Our History

 

            It was literally as well as spiritually that little children led the way to the building of the Baldwin Community United Methodist Church which is dedicated to the service of God in our community.

 

            In 1943, what is now Whitehall borough was a tiny new community.  It was a community of young families with young children.  As in any American suburb, there were some who tried to get their children off every Sunday morning to the churches in which they, themselves, had grown up; there were some from other parts of the area who had no church affiliations here; and there were those who through the years had withdrawn from formal church connections.

 

            But most remembered their own childhoods when with hair carefully combed, dressed in their best, with collection money clutched in hand, they set off to Sunday School each Sunday morning.  They remembered the reverence and quietness of their childhood hours in “God’s house,” whether it was a little frame country church or a city cathedral.  They would never forget the old songs of worship and the long-ago learned Bible Stories.

 

            This Sunday School heritage, an American heritage, they wanted for their children, and yet in the new community there was no neighborhood church.  Then came World War II and gasoline rationing, making church going in other sections even more difficult.

 

            There was one mother, like many of the others in her desire for a neighborhood Sunday School, who decided she was going to do something about the problem.  She would open her home to the children around her on Sunday mornings. And she did.

 

            On Mother’s Day, May 9, 1943, Mrs. Glendora Garman, stood at the door of her home, 4716 Baptist Road, and smiled at each of the eight children who came in answer to her invitation.  A friend, Mrs. Blanche Madden, Had come to help with the youngsters.  With the Garman children, Gloria and Kathleen, the Sunday School opened with 10 youngsters and two teachers.

 

            Mrs. Garman’s own firm but gentle faith gave a spiritual quality to the home meetings that the children will never forget.

 

            The youngsters themselves spread word of the Sunday School. They enjoyed it.  They brought their friends. More and more youngsters came.  The Dormont Methodist Church gave Mrs. Garman some folding tables and song books she badly needed.  Other mothers, among them Mrs. Clarence Adams and Mrs. James Prescott, volunteered as teachers.

 

            At a Christmas party in 1944 when 75 children overflowed the Garman house, Mrs. Garman knew they must find larger quarters.

 

            The Sunday School moved into the basement of the Union School.  Adults had become interested.  George R. Horner each Sunday was leading discussions that brought out more and more grown-ups.

 

            Within a year there was not only an adult department but a nursery school in the charge of Mrs. Charles E. Stone; a primary department with Mrs. Edward Lawrence, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Prescott and Mrs. Horner in charge and a junior department under the direction of Mrs. Garman and Frank Lorenz.

           

            The adults began talking of the need for a church.  Of one thing they were sure – they wanted a church that would be a part of the community, a church to which all those who wanted to worship God through service could belong, no matter what their creed.

 

            The Garmans were Methodists.  The Methodist Church does not require exacting creedal promises and thus encourages community churches.  So at a dinner meeting on February 13, 1946, the men and women of the Sunday School decided to take the first steps toward a Community Church within the structure of the Methodist Church.  They decided to circulate a petition asking for such an organization.

 

            Signatures were given with willingness and on March 17, 1946, a committee of George R. Horner, Joseph Hathaway and Frank Garman presented the petition for church to Bishop James H. Straughn.  Not only did the Bishop promise his personal support but he said he believed the Methodist Church would give financial aid in this project.

 

            On Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 12, 1946, the third anniversary of that day in 1943 when Mrs. Garman had welcomed the little children into her home, the first community services were held.  The Reverend John W. Ford, pastor of the Fairhaven Methodist Church, officiated.  There were about 20 men and women in attendance.  Other ministers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, preached at services that summer while efforts to formally organize a church went forward.

 

            Meanwhile the petition for a church had been presented to the Comity Commission which allocates new territory to a selected denomination to prevent the over-churching of new communities.  The Commission decided to make the new church a part of the Methodist family.

