David Tanneberger, Sr. (1696-1760)
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Year: 1760
No. 277
July 5
Evening
David Tanneberger, Sr., a married brother, was born in December 1696, in Zauchtenthal, Moravia, and was baptized in the Catholic religion. At that time, the time of the Great Awakening in Moravia which was being led by the Abbot Steinmetz—who was then in Teschen, and who employed the blessed Christian David [in the great awakening]—Tanneberger was touched by spiritual blessings. He was exiled in 1726 with his first wife, Judith, born Tillie, whom he had married just two years before. They traveled to Herrnhut and were happy participants at the Abend Mahl in the Berthelsdorf church in which the Gemeine experienced as a great baptism of the Holy Spirit. In 1731, he traveled with the blessed Christian David to Switzerland. In 1736, on Shrove Tuesday*, his first wife went blessedly home to the Savior in Herrnhut. In 1735 he left for Georgia with a colony. In 1737 he left there for Pennsylvania, and stayed in Germantown, where he lived for himself, until the Jünger of our Lord [Zinzendorf] came here from Europe in 1742, when he was taken up once again by the same. On September 27, 1745 he came from there to Bethlehem, to the Gemeine, and in 1747, on July 6, he entered into his second marriage with the woman who is now his widow, Regina, widowed Demuth. Of his three sons from his first marriage, two are still here below [on Earth]: Johannes, who lives in Philadelphia, and David, who lives in Europe, in Berthelsdorf. He had no children in his second marriage. He served the Bethlehem Gemeine in his profession as shoemaker, and directed the cobbler shop faithfully for nearly fifteen years. Otherwise, he was of a calm spirit, and if one spoke of the Savior with him, one found that his heart lived in JesusŐ wounds. He spent his time in blessed communion with the Savior. Several times he also had the blessing of enjoying, with the woman who is now his widow, the position of Gemeine-Jünger and Chor-Jünger. Shortly before his departure he tasted the Holy Sacrament once again from his sick bed. And he went out of his earthly home to kiss the Lamb of God on July 5th, and his last look testified again that he believed. His mortal life lasted sixty-four years, and his body was buried the next day in our Gemeine God’s Acre, under Br. Joseph’s liturgy.
*Mardi Gras
Transcription and translation by Katherine E. Carté
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