915-12-10
REV. KIES DEAD;
FUNERAL TO Wait
ARRIVAL OF kin
Pioneer Clergyman To Be
Buried from Chur oh which
He Organized.
WAS MINISTER MORE
THAN so YEARS AGO
Father of Jackson Editors Came
To America from Germany
When a Boy.

Rev. Fred Kies, for sixty years q
resident of Cape Girardeau County
founder of the German Evangelical
Church and two newspapers at Jack,
son, died at his home in that city at
$40 o'clock last night, after an illness
of almost year of diabetes.
The end came after a three days
struggle between life and death, and
with his immediate family at his bed
side. His relatives, living out of the
state We're notified several days age
of his critical illness by letter, and the
announcement Of his death was wired
tOthem last night.
The plans for the burial will await
the arrival here of his kinsmen, but il
is probable that he will be laid to rest
Monday afternoon Or Tuesday. The
services will likely take place from his
late home, thence to the church which
Rev. Kies founded.
Rev Kies, who would have ccle-
brated his 18th birthday next Wednes-
day, was born in Germany, but from
bCyhood nc had lived in the United
States, and the greater part of that
period was spent in Southeast Mis-
souri,. He was one of the pioneer
German Evangelical clergymen in this
section of Missouri, and when he took
lp his abode N this county, it was but
4 vast wilderness, as wild as the from
tier.
But he blazed the way, religiously
speaking, and through his efforts sew
cral German Lutheran congregations
we're established in the then young
Southeast. His first pastorate was i'll
a town called Tilsit, located where
VIII tewater now is. The city of Tilsit
of today was unhcard of when Rev.
Kies rode to and from his little church,
pretty much as the Pilgrims went
forth to worship.
The second congregation organized
by DR.. Kies was at PocahOntas, and
which is a flourishing little church of
today. While this pioneer clergy
man was spreading the Gospel in this
sparsely settled country, he was also
publishing a monthly religious news
paper at his home on farm Just two
niles east of Jackson.
The material he used in printing his
little monthly was brought with him
from a village in Ohio, and was of 4
primitive kind. But in spite Of his
lack Of material and other handicaps
that were thrown into his way, he built
up a somewhat substantial circulation
His success in the printing business on
the farm created in him desire to
publish a weekly newspaper, And
n 1856 he bought the bankrupt equip
ment of the Anzieger at Jackson and
started a new German weekly news
paper, called the Deutcher Volks-
freund BY close application he built
his newspaper up by rapid strides, and
it soon became the leading German
newspaper in the Southeast.
In those days, the population of this
county was overwhelmingly of German
nationality, but with the ebb and flow
of INN grafton, he later found it
necessary to print an English edition
of his newspaper and, therefore,
organized The Items. When he retired
from active management five years
ago, he turned his publications over
to his two sons, Fred Z. and J. G.
kies, who are now the publishers of
the two newspapers.
DR. kics was for many years one
Of the best known men in Southeast
Missouri, but with his retirement he
passed out of public life in measure.
But until a year ago, he occasionally
delivered a sermon or submitted an
article to the newspapers that he
founded.