HISTORY of the PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH Gayle Faulkner Kosalko October 2022

It was the earliest church in Whiting.  As Standard Oil quietly bought up the sand dunes around Lake Michigan, many German and Irish families came here.  Most of them working on the railroads.  But with the actual establishment of the refinery, came many families from the East coast who would find upper level positions with the company. 

For those living here in the very early years services were done by a minister who would occasionally travel through the area, holding services at the local school house.

But by 1880 these Easterners established their own permanent religious home in Whiting called the Plymouth Congregational Church.  It is recorded as the first Protestant English speaking church here.

Congregationalism itself started in England, and came to America with the early English who settled in New England. From the beginning it was a very liberal, independent church that was not subject to direction from any synod or other hierarchy. That liberalism was the bedrock philosophy practiced by the Whiting church members for the next 100 years.

Nine charter members met on June 26, 1890 at the Commercial  Hotel owned by Rev. D. A. Holman. He  would become their first pastor.  For $500, they built their first church on Center St. (the center of the town) on land given them by Jacob Forsythe. The church was near the busy rail lines that caused many accidents.  So the Church decided to move.   It sold its building to the very first Catholic Church established in Whiting, Sacred Heart Church.  

But ministers came and went in the first  years of PCC (Plymouth Congregational Church.)  One of the notable ones was Rev. Henry I. Richardson who died trying the save the lives of some children during the 1903 Iroquois Fire in Chicago.   So, in 1892, without a brick and mortar church, that Fall the church settled for holding services and Sunday School at rooms in Soltwedl Hall. (The Soltwedl family were parishioners)   Later they moved further east on 119th Street and held their services in Whiting’s school building.

THE MEMBERSHP

Because most of the members were from the East coast, many were very well  educated and sophisticated in their religious beliefs.

Among those who were members, many were the “movers and shakers” of society here at the time.  They were influential in what was happening here in Whiting and at Standard Oil. These include such well known names of early prominent families who were well off such as the Matterns (first druggist), the Jennings (businessman,) Walter Smith (attorney), Roy E. Green (future mayor) , the U.G. Swartz (newspaper owner,) Hazel Long Avery and her father (councilman and man behind creation of Whiting Park) the Prices, Beaubiens (Standard Oil) , Irene Dougherty, Beulah Lunsford, Dr. Rudser (Medicine), Nell Rudser (poet and author) the Davidsons (real estate) John C. Hall (attorney and Superintendent of Schools) the Soltwedels (property and business owners) the Shaefers, and  Beaumont Parks (mayor). With nary an Eastern European name among them, they reflected a very English background.

With a membership of only 50, the group now bought land between the school and the bank building on the corner to build a very permanent place of worship.The site itself was donated by Standard Oil.  It probably helped that the company’s Superintendent and its Master Mechanic were both members of the congregation.  The two men, George France and William Curtis, also were heavily involved in the building’s planning and construction.

When completed, the honor of lowering the cornerstone on October 16, 1894 had been given to Mrs. George T. Gray, known affectionately by her Sunday School children as Auntie Gray.   (Later, students  of Auntie Gray’s classes presented her with a beautiful pedestal for her “favorite fern.”  When she left Whiting, she donated it to the church where it stood in a place of honor near the pulpit for many years.  A plaque on it bore her name. Auntie Gray died 1929.)

Inside the cornerstone were 25 subscription cards at $1 each, a  copy of the Whiting Democrat, the Chicago Herald, lists of the members, Sunday School teachers, and a large number of coins and personal cards from members.  On the day of dedication in 1895 hundreds of people were in attendance.  The program opened with a choir hymn followed by Rev. Mr. Townsend (1893-1896) offering the invocation.  ( Later, as the membership kept growing, PCC would sell this building to the 113th Engineers’ Company B to be used as their Armory.  When that was no longer needed, the City would buy it to become City Hall.)

    When the new red brick building was finished it boasted of an arched ceiling. On the outside were window sills and gable trimming made from white Milwaukee brick stone.  The keystones were made of Bedford stone.  The property was surrounded by a fence.

