The Gasconade County Historical Society is pleased to announce that their capital campaign to expand the Archives & Records Center has passed the halfway mark.

As a way of honoring their Swiss and German ancestors, Harvey and Agnes Gaertner of Temecula, California, are making a very significant gift to the Gasconade County Historical Society for expansion of the Archives & Records Center at 4th & Schiller Streets in Hermann. The addition to the current Center structures will be known as the Gaertner-Roetheli Heritage Center.

Little did Franz Josef and Katharina Roetheli and Henry and Louise Henrietta Gaertner know, when they emigrated respectively from Switzerland in 1854 and Germany in 1870, that four generations later, descendants of theirs would do much to preserve not only their history, but also the history of many generations of Gasconade County families, businesses, schools, organizations, and much more.

Harvey and Agnes are both graduates of Hermann High School and the University of Missouri – Columbia. Their youth was spent on family farms in the Coles Creek and Little Berger areas of Gasconade County. Both were members of the Frene Valley 4-H Club. Harvey was very active in FFA and served as chapter president his senior year. After attending her first two years of high school at St. George, Agnes then became a Bearcat, played volleyball, and was class valedictorian. Both were members of the National Honor Society.

Agnes studied German and French at the University of Missouri, where she earned a BA in German and a BS in Secondary Education. Later she earned her master’s degree in German Language and Literature at California State University, Fullerton. She taught German and French for 34 years in Southern California and in 1978 was named a Fulbright Foreign Exchange Teacher and spent a year teaching English at a college-prep high school in Wuppertal, Germany.

Harvey graduated from the University of Missouri with a BS in agricultural economics and a commission in the United States Air Force after completing the AFROTC program on campus. He served in the Air Force for four years. After training in Illinois, he was stationed at Norton AFB in Southern California.

The Gaertners fell in love with the warm climate and agricultural opportunities of Southern California and purchased ten acres of undeveloped land in Temecula that had no electricity and no phone service. They built a home on the property and established an avocado and citrus ranch.

Harvey used his degree in agricultural economics while working on dairy loans for Farm Credit and farmland loans for the Federal Land Bank.

To confirm their on-going interest in education, Agnes and Harvey established the Gaertner-Roetheli Scholarship at Hermann High School during the 2006-2007 school year.

Fundraising efforts continue to raise the additional funds needed to construct the GCHS Archives & Records Center addition, an estimated $2,000,000 project. A thermometer, which records progress toward reaching the $2,000,000 fundraising goal, will soon be posted on the fence at the Archives & Records.

AGNES AND HARVEY GAERTNER