This Sunday completes the year-round commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Iola’s First Presbyterian Church, which was organized on June 24, 1864. SO AFTER 150 years is First Presbyterian an Iola institution?
A picnic at Riverside Park will follow the 9:30 a.m. service at the church.
With any luck, the weather will be as pleasant as that long ago event when “a little company of people from round about, and bringing their dinner with them in baskets, gathered in Parson’s Grove and the First Presbyterian Church of Iola was organized,” as quoted from church annals. Parson’s Grove was about three miles northwest of Iola on the banks of Deer Creek.
Iola was then a village of about 250 and church services were held for nearly four years at makeshift sites before a church was built in 1868 at the northeast corner of Madison and Chestnut streets.
In a clipping from the Sept. 2, 1868 edition of the Register, my great-grandfather Charles F. Scott, a charter member of the church, wrote: “A large number of the citizens of Iola and vicinity had the pleasure of witnessing last Sabbath the dedication of the First Presbyterian Church of Iola. This is the first Presbyterian church to be built in southern Kansas and it is a pleasure to sit in a church like this, even if the sermon is rather longer than the subject seems to require.”
The current site of the church at the intersection of Madison and Buckeye was purchased in 1899 for $800, with the first spade of dirt being turned in 1903.
In 2003, Iola Presbyterians celebrated the 100th anniversary in part by compiling a history and memories.
Former member Carolyn Green recalled the scene of a small wedding:
“The mother of the bride came out to announce the bride was dressed and ready. She made her entrance, dressed in a traditional wedding dress, lots of tulle, lace and beads, with a skirt so full it looked like she was perched on top of a big tulle bell. The dress had one tiny drawback. IT WAS PINK! Not a tint of pink, not pastel pink, not even pale rose, but a shocking pink.
“And she beamed.”
Former minister Ken Miller recalled the fortuitous positioning of Lyle Schmaus and his family one Sunday. Seems the church’s new tile roof leaked but trustees were loathe to take action.
“Finally, God took action,” Miller wrote. Schmaus, a church trustee, and his family sat in their usual pew — “on the left and about two-thirds from the rear. It began to rain in the middle of the sermon and water poured down on poor Lyle and his family. Enough was enough. The roof was replaced without delay with asphalt shingles.”
In her memory, written in 2004, Donna Talkington wrote that as a young bride the Rev. Miller advised her, “to go and find the church we liked on the inside and then look at the name on the outside,” in choosing where to attend.
Well …
I hesitate because I believe a church is a living and breathing institution, not bricks and mortar, and like a lot of traditional churches, we are struggling to attract younger families as our older generations pass on.
We’ve also had some lapses in leadership over the past several years which agitates the flock. And while we know it’s the congregation, not its minister, that makes a church, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have both on the same page.
For the most part, these problems have served as a much needed wake-up call and forced us to re-examine what makes us tick.
Since the first of the year we’ve sponsored Sunday Soups, a free meal to the public on Sunday evenings. It’s a great fit for those who prefer to act out their faith, and, like an earlier program called Angel Food Ministries, puts us in touch with Iola’s needy.
Unfortunately, the core group behind Sunday Soups is getting burned out, so in July the program will be cut back to only the last two weeks of the month, when people’s support checks begin to wear thin.
On average about 75 show up to eat the free meal in the church’s basement.
If we worked to engage a broader section of the community to help with the meals, we probably could get it back up to snuff. It’s funny how we think nothing of extending a helping hand — indeed, it’s our purpose — but have the darndest time asking it for ourselves.
Challenge at 150 years; keeping up with the times
