Minnesota Spirit Quest: Saint John’s Lutheran Cemetery
The cache is not located near a grave... If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out. Also, please only search for cache during daylight hours.
The coordinates will bring you to the gravesite of Conrad W Gerbitz, an Army private in World War One’s Co. C, Development Battalion. Allegedly, Development battalions were organized for soldiers that would have normally not have been accepted into service for various reasons, normally illiteracy or other minor mental or physical problems that might prevent service. Many developmental BN's were made up of immigrants who could not speak sufficient English to function in normal units. The idea was to work with whatever problems the soldiers had so they could eventually fill normal units, but some were later discharged.
On his grave site,
What day was he born? This equals A.
What day did he die? This equals BC.
Then:
N 44 54.38A
W 93 58.(BC+1)4
Saint John’s Lutheran Cemetery
This cemetery has regular care and is in fair to good shape. The eastern half of this cemetery was older and in poor shape. Several of the burial monuments in the eastern half of the cemetery were leaning, broken, or placed in piles throughout the area. There were also a few burial monuments that had been surrounded by over grown shrubs or lilacs. The western half of the cemetery was in better shape and the western rows had newer burials with few older burials.
In ‘History of the Minnesota Valley - including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota’, by Rev. Edward D. Neill, written in 1882, the following is written: ‘About 1872 the Lutheran church was built on section 29 by the Germans of that denomination.’