The Wengart Ancestors

Abraham Weingarten was born in 1825 to a German father and a Jewish mother. She was very strong in her Jewish faith, naming Abraham after the father of the Israelites. Their community was very small. And as it happened, they were left without a rabbi due to his untimely death. Abraham took the training and became their new rabbi. He married a German wife and sired Willem Weingarten in 1850. Willem fell in love and married a lovely Amish girl and embraced the Amish way of life, much to the disapproval of his Jewish grandmother.

Hans was born to Mr. and Mrs. Weingarten in 1875. He was a restless soul, and longed for the day when he could strike out on his own. He became disenchanted with Amish ways, leaving the community at 15 upon “Rumspringa”, the coming of age in Amish traditions. Once more, a new generation of Wengarts experienced a turnabout in religious circles when Hans married a beautiful Italian woman and converted to Catholicism. Soon, Willem was born and, as a teenager, he chafed against all of the strict policies of the nuns at his parochial school.

Willem Weingarten and Olivia, his Hispanic bride, raised a family of four boys and five girls, The second born was Carl who grew up to change their family name to Wengart because he thought it sounded more American. Again, the family felt the call of the Holy Spirit and Carl and his family turned to the Baptist denomination for guidance and fellowship with other brothers and sisters in the Body of Jesus Christ. In every generation, the head of each home was the spiritual leader and served as the pastor or layman in their church. So, it was no wonder that Carl’s son, Dennis Wengart, felt the call to the ministry as a lay pastor, and a chaplain during WW II. Throughout all the generations, even though they had different points of view regarding their faith, their love for their Heavenly Father, their thankfulness for their salvation through Jesus Christ, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit to guide them each day of their lives sustained them through faith, hope, and love.