St. Peter's German Latvian Lutheran Cemetery (Irvine, Cypress County)

The congregation of this church was organized in1897 through the efforts of Hans Rebane, from Boston, Massachusetts. The application to register forty acres as church and cemetery property was made about 1901, by this time five burials had already taken place.

The constitution was adopted in 1902, congregational officers elected, and the church built in 1903. Pastor Sillak accepted the call to serve as traveling missionary in July 1903, he continued as vacancy pastor for the Latvian part of the congregation.

The absence of a German speaking minister of the Missouri Synod, caused nearly all of the congregation to join the Ohio Synod. The Latvian portion of the congregation was in existence until 1945. The building was dismantled in the late 1940s.

The cemetery is located two hundred yards south of SH 515 one mile west and eleven miles south of Irvine, Alberta on the East side of Range Road 31. The plot is protected by a good barb wire fence but grass not has not been cut in years. There is a concrete marker with following inscription: St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran First settlers 1888. Josephsburg P.O. Assiniboia West N.W.T. Monument placed in 1979 by St. Peter’s German Latvian Lutheran Church 1897 to 1945. There are 35 burials here. Inscription reads: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth,” Revelations 14:13. Information current as at August 20, 1996.

Courtesy of Medicine Hat and District Genealogical Society (MHDGS)