 

            The first congregational meeting of the new church was held after services in the basement room on the morning of June 23, 1946.  A General Church Committee was named to take the actual formal steps toward the founding of a church. The following officers were elected:  General Chairman, George R. Horner’ Secretary, Mrs. Frank Garman; Treasurer, Frank Garman; membership, Joseph Hathaway; Finance, David F. Young; Charter, Edward Lawrence; Music and Programs, Mrs. Clarence Adams; Property, James Prescott.

 

            The words which came to mean so much to this community – the Baldwin Community Methodist Church – were officially given to the organization on Sunday morning, September 29, 1946, when Dr. T. R. Courtice, district superintendent of the Pittsburgh Conference of the Methodist, conducted organization services.  Fifty charter members there were, some who came into the new church by transfer of letter, and some by Confession of Faith.

 

            There were more than 50 in the room of worship on the morning of October 6, 1946, when the little congregation received their first Holy Communion together, administered by the Reverend T. Fred Wolfe.  That same afternoon, Bishop Straughn at the annual meeting of the Pittsburgh Conference of the Methodist Church, held in Indiana, PA, announced the appointment of the first pastor of the Baldwin Community Methodist Church, Dr. Thomas R. Courtice, who had received the first members into the new church at organization services in September.

 

            To see the “Faith Made Visible” in the building of a church was the hope of the congregation.  There was not great wealth in the community.  Only through individual sacrifice could a church be possible. But they had faith.

 

            At a meeting of the church board on October 23, 1946, over which Dr. Harry A. Price, district superintendent, presided, the board authorized Attorneys Edward Lawrence and Robert Pratt to purchase the lots opposite the intersection of Baptist and Weyman Roads.  The church’s Official Board, elected on November 3, 1946, at the first Quarterly Conference, pushed forward plans.  Meeting on February 6, 1947, the board named a Building Committee made up of Frank Garman, Joseph Hathaway, James Prescott, Frank Fickinger and Frank Madden and voted to retain Lewis J. Altenhof as church architect.

 

            Seventy people attended services on the first morning the Reverend R. Wynne preached.  As each week after that went by Mr. Wynne’s enthusiasm, sincerity and his intelligent interest in the community brought new friends to the new church.  He visited throughout the neighborhood.  He gave the church no only hard work but the example of a man who lived the tolerance, brotherly love and dedication to the service of God and his fellowmen which he preached.

 

            The congregation grew constantly.  A church building was urgently needed.  The basement of the Union School could hold no more worshipers.

 

            More than 200 people sat down to a dinner in the Baldwin High School on the night of January 30, 1948, to decide how the money could be raised.  It was announced that various divisions of the Methodist Church had given gifts totaling $45,000 towards the building of the church and offered a mortgage of $55,000 at a low interest rate.

 

            Enthusiastically the members approved a resolution for the building of the church and the launching of a Crusade for Funds.  There was faith behind that Crusade, as on February 8, 50 members began the work of traveling from home to home seeking pledges for the building fund. The goal was $20,000.  More than $22,000 was pledged.  Plans for the church could proceed.

 

            There were more than 200 members, representing 18 denominations, in the Community Church when ground was broken for the church building on Sunday, June 13, 1948.  Participating in the ceremonies were Mr. and Mrs. Garman at whose home this community church was born and Marilyn Fickinger, the first child to walk in the Garman door on that morning when Sunday School began there.  Officiating were Bishop Straughn, Mr. Wynne, Frank Fickinger, president of the Board of Trustees and Charles Van Gelder, chairman of the Official Board.  The corner-stone was laid on Sunday, September 26.  The principal address was made by Dr. L. D. Spaugy, superintendent of the Methodist Church Union.

 

            In May of 1949, when the first Baldwin Community Methodist Church building was opened for services, there were more than 400 members in the congregation that just three years before numbered only 20!

 

            *This is an edited version of the history that appeared in the booklet, OUR FAITH MADE VISIBLE, presented at the dedication of our first church building, May 22 to May 29, 1949.