In 1913 pastors from two area German churches, the Lutheran Church of Our Savior and Trinity Lutheran Church, invited the people of Westwood to worship with the mission created by the Missouri Synod on the corner of Harrison and Cheviot Ave. This mission, though it was modest in size with only twenty-eight congregants attending English services and fifteen attending German services, grew steadily and eventually needed a pastor of its own.
In 1914 Rev. Rudolf Goetz was inducted as the church’s first pastor and in 1915 the name Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church was adopted. English services were then held every Sunday evening and German service on the first and third Sunday afternoon of each month. In 1916 it was decided that the congregation warranted its own space, and plans for a new building were started. The “Basement Church” was dedicated in August of 1917 and served as both a temporary place of worship and the foundation upon which the final structure would be built. After years of patience and fundraising the final church structure was dedicated in 1927.
Bibliographical Sources:
German American Churches and Religious Institutions in the Greater Cincinnati Area, edited by Don Heinrich Tolzmann, German American Studies Program University of Cincinnati, 1999, pages 134, 301-329