     The first floor rooms were one story above ground.  There was a  parlor, a library, a main auditorium and a chapel divided by large sliding door. The pews were handmade of oak. There was a vestibule and a  small room for the kindergarten and a Sunday school room.  In the rear portion was a kitchen and the furnace room. The  furnace register was in the corner of the  sanctuary and it was noted that when the young girls walked over it, it made “their  skirts billow on cold winter mornings.”  By 1897 the building was wired for incandescent lamps.

Above the doorway was installed a beautiful large stained glass window.  (After PCC sold the building,  this window disappeared from view until 1998 when it was discovered by City Planner Dan Botich who found it covered in dust in a hidden corner of City Hall’s attic.  The City had it restored by the shop, Pane in the Glass, and installed it back in its original spot.)

Plymouth Congregational held services on Sunday mornings and evenings with a Prayer Meeting held Wednesday night.   On Sunday evenings they were assured to get many young men as all the eligible young women would sit together in the back row for the Sunday night service.

They also took to bringing their religion outside into the streets of Whiting where they could be found singing a short song service on the steps of the bank in 1895.  They made their presence known.

Now how  had the group raised the money for this new space?  After considerable amounts of fundraising,  in 1895 the Trustees received two checks of $1000 each from the Congregational Church Extension Society to complete payment on building.

FUNDING & SOCIAL LIFE 

Much of the initial funding had been paid by its Ladies Aid Society who were always coming up with ways of making money.  (By 1903 they had liquidated the last of the church’s debt of $600.) 

For example, to make money and have a good time, in 1894 the group held a Watermelon Social on the lawn of Mr. William Webb’s home.  An article in the Whiting Democrat, a newspaper, owned PCC member U.G. Swartz, read that “Webb’s lawn was pleasantly lighted with Chinese lanterns and gasoline torches” and the happy participants “feasted and lingered in the cool breeze.”

A Quilt Social was also a money making event. Mrs. J. E. Giffin won the award for collecting the most names at 10 cents each for the  Quilt Social, raising $16 for the cause.

To make money the Ladies Aid held Oyster Suppers for 25 cents and sold homemade candy, fruit and nuts.

In reference to all the ladies did to help throughout the years, in one history it is written that “the ladies baked their way to heaven.”

This Ladies Aid society was also the heart of the membership’s active social life.  They always managed to mix fundraising with pleasure. And remember, with no television, radios, movies or phones and only a small population of people in the city, having outside recreation was of vast importance.

The PCC held their first picnic in 1894 at Sheffield Grove where they picnicked, and held games and races which included a ball game between the young ladies and young men of the church.  By the way, the young ladies won 21 to 14.

Later the Plymouth Club would be established in 1911 specifically for the purpose of holding a series of what they referred to as “pleasantly arranged meetings at different homes for the purpose of getting better acquainted and having sociable little times together.”  Mrs. Wylie on Laporte Avenue hosted the first one which  was reported as well attended

Miss Minnie Nickum held her pleasant home entertainments to help raise money.  At these musical soirees she was assisted by a number of Whiting musicians.  Church members Miss Halsy and Mr. Arthur Beaubien furnished vocal music and his wife, Mrs. Brett and Mr. Greenwald appeared as instrumentalists. 

REACHING OUT 

The church understood the power of advertising.  In an ad they took out in 1916, they referred to themselves as “The Friendly Church.”  Even earlier, Rev. L. A. Townsend (1893-1896) tried his hand at publishing a newspaper.  His “The Church Organ,” Volume 1, Number 1, was launched in March of 1895.  It was filled with religious theories, and liberal ideas as well as promoting the work of PCC. One could buy a subscription for  50 cents a year.

