Wielkopolskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne GNIAZDO

Eduard Raimund Baierlein: Lutheran Missionary to the Indians in America and Asia
Walter P. Schoenfuhs
1955

Very little is known about Eduard Raimund Baierlein's early life and family. He was born in Sierakowsky in Posen, Poland on April 29, 1819 [...] His father, Graf von Vilseck, was a wealthy Bavarian noble in possession of huge estates in Bavaria. Roman Catholicism was the dominant faith both in Bavaria and in Poland at this time, ant it is therefore not surprising to learn that Baierlein came from a strict Roman Catholic family. We sense a spirit of restlessness in the young Baierlein, a restlessness which he often alludes to later in his life as brought about by a lack of inner spiritual peace and an uncertainty as to his salvation. As a good Roman Catholic he sought to find peace in observing the commandments of the church, but, as Luther before him, he only became more disquieted. This searching of the soul became evident in his listlessness and "Wanderlust".

As a young man he had left his family home and parental protection, traveled to Bremen and to Belgium, and even contemplated turning his back on the Old World and sailing to the new. Instead he went to Silesia, and it is here that he found his "Philip". Because of the piety and conversations of an unknown layman, Baierlein gained that inner peace for which he had been searching and renounced Roman Catholicism, accepting the Lutheran faith at the age of twenty-one.'

He then joined the Breslauer Freikirche.8 Baierlein's renunciation of Roman Catholicism brought with it a rupture of his family ties. His father, a strict Roman, disowned and disinherited his son and forbade him to bear the family name. In obedience to his father's demand, Baierlein, therefore, surrendered the family name of von Vilseck and called himself "Baierlein," which means, "little Bavarian." This was the only demand that Baierlein respected. He refused to renounce his new faith, emphasizing instead that he had now found true peace in casting off the "shackles of Rome"; he would rather remain obedient to the command of Christ and forsake all, even father and mother, than deny his faith. For him there was just one choice.

In 1843 Baierlein offered himself to the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission. The Leipzig Mission, as it later became known, was interested in training men to send to India. In order to prepare himself for this field Baierlein studied under J. B. Trautmann and Karl Graul. After completing the necessary training, Baierlein was commissioned to sail for India in 1846. However, two days before his departure, Baierlein became ill and could not go. During this same time a request had been received from Pastor Friedrich August Craemer for an assistant in his work among the Chippewa Indians in Michigan.