August Crull

August Crull was born January 27, 1845 in Rostock, Germany, where his father, Hofrat Crull, was a lawyer. He was educated at the Gymnasium in Rostock, and at Concordia College in St. Louis and Fort Wayne where he graduated in 1862. His father died soon after he began studying at the Gymnasium. His mother then married Albert Friedrich Hoppe, who later became the editor of the St. Louis edition of Luther's Works. In 1865, Crull graduated from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He became assistant pastor at Trinity Church in Milwaukee and also served as Director of the Lutheran High School. Later he was pastor of the Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. From 1873 to 1915, he was professor of the German language and literature at Concordia College in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After his retirement he returned to Milwaukee, where he died on February 17, 1923. His first wife and three of his four children preceded him in death. His second wife, Katharina John, survived him by many years.

Crull was a distinguished hymnologist and translated many hymns that appeared in several Lutheran hymnals. He published a German grammar and edited a book of devotions, Das walte Gott, based on the writings of Dr. C.F.W. Walther. His project of translating Lutheran hymns so they would be accessible to American Lutherans bore its first fruits when he published a book of English hymns at the Norwegian Synod publishers in Decorah, in 1877.

--www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/