Though the organizations held a great number of events for socializing and funding purposes, true to the philosophy of liberalism and progressiveness of the church, it also held events with a more intellectual bent than any other church at the time.  Their People’s Lecture Course brought  in well-known guest speakers such as  Miss Jane Addams from Hull House. Dr. Frank Crane, minister and columnist spoke. The Honorable Albert J Beveridge, Indiana Senator and intellectual leader of the Progressive Era and Dr. Preston Bradley, author and clergyman who believed that religion and economics could not be separated. He also believed that ministers must be concerned with social justice, poverty, and civic wrongs. [1] lectured  that religion, and economics could not be separated.  In 1896  Prof J. W. Hawkhurst of Harvey gave a lecture on Pilgrim’s Progress at the church illustrated by 260 stereopticon views.

It was not just the ladies who came together. The PCC men were well organized as well.  There were over 140 men who joined the  group called the Men’s Club, which organized by John C. Hall.     Always concerned with their children’s development, in 1914  the group started the very first Whiting Boy Scouts,  Troop #1 with its first scout master being their minister Rev. Paris Greenlee.(1914-1915)  

Over the years, other Scout Masters from the church would include Ed Wiley, Walter Hubbard, Fred Hadley, George French, Donald Hazell and Wesley Humphrey.  In the 1930’s the Women’s Guild who started the first Whiting troop for Girls Scouts.

EDUCATION AND SUNDAY SCHOOL 

Because of PPC’s liberal and intellectual philosophy, the Sunday School classes that were provided were exceptional and in some ways ahead of their time.

There were  School Superintendents for the Preschool (Mrs. Leonard Elster) and for the  Primary Division (Mrs. Fred Hadley)  Sunday school.

A copy of the curriculum shows that the 3 year old’s were to develop attitudes of kindness, honesty and cooperation.  The goal was to  help them to feel at home in a group and learn to play with children their own age.  There was no mention of bible stories being taught.

The goal for the 8th graders was to learn to appreciate how wonderful the gift of life really is and to appreciate how great is their capacity for future growth. 

There seems there was virtually nothing in the way of church doctrine or catechism being taught.  The emphasis was on the personal growth of the individual child.

The approach for those children in a class for  14 year old’s was truly based on psychology, not parochialism.

As the Superintendent writes about classes for teens,  “We enter an age when children feel they’re misunderstood.  The beginning of adolescence is a critical time and we must listen to them.”

Following Greenlee’s time as pastor came Rev. Charles Trueblood (1915-1922).  In 1917 he and his family were the first to live in the new parsonage built at 204 Cleveland Avenue. 

To involve the teenagers, there was the Young Peoples Society of Christian Endeavor. Always aware of their financial duties to the church, these younger folks offered to do all the church’s maintenance work for free, thus saving the treasury $26 for the year!

Another group started a Brotherhood of Andrew and Phillip, an organization founded back east in 1888  whose purpose was to pray daily for the spread of Christendom.  

MUSIC AND THE MOTHERS ORGAN   

Most churches provided for the need of music with their choirs, with church music as well as secular musicals and other music venues.  Plymouth Congregational was no exception. 

Both men and women were actively involved with the choir. In 1907 Phillip A. Heimlich was the  director of music. Because Heimlich himself was such a competent voice builder and could teach the art of singing and song interpretation, he was persuaded by the church community to offer to teach music at Whiting High School two days a week.

The church originally had a pump organ which only made sounds by the constant pedaling of the foot pedals which, like pedaling a bicycle, could become quite strenuous.  It was even noted in the church history  in one account that praise should be given to Donald Parks and Warren Beaubien because they were “efficient pumpers” of the organ. 

Later in 1917 Rev. Charles E. Trueblood replaced the pump organ with a beautiful “life-size, built in motored pipe organ” partially funded with a $1000 grant from Andrew Carnegie. 

A newspaper article of the day described the organ as “awe inspiring, music swelling and soul filling pipe organ with hundreds of stops and pipes” and an Opening Recital was given for the public  on October 8, a Friday evening in 1917.

 “It really took some effort to purchase it but all the women got together to make the payments.  That’s why it’s called the Mothers Organ.,” according to PCC’s last minister, Rev. James Facklam.

