The Rev. Jindrich Juren

Juren trained widely before he came to Texas. After a year of compulsory service in the Austrian army, he studied at Bonn and at Edinburgh and finished seminary at Basel. The Fayetteville Brethren church called him in 1875, and he was ordained in its new building on arriving in April 1876. From 1881 to 1888 he was the only minister of the Unity of the Brethren in Texas, holding services from Smithville and Taylor to Hallettsville and Shiner, and sometimes for the Lutherans at Ellinger. He and Frances Schiller had fourteen children.

What the plaque says

The Rev. Jindrich Juren Jindrich (Henry) Juren was born in Hradiste, Bohemia, on March 20, 1850. A Protestant minister's son, he studied theology at several universities and became fluent in Czech, English, German, French, and Polish. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1876 as the newly-ordained pastor of the Ross Prairie Czech-Moravian Brethren Church. He served locally and traveled by horse and buggy and train to Czech congregations throughout Texas. Also a public schoolteacher for 40 years, Juren was a revered leader in Ross Prairie and the statewide Czech community. He was buried here in the churchyard cemetery in 1921. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 25 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.

More markers nearby

• Phillip James Shaver — 1.5 mi
• Fayetteville — 1.5 mi
• The Reverend Joseph Chromcik — 1.7 mi
• James J. Ross — 4.0 mi