Rev. Howard Allen Kunkle served as minister of Simeon Lutheran Church, Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, 1907-1908.
Howard A. Kunkle was born at Kresgeville, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, 11 November 1870, the son of James Kunkle and Elisabeth [Kresge] Kunkle. He received his Bachelor of Arts at Muhlenberg College in 1899, attended Philadelphia Seminary, and was ordained by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1902.
Rev. Kunkle married Gertrude Rinker in 1902. His first calling as a pastor was at Scranton in 1902. In 1907, he accepted the call to the Lykens Valley Charge and served until 1908. After leaving the Lykens Valley, he went on to serve in several other areas.
In 1922, when Simeon Church was having its 100th anniversary, Rev. Kunkle was invited back to take part in the celebration by preaching in the Friday evening service.
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The photo of H. A. Kunkle was cropped from the senior class photograph from 1899 yearbook of Muhlenberg College, Ciarla, available on Ancestry.com.
A brief biography of Rev. Kunkle appeared in a Gratz history published in 1997.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.
from The Canada Lutheran (August 1914):
“At Welland the service of Field Missionary and Mrs. M. J. Bieber are coming to a close. St. Matthew’s congregation which seems to have taken a new lease on Iife under the ministration of Rev. and Mrs. Bieber, has extended a call to the Rev. H. A. Kunkle, of Allentown, Pa., to become its pastor. We are informed that Pastor Kunkle has accepted the call and expects to take charge of the parish on the first Sunday in September. He will be installed on that Sunday by Rev. M. J. Bieber.”
and The Toronto World (March 8, 1916):
“That he was hounded out of Hamilton [Ontario] by the militia and that when his daughter was sick a local medical man refused to attend her on the ground that her parents were Germans are the astonishing statements made by Rev. H. A. Kunkle, late pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Hamilton. This information was received here yesterday in an editorial in a Scranton (Pa.) newspaper, which a friend of Mayor Walters in that city forwarded to him. Rev. Kunkle left here last week after resigning his pastorate at Trinity Church on the plea that he desired to be near his parents, who were ill in the States.
“In an interview with a representative of the Scranton paper he declared that the militia even went so far as to send soldiers to his church and that they interrupted his sermons by singing “God Save the King,” and also that spies were continually at work among the congregation.
“Mayor Walters will write today to Scranton denying the story.”