When the organ first arrived, members could donate money to have the name of their mother’s put on a permanent plaque.  It helped build up the cash necessary to finish off the cost and the plaque with its original 109 names on it was still there in 1999 when the church was closing.

Out of gratitude, the members held a special memorial when Andrew Carnegie died in 1919.  He had not only given funding for PCC’s organ but had given the city the public library as well. 

THE CHURCH MOVES AGAIN

Now as  early as 1917 there was talk of moving from their 119th Street home.  The church even bought property on Lake Avenue to build a future church.  But it wasn’t until a new dynamic minister named Rev. Harry P. Leach (1925-1928) took over in 1925 that things started to progress.

After occupying the space on 119th Street for almost 3 decades, it was decided that the church should buy a vacant corner plot of land on Stanton and 119th Street for $8,000 on which to build their dream church. 

For the project they hired the architects Shattuck and Layer who had recently built the Whiting Community House,

The old church building was sold to the government to be used as the Armory of Co. B 113th engineers.  Later it was bought by the Whiting to use as their City Hall.

So, by 1927, in between buildings, PCC held their service at the Community Center with their minister preaching in the Social Room and the Sunday School being taught in other rooms there. 

The new church would cost $100,000.

The style was Tudor Gothic.  It had a gorgeous rose window, highlighted with pictures of the four gospel writers. There was now seating for 400, with classrooms for Sunday school, a stage with dressing rooms for parishioners Richard and Martha McClaughry to expand their production of plays.  There was a Fellowship Hall and modern kitchen.

When the new church was completed, the Mothers Organ was transferred, enlarged and modernized.

“It really took some effort to purchase it but all the women got together to make the payments.  That’s why it’s called the Mothers Organ.

When the organ first arrived, in 1917 members could donate money to have their mother’s name engraved on a permanent plaque.  It helped build up the cash necessary to pay off the organ. The plaque with its original 109 names was still there in 1999 when the church was closing.

In 1940 organ chimes were added in memory of Bertha T. Beaubien by her husband Henry E. and their children. 

Nell Warta became the PCC organist in 1954 and played there for 55 years until the Church closed.  

“I’ve only known Sundays to come here to Whiting.  I’ve gone through five ministers since I first came here,” Nell said in a WRite Stuff feature.

Nell did start a bit of a controversy among the membership when she, who was quite petite, cut down  the legs of the Mothers Organ original bench so she could reach the pedals. 

Going back to the church’s Dedication Day, Parishioner Harry Beaubien gave this speech on July 1928.

“Never was there a group more interested and devoted to the church welfare than the Whiting pioneers of half a century and you, of another generation, as you pass the old building, now an armory, might lift your hats in tribute to the local people who carried on the establishing of a new city and the beginnings of a prosperous church”   

But it would be only months after the dedication that the Great Depression would follow, making the mortgage on this new dream Church a nightmare.

DEPRESSION YEARS

Rev. Dr. Frederick T. Mayer-Oakes (1928-1934) was the pastor during the Depression.  It is said that his years were some of the most difficult for the church.

Even though parishioners had pledged moneys, they were unable to keep those pledges because of their own responsibilities to their families.  So the mortgage payments were not being met.  

In 1933 the church almost closed. The operating budgets took so many budget cuts they could barely operate and they thought of closing their doors permanently.  Attendance dwindled.

The PCC  Officers were close to admitting that “organized religion could not be maintained except under condition of prosperity.”

Knowing PCC’s financial circumstances, another local church was just waiting for them to default on their mortgage so they could take over the property.

But once again it was the ladies who came to the rescue.  A new guild, sponsored by Bonne Judson came together to sell roasted peanuts!

And unbelievably they did this for a number of years, adding as much as $1,000 to the treasurer each year.

And then in 1934 came PCC’s most inspirational couple, Rev. John Paul Jones and his wife Betty who brought back the idea of how important education was and began Thursday night adult  classes.  The couple were charming and had a keen intellect and liberal message that excited the congregation once more.  It is said that his sermons on intensely humanistic points of view were unifying .  Jones was said to inspire his members “with the goal of better citizenship and finer living.”                           

