Elizabeth Tock

Mrs. Elizabeth Tock met her future husband Herman Tock, while he was a volunteer ringing the church bells at Zion Lutheran Church, Appleton, Wisconsin. They married on August 5, 1924. At that time Mrs. Tock became a member of Zion. Her first involvement in church activities occurred as a result of her husband's encouragement to join him at church choir practice, though she didn’t believe singing to be something she did well. In 1932 she found her own path to serving Zion when during the course of taking her son, Edward, to Sunday School, she was asked to help finish the school year teaching a Sunday School class. That short assignment turned into a 13-year commitment where she taught mostly intermediate grades. In addition to her involvement with Zion’s Sunday School, she served periodically as a substitute teacher at Zion’s Day School. Mrs. Tock also served as the congregation’s historian. She compiled much of the historical information that comprised Zion’s historical sketch.

Description:
This series contains items that comprised a scrapbook created by Mrs. Elizabeth Tock. Mrs. Tock regularly sent birthday cards and parcels containing books, paper dolls, games, puzzles, and magazines, to American Lutheran Church (ALC) New Guinea missionaries’ children, as well as other church’s New Guinea missionary children. For preservation purposes, the scrapbook was disassembled. This scrapbook contained letters and photographs sent to Mrs. Tock from New Guinea missionary children. Items are from 1951-1964 with the majority dating from 1951-1960. Many of the handwritten and typewritten letters to Mrs. Tock originate from New Guinea, but others come from Australia, where some of the children were enrolled in school. This series also has 16 black and white identified, and mostly dated, photographs that were included with some of the correspondence.