Arbaugh, William G., 1902-1974.

William George Arbaugh was on June 16, 1902, on a farm seven miles southeast of Goshen, Indiana, the son of the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Harvey Arbaugh and the former Nora Leone Bartholomew. He attended elementary schools in Chicago and Buckley, Illinois and in Mulberry, Indiana. His secondary education was obtained at the Weidner Institute in Mulberry and at Carthage College Academy in Carthage, Illinois. He was confirmed in Mulberry in 1916.

Arbaugh attended Carthage College, Carthage, Illinois, majoring in philosophy and receiving his A.B. degree in 1923. He then enrolled in the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (Mount Airy), from which he received his B.D. degree in 1926. He was ordained at Grace Lutheran Church, Gary, Indiana, on November 10, 1926, and became a minister in the Michigan Synod of the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA). On June 26, 1926 he married Clara Emma Englehardt in Sharon, Wisconsin. Three children were born to this marriage: William Charles on April 27, 1927, who later became a Lutheran pastor; Nora Dorothy on August 3, 1929, later Mrs. Carl Zitzewitz; and Mary Margaret on October 4, 1937.

Arbaugh's first pastorate was at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Millersburg, Indiana, where he served from June 1, 1926 to October 31, 1928. On November 1, 1928 he became a ULCA missionary to Puerto Rico. He served as a pastor in the field until 1938, but also quickly demonstrated his interest in writing and administration. He became the Secretary of the Lutheran Conference of Puerto Rico by the end of 1928 and became the business manager and an associate editor of the "El Testigo" Lutheran magazine in 1932. In 1938 he became the full-time representative and field treasurer of the ULCA's Board of American Missions (BAM) in the West Indies. On September 1, 1945 he became Secretary for Latin America under the BAM, residing in San Juan, Puerto Rico until June 15, 1956, at which time his office was transferred to Brooklyn, New York. While serving as Secretary for Latin America he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree from Carthage College in 1951.

Other activities pursued by Arbaugh during his Puerto Rico years including serving as the chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Caribbean Synod, organized 1952); managing a Lutheran bookstore from 1932 to 1956; editing the "Manual de Culto Cristiano," a Spanish Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal, from 1932 until its publication in 1941; serving as president of the San Juan Ministerial Association; chairing the San Juan U.S.O. Committee on Management during World War II; and serving as a member of the Puerto Rico Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Upon his relocation to New York in 1956, Arbaugh assumed supervision of the pre-publication plans for a new Spanish hymnal. He resigned from the BAM in 1958 and on January 1, 1959 became pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Middlebury, Indiana and of St. John's Lutheran Church at Fish Lake, Indiana. He served both congregations until his retirement in 1968. He continued to serve as editor and chairman of the hymnal committee. The new hymnal, the "Culto Cristiano," comprised 650 pages and was published in 1964, and was released with a companion volume, "Ritual Cristiano," an occasional service and altar book for pastors. With the hymnal project nearing completion in 1962 he began compiling a history of the newly-formed Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA). He was unable to finish this project due to ill health. Others finished and published it in 1971.

Arbaugh's wife Clara died on November 24, 1970. On March 3, 1973, he married Cleo Miller. On Dec. 24, 1974, while driving alone on an Illinois tollway near Harvey, Illinois, Arbaugh's car went out of control and struck a concrete abutment at a toll plaza, where he died at the scene. Memorial services were held at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Middlebury, Indiana, with interment in the Benton Cemetery, Middlebury. He was survived by his three children by his first marriage, two stepdaughters, six grandchildren, three step-grandchildren, and by his only sibling, Dr. George B. Arbaugh of Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.