Mt. Calvary Union Church

The 100th anniversary of Mt. Calvary Union Church is coming up in two years. My father pastored there for over 50 years.

I wrote a commentary for the church to use for this event. This was written a couple of years ago -- my memory was much fresher then. I included all the pictures I had from the years mom and dad were in that church -- only about 40 of them.

I have pasted in what I wrote back in 2005 -- THIS IS REALLY LONG. The pictures are in an album and not scanned into my computer, so until I get a chance to scan the pictures into the computer, the dialog that goes with the pictures will not be included at this time.

Here goes:


I was only one year old when Dad became pastor. The first thing I do remember is a hurricane that came through that November. Yes, I do remember that. There were two large cherry trees in the back yard in the corner by the garage, and they both came down in that storm. We lost of lot of trees in the neighborhood that time. We also lost electricity, and we had a couple of kerosene lanterns for light. It’s amazing what God lets us remember, isn’t it?

I remember the broken windows in the front of the house from kids hitting the ball too far while they were playing in the school yard.

I remember the church basement being just the room where the kitchen is (not a kitchen at that time) and the room where the furnace is. The rest of the basement was unfinished. When the Sunday school expanded, they finished the basement. When they did that they put in plumbing for the upstairs bathroom, made a small study for the pastor, and put in the folding doors. The back room upstairs was always used for prayer meeting lesson then people would divide into groups. Later they all stayed together. There was always a meeting after prayer meeting == deacons or trustees or mission committee or Sunday school teachers.

I remember that the church had lots of missionaries and when I was growing up we had missionaries visit the church probably once a month. Some missionaries I remember that the church helped to support are: The Hahns (of course), Mary Teagarten, China Inland Mission (general fund), Mr. Zodiatis (Am. Bd of Mission to the Greeks), Anthony Zioli, Sr, Howard and Fran Boyll – missionaries to Appalachia in Bristol, TN, Haluwasa (Uncle Bill can tell you about that), Lois Wheatley (RN) and her husband Dr. (can’t remember his name) to Colombia, I believe. Sunday Breakfast Association. I know there were many others. There were missionaries in Pakistan whose names I don’t recall, but they visited our church at least twice when they were home on furlough. I also think we help build up the Laurel Springs mission homes, and whenever new missionaries came there to stay they spoke at our church.

I also remember when we went from cesspools to sewers. I was in third grade, so that would have been 1950-51. The diggers would leave their soda bottles after finishing their drinks and I would collect them and cash them in. Ten cents was big bucks back then. That’s also near the time when the church went from clapboard to the grey asbestos siding that you will see in most of the pictures. It’s also the time the church put in the blacktop driveway along the side of the church, put in sidewalks in the front from the main walk to the downstairs door, and from the downstairs door to the street. That door downstairs is not original to the church. I think I’m in the right time frame for that. I remember skating in my metal screw-on skates around and around those walks because they were new and so smooth. I could really fly!

We had a lot of weddings in the church, which I loved, of course, even as a very little girl, I loved the weddings. I wish I could remember all the names, but most prominent is my mind are the “Wilson girls.” There were 5 sisters, and all but Patty, who was the youngest, went to West Jersey Nursing School. They were Jean, Doris, Virginia, Joanna, and Patty. I spent many Sunday’s at The Wilson's home which was in Gloucester playing with Patty. Anyway, Jean was engaged to be married, but her fiancé was killed in the Korean war. Doris married shortly after that, then Virginia, then Joanna, who married David Moser. The Mosers were in the church until they either moved away or died. The youngest Moser, Judy, played the piano in church as an alternative to either me or Gail Crompton.

