Advertisement
Centennial sanctuary: Friends Church celebrating 100-year-old building
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · September 22, 2016


West Branch Friends Church on Sunday plans a daylong celebration to mark 100 years in the same building at 116 North Downey Street.


The red brick building remains largely the same, aside from minor additions like an elevator, attached storage space and a rear walkway.

Church members call the celebration, “100 Years of Walking in Light.”

A 66-year member, Roscoe Millett, 94, said this event shows that “people are dedicated to continual service,” and that this “is an indication of the fact that the church has been well-cared-for by the parishioners throughout the years.”

“It’s an indication of their faithfulness,” he added.

Walter Hansen, who turns 98 later this month, first attended the church 95 years ago.

To him, the event is more about the people in the church than the church itself.

“It seems to be a kind of close-knit congregation that doesn’t seem to want to give up.”

He said the members have made caring for the building a high priority.

“It’s never been neglected,” he said, noting that the members made sure to build it right in the first place. “Apparently they put a good foundation on it, because there doesn’t seem to be any cracks in the walls anywhere.”

The 100-year-old church began construction in 1915 and was dedicated as the congregation’s new place of worhip on March 12, 1916.

Built of brick and oak, it cost $10,942.91 and originally measured 58 feet long by 46 feet wide. The sanctuary had rolling, or movable, walls on the east and west sides.

Today, the Cedar County Assessor places the building’s value at $80,800, and the land value at $31,380, or $112,180 total.

In 1915, the building covered 2,720 square feet. In 1998, the congregation added an elevator, and in 1990, they added a 3,000-square-foot paved parking lot for $5,400. In 2008, the church added a porch and shed. The additions put another 436 square feet on the building, bringing it to 3,156 square feet.

The congregation installed an electric organ, at a cost of $2,274.60, in 1954. Helen Millett served as the organist from then until she entered a nursing home in 2010.

The church has yet to find another organist for Sunday service, however they found Aaron Girard to play for the centennial celebration.

The celebration begins at 9 a.m. with breakfast, followed by an “intergenerational treasure hunt” in the church archives, opening them up to visitors from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The congregation will gather for worship at 10:30 a.m. to noon, with special guests and music.

The church currently does not have a pastor, so Pastor Deborah Seuss, who ministered at the church from 1991-2001, will travel from Greensboro, N.C., to officiate. Her message, entitled “Built and Still Building on that Cornerstone,” will be based upon Ephesians 2:14-22, which talks about how Christ brought the Jews and Gentiles together by breaking down “the barrier of hatred that divided us.”

Lunch will follow the worship service, then the group will visit its previous church, which is now on display two blocks south on Downey.

Church member Doris Hinkhouse, who turns 94 this month, arrived in West Branch in 1936 as a high school freshman, brought here by her parents, Taylor and Irma Guthrie, who served as ministers for the West Branch and Springdale churches until 1950.

Hinkhouse said she still has memories of Christmas and Easter programs in the building, as well as how her father had to shovel coal into the furnace and serve as the building’s caretaker.

The Springdale church dissolved in 1950 and the congregation merged with West Branch.

In 1978, a fire destroyed West Branch’s junior high building, and the Friends Church and West Branch United Methodist Church, which are across the street from one another, agreed to help. The Friends Church became a temporary classroom for eighth graders.

And, from 1985 through 1998, the church served as the home of West Branch Day Care Center.

Millett, clerk of the Springdale church, was one of the members who voted to dissolve. He said Springdale members all had cars, so it was easy for them to travel to the West Branch church.

Hinkhouse remembers the new members from Springdale bringing with them new light fixtures and seat cushions as a gift.

“I’ve enjoyed it all,” she said. “I’m very glad to be part of the church.”

Hansen said he wonders if volunteer labor helped build the church to have a brick building cost under $11,000.

According to a press release, members of the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, started arriving in the Iowa Territory in 1835.

“The fertile land between the Iowa and Cedar rivers in Cedar County attracted a nucleus of Quakers and became known as Quaker Ridge,” read the release. “In this area were the communities of West Branch and Springdale where several Friends Churches were established.”

The local congregation formed in 1852 and the members built their meetinghouse from 1857 to 1858, the same meetinghouse where a young Herbert Hoover and his family attended, with is mother as a recorded minister.

That building, across the street from the current building, would later become a movie theater and then an auto repair shop. In 1964, it was moved to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site and restored as a meetinghouse. The event includes participants visiting that original church, now just a year shy of 160 years old itself, from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

The National Historic Site issued a press release stating visitors will hear a talk about the two Society of Friends groups in town, followed by a “silent meeting.”

“Basically, people should come as they are and act as they are moved,” member and event chair Jonny Stacks said in the release. “We will talk about the origin of the two meetings within that meetinghouse, what being a Quaker means to folks, and then experience a silent meeting. During this time, people will sit in silence and speak when moved to do so.”

To close out the celebration, visitors will travel to the Young Friends Cabin to gather.