CHURCH CONSTITUTION REWRITTEN

In 1935 Rev. Jones joined a committee of the church to rewrite its  constitution, making the church mission one of tolerance and workable religion, and one that opposed formalism and authoritative theology.  The entire congregation voted to accept this.  The importance of their creating  aims and purposes instead of any type of  “creed” mentioned in the new constitution proved that PCC was more liberal than most churches of its day and as always, very forward thinking.

PCC had a “free” pulpit and members never had to agree with the pastor nor with other people in the congregation.  It was truly a thinking man’s religion.

When the Depression was over, the church numbers began to grow again.  By the 1950’s, its organist Nell Warta said they had an adult choir of 40 members, a high school choir and a group for little children called The Cherub Choir.

“It was a time when the place was always packed.  We had to use the balcony to fit all the people in for services,” she said.

And Nell was responsible for bringing back one of the loveliest traditions PCC had, a weekly Coffee Hour.  The tradition had somehow disappeared over the years.     

“When I first came I thought what a wonderful thing this is.  It gives you a chance to chit chat with each other after church,” she said.   “We have it after church every Sunday from September to May.”

“One thing I liked about the church was that every Sunday we met in the parlor and ate.  It became not just coffee; it usually became meals to share with each family taking a turn,” said Bonnie Henry, a 25 year  member of PCC who was among the of the  last parishioners.

In the interest of the religious life in Whiting, the PCC collected data for publication on condition of all churches.  He sent a representative to every church and synagogue to see how many people attended.  For the Catholic Churches, because they had so many masses, his people would take in account everybody who came to church from the time the doors opened in the morning until they closed in the afternoon.

During this time,  the Junior High boys and girls of PCC were once again very involved with helping in the community.  They would visit the sick and shut ins and sing Christmas carols for them at the holidays. Both the High School Youth Group and Plymouth Collegians, home for the holidays, would meet together for dinner in Fellowship Hall.  To honor their students, the church would also hold a baccalaureate for both high school and college graduates of the church.

COMING TO AN END

But by the turn of the 21st century, like most churches in Whiting, their  membership numbers were way down. There were now fewer than the original 50 who had started the church.  Because of the decline of major industries, many families had moved away and many of the original or sustaining members had passed on.

Remembering the way it had been in its heyday, Nell said that one thing about the original members is that they had good jobs at Standard Oil.

“And when their husbands passed,  their widows were very wealthy and retired to warmer climates. But they always remembered the church with financial gifts while they were alive,” she said. 

Even with fewer members, PCC still supported the community at large.  They gave to Haven House, held services for the WR Convalescent Home.  Their church building was the home for two AA groups.  They eventually opened a thrift store to help fund the church.  But times had changed and by 2014 the oldest church in Whiting had closed.

Now there was the matter of what to do with what was left of the treasury.

“We didn’t feel it could be divided up by the  remaining members of the church,” said Jim Facklam, Pastor when interviewed back in 2016.  “For over 135 years while the church was in existence, many, many families contributed so we felt that by supporting all these individual entities we selected was the way our church fathers would want us to go.”

Bonnie Henry, Chairman of the Board, vetted all the proposed entities. “Then we voted as a group as to who to give the money,” she explained.

These included the WR Historical Society, Whiting Library, Whiting Animal Shelter, Whitin Food Pantry, Salvation Army, Shriners Hospital and St. Joseph’s Soup Kitchen among others.    

“We all felt these were the  ones that would use the money toward the needs of the people, not a lot of administrative costs so that the money would go directly to the cause,” explained Rev. Facklam.  “Most of all we wanted to support our local community Robertsdale and Whiting.”

Soon after, the church sold its building to a Pentecostal church that had been looking for a permanent home in the community.   

*This history is based, in part, on a written history recorded by PCC members, Hazel Long Avery and Dorothy Hadley as well s newspaper clippings from the period.