Edmund Heinsohn ^{1 2 3 4 5 6}

  General Notes:

Edmund's parents were Charles John Heinsohn and Louisa Schwecke. His father was a lumber dealer in Bartlett, Bell County, Texas, at the time of the 1900 census. Both parents were born in Texas, but their parents were born in Germany. At the time of the 1920 census, Edmund was renting his home in Temple, Bell County, Texas. He was a lawyer. At the time of the 1930 census, Edmund was renting his home in Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas. He was a Methodist minister.

Edmund and Lollie made a trip to Europe in 1951. They were listed on the Queen Mary which had sailed from Cherbourg, France, and arrived in New York on 4 Oct 1951. Their destination was Austin, Texas.

Edmund's last residence was Mattawan, Van Buren County, Michigan, according to Social Security Death Index. Daughter Fay was living near there. She may have been handling his affairs.

Ex-minister Heinsohn dies at 101
Austin American-Statesman, Monday, 14 Aug 1989

Edmund Heinsohn, a former Methodist minister sometimes referred to as "the conscience of Austin" has died at the age of 101.

Services for Heinsohn, who died Saturday, will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at University United Methodist Church, with burial in Austin Memorial Park.

Heinsohn was born in 1888 in Fayetteville. His family moved to Bartlett, where he graduated as his high school's valedictorian.

In 1905, Heinsohn entered the University of Texas, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in liberal arts in 1910 and a bachelor of laws in 1912.

He practiced law in Temple from 1912 to 1921, when he decided to enter the clergy. After two years of part-time study at Southern Methodist University's Divinity School, Heinsohn was ordained by the Central Texas Methodis Conference in 1923.

In 1921 (1917 actually), he married Lollie Grimes, the sister of his law partner.

After serving congregations in Red Oak, Fort Worth and San Angelo, Heinsohn was appointed senior pastor of University United Methodist Church in Austin in 1924. He held the post until his retirement in 1950. Receiving the title of pastor emeritus that year, Heinsohn also served on the denomination's International Advisory Council.

Heinsohn's opinions often won him opponents. "Some of my best friends were men with whom I had serious differences," he said in 1979.

The former lawyer described his sermons "as an appeal for a verdict."

"I wanted people to make a decision about ideas, their thinking...not just sit there," he said.

Many of his sermons dealt with issues such as the arms race and international relations.

During World War II, Heinsohn defended the rights of conscientious objectors and opposed the U.S. government's internment of Japanese-Americans. In the 1960's, he called for the removal of racial and ethnic barriers to religious affiliation.

Heinsohn conducted funeral services for friends such as writer J. Frank Dobie, historian Walter Prescott Webb and naturalist Roy Bedichek.

Heinsohn was preceded in death by his wife and two of his daughters, Edwina and Eugenia. He is survived by two daughters, Laura Louise Heinsohn of Austin and Fay Heinsohn Woolrich of Kalamazoo, Michigan; eight granddaughters; and 13 great-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Heinsohn Lectures Endowment at University United Methodist Church or to a favorite charity.

The Handbook of Texas Online - Edmund Heinsohn

HEINSOHN, EDMUND (1888-1989). Edmund Heinsohn, lawyer and Methodist minister, son of Charles and Louise (Schwecke) Heinsohn, was born in Fayetteville, Texas, on July 17, 1888. The family later moved to Bartlett, where Edmund graduated from high school in 1905. He received A.B. and LL. B. degrees in 1911 and 1912 from the University of Texas and opened a law office in Temple in 1912. He was also appointed assistant county attorney for Bell County at that time. After eleven years in the legal profession he entered the Methodist ministry, in October 1923. Following various assignments, including six years at the First Methodist Church in Georgetown, where he served at Southwestern University, he was assigned to the University Methodist Church in Austin in 1934. From 1931 to 1959 he was a trustee of Southwestern University, from which he received an honorary doctor of divinity degree in 1931. He was chairman of the board of trustees of Huston-Tillotson College, which awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1946. He was also the first alumnus to receive the J.D. degree from the University of Texas law school when that degree was first offered.

Heinsohn was a member of the Texas State Library and Historical Commission (later the Texas State Library and Archives Commission^qv) for twenty-five years and was twice chairman. He was a member of the Austin Town and Gown Club. He was a Lion, a Rotarian, and a Kiwanian and was selected Most Worthy Citizen of the City of Austin in 1959. Though he was the grandson of a slaveowner, Heinsohn worked to abolish segregation in the Methodist Church and the University of Texas. In 1957 his church became one of the first in Austin to accept black parishioners. He was opposed to war and was named vice president of the Methodist Commission on World Peace in 1940. He married Lollie Grimes in 1917, and they had three daughters. (Note: a fourth daughter died as an infant.) Mrs. Heinsohn died in 1979. Heinsohn preached his last sermon at the age of eighty-five in observance of the 100th anniversary of Southwestern University. He died on August 12, 1989, and was buried at Austin Memorial Park.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Hanna Acheson, Herbert P. Gambrell, Mary Carter Toomey, and Alex M. Acheson, Jr., Texian Who's Who, Vol. 1 (Dallas: Texian, 1937). Austin American-Statesman, August 15, 1989. Thomas L. Charlton, Oral Memoirs of Edmund Heinsohn (Waco: Baylor University Program for Oral History, 1974). Edmund Heinsohn, Fifty Years: Courtroom-Pulpit (Austin: San Felipe Press, 1972). Edmund Heinsohn Papers, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

Les Gronberg

Edmund married Lollie Caroline Grimes, daughter of William Alexander Grimes and Laura Elizabeth Kirk, in 1917. (Lollie Caroline Grimes was born on 11 Oct 1892 in Texas,¹⁰ died on 12 Nov 1979 in , Travis County, Texas ^{8 10} and was buried in Austin Memorial Park Cemetery, Austin, Travis County, Texas ⁹.)