About Fred Baue
For the record, my full name is Frederic William Baue, Junior, son of Frederic W. and Alma A. Baue (nee Hoffstetter), born July 15, 1946 at the old Lutheran Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, and baptized August 3 of that year at Emmaus Lutheran Church. By the grace of God I was confirmed on Palm Sunday, 1960, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, St. Charles, Missouri.
I met my wife, Jean Neuhauser, in Tallahassee, Florida, where we were both music students at Florida State University—she voice and I classical guitar. We married in 1979, and have been blessed with three children: Rick, Mike, and Kate, all now grown.
With an M.Div. from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, I was ordained into the ministry of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in 1981. I served congregations in Minnesota, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Illinois before retiring in 2011. Along the way, I earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and put my training to use as an editor at Concordia Publishing House for five years, where I edited Portals of Prayer and other things.
My training is in music, theology, and literature, and my life is devoted to exploring these fields individually and in combination. For example, in music I have a CD of original compositions for guitar, Too Deep for Words. In theology I have a book on Creation. In literature I have a book of humor, The Epistles of Herman Noodix. In music and theology I have The Great Dance, a CD of hymns arranged for guitar. In theology and literature I have The Spiritual Society. In music and literature I have a CD of original songs, New Chestnuts. Then there is my collection, Hymns and Songs (including “What Is This Bread,” a widely popular communion hymn, no. 629 in Lutheran Service Book), which combines music and theology and literature. So you see it’s all connected. One person calls me a Renaissance man; my wife says I have too many irons in the fire. Be that as it may, all this activity keeps me going strong all the time.
All this time I’ve been doing this other stuff, I have been writing fiction. Somehow I inherited the mantle of family storyteller, and am required by my office to spin yarns at annual get-togethers round the campfire. In time I began to get serious about this aspect of writing, and decided to try my hand at a novel. This first effort resulted in The Pilgrim, about a young man who goes to San Francisco and gets into the music business in the Sixties. Next came Flight, about a Lutheran pastor who wins a Corvette in a raffle at the same time his wife becomes seriously ill. The Clubhouse again has a Lutheran pastor as protagonist, but this man falls in love with an African princess and fathers a love child, setting up lots of complications. Then there is The Last Game, my Lutheran apocalyptic baseball novel. Finally we have Ras Josiah, in which the love child from The Clubhouse, now grown, has to go to his country, establish his claim to the throne by killing a lion, organize a rebellion, and expel the invaders. All the characters in all five novels are related to each other, and are connected to the good soil of Perry County, Missouri, and grounded in the good religion of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. And they all play baseball.
Epiphany 2023
I met my wife, Jean Neuhauser, in Tallahassee, Florida, where we were both music students at Florida State University—she voice and I classical guitar. We married in 1979, and have been blessed with three children: Rick, Mike, and Kate, all now grown.
With an M.Div. from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, I was ordained into the ministry of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in 1981. I served congregations in Minnesota, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Illinois before retiring in 2011. Along the way, I earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and put my training to use as an editor at Concordia Publishing House for five years, where I edited Portals of Prayer and other things.
My training is in music, theology, and literature, and my life is devoted to exploring these fields individually and in combination. For example, in music I have a CD of original compositions for guitar, Too Deep for Words. In theology I have a book on Creation. In literature I have a book of humor, The Epistles of Herman Noodix. In music and theology I have The Great Dance, a CD of hymns arranged for guitar. In theology and literature I have The Spiritual Society. In music and literature I have a CD of original songs, New Chestnuts. Then there is my collection, Hymns and Songs (including “What Is This Bread,” a widely popular communion hymn, no. 629 in Lutheran Service Book), which combines music and theology and literature. So you see it’s all connected. One person calls me a Renaissance man; my wife says I have too many irons in the fire. Be that as it may, all this activity keeps me going strong all the time.
All this time I’ve been doing this other stuff, I have been writing fiction. Somehow I inherited the mantle of family storyteller, and am required by my office to spin yarns at annual get-togethers round the campfire. In time I began to get serious about this aspect of writing, and decided to try my hand at a novel. This first effort resulted in The Pilgrim, about a young man who goes to San Francisco and gets into the music business in the Sixties. Next came Flight, about a Lutheran pastor who wins a Corvette in a raffle at the same time his wife becomes seriously ill. The Clubhouse again has a Lutheran pastor as protagonist, but this man falls in love with an African princess and fathers a love child, setting up lots of complications. Then there is The Last Game, my Lutheran apocalyptic baseball novel. Finally we have Ras Josiah, in which the love child from The Clubhouse, now grown, has to go to his country, establish his claim to the throne by killing a lion, organize a rebellion, and expel the invaders. All the characters in all five novels are related to each other, and are connected to the good soil of Perry County, Missouri, and grounded in the good religion of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. And they all play baseball.
Epiphany 2023