When I was a teenager we had a rather large and active youth ‘program.’ We didn’t call it a program. Uncle Bill Mnduka, Mrs. Kenders, and Elwood Wentzel, Sr. were our transportation and those dear people drove us all over the place to attend multi-church youth activities. Uncle “El” had a pick-up and, yes, we’d dangerously pile in the back and he’d take us to Haluwasa for Friday night get togethers. Mrs. Kenders helped with that. Uncle Bill took us to Youtharama in Philadelphia, and I’m sure he drove us other places as well. There was a monthly skating party for the area church youth at Delwood Skating rink down in Glassboro. We went to Christian Cinema somewhere in Philly from time-to-time as well.

All this time, of course, we had several musical groups led and coached and taught by Mr. Walter Prichard. I learned more music theory from him that I did at my structured classes when I was taking piano/organ/violin lessons. We had a small orchestra. Let me see if I can remember all the teens who participated in that:
Mark Drexler – trumpet
Bobby Bowers – trombone
Kathy Kenders – viola and French horn
Judi Drexler – piano, organ, violin
Stanley Lentz – clarinet
Jane Lentz – flute
Mr. Prichard – trumpet
Gayle Crompton -- piano

We also had our brass trio (Mark, Bobby, Mr. P) and when they played I liked to suck on a lemon just to irritate my brother, who just couldn’t play when I did that.

We had a girls trio and/or quartet. Our big problem was not singing. We did great in rehearsals, just when we got in front of an audience we seemed to get the giggles. Once we settled down, though, I think we did a good job.

We had some great VBS weeks. VBS went from 9 to noon for two weeks, Monday through Friday, and then on Friday night we had a closing program. I remember we had a lot of kids attend. Most years I didn’t want to go, but had to because I was the ‘preacher’s kid’. I wanted to be in bed and not getting up early to go to VBS. Even then I liked to sleep in! My father taught us a couple of new songs each year. We had prizes for Bible activities we had to do at home. They had really nice crafts to make. And, of course, the Bible.


Dad had a boy’s class on Sunday evenings before the evening service. I remember the Kenders boys (David and Dick) were in that class as well. So was Don Turner. I'm pretty sure Ralph Aspling and Don Bodden were also in that group.

One family that attended the church was the Cairns. The Cairns (Jim Cairns was the father of the girls Jean and Nancy) lived in Haddon Heights. Jim’s mother (I only knew her as Mrs. Cairns) lived in Runnemede on 6th avenue with her unmarried daughter, Edith. After old Mrs. Cairns died, the family moved on. Mrs. Mahorter, one of the older members (about the age a grandparent would have been for me) lived in the house just across the street from the parsonage, next to the school. She had an apple tree in the backyard, which fruit we enjoyed in season. They were green apples and wormy, but we loved them. I remember her so fondly. She babysat us when Mom and Dad had something that was kids-free. And she was the one person in the church that taught me to look at clouds and see pictures.

In the 50s and 60s every May we had a mother/daughter banquet. It was quite well attended and young ladies couldn’t wait to get to be 9 years old so they could attend. I guess the moms figured if a girl was 9 she would behave as a young lady should. We usually went to a diner in Collingswood. I don’t remember the name of it. It was really special, too, because we got to “dress up.”

The back porch of the parsonage wasn't always enclosed. When it was, I guess I was about 5, it gave us an extra room -- it became the playroom.

On year the adult class had a picnic. It was held at Whale Beach, where several members of the church at that time had summer homes. The Thorns, The Shillingfords, and the Rowands. All those homes were washed away in the spring storm of 1962. I remember that day. We had SAND sandwiches. It was cold and windy and the sand was blowing, thus the SANDwiches. My mom had made cream cheese and olive sandwiches which normally I really like, but that day they were very, very gritty.

I remember that each July the church would have a Sunday school picnic. We went to Lake Oberst for several years, then switched over to Lake Palatine. Finally, the picnics were held at homes of people in the church. We had so many kids in our Sunday school back in the 50s that we had to hire a bus to get us all to the picnic -- cars were still a luxury.

That is the end of what I wrote about what I remembered about church, based on the pictures I had. If any of you remember more, put them in the comments section and I'll add them in.