Finally Getting Information

[Waski_the_Squirrel]

I have been attempting to complete a history of my church for a long time. I had hoped to have a nice booklet ready for the centennial. The problem was people were promising me information, and not getting it to me! I scanned pictures from the albums at the church, wrote down information from the scrapbooks, but people were holding out on me.

Last week, at the centennial celebration, a woman delivered three of the books I've been asking for. This week she delivered five more.

I now have a new goal: finish the centennial booklet before school starts. Better late than never, I suppose.

At least I had a 1-sheet history ready for the centennial.

But seriously: it shouldn't take this long to locate books and get them to me. It's not like my project was a secret!

 

[mei lan]

People be procrastinatin'. :Ninja

 

[MacDaddy]

People be procrastinatin'. :Ninja

Yepper.

It's all about priorities.

Sounds like you are going to leave quite the legacy. Not your intent I'm sure, but kudos to you for tackling he project.

 

[Waski_the_Squirrel]

Sounds like you are going to leave quite the legacy. Not your intent I'm sure, but kudos to you for tackling he project.

It's not my intent to leave a legacy, but I do hope to leave a resource for someone in the future (maybe when the church celebrates its bicentennial?) so that they don't struggle like I am. I've been telling people that the history isn't for us, it's for the future.

Right now, I wrote up a big stack of notecards by looking through the old minutes. Now I'm trying to type in the list of former ministers. It's really hard to read some of the handwriting, but it's kind of cool to see the old fountain pen script. It was also cool to reach the 1950s and read entries written by our 94 year old member.

I also stumbled across some drama: in 1956 the church was down to 81 cents in its bank account. In 1972, they had a big showdown with the presbytery over shutting the church down. In 1982, they had a huge blow-out with a minister they shared with another church and fired him!

Once again, I'm incredibly grateful to Mr. Huntley. He did all the record keeping in the early days of the church and seemed to be as meticulous and interested in the church as I am. I wish I could have met him!

Apparently the moderator of the presbytery used to read this book and sign it with comments. I read an entry in the 1950s which could have almost been written by a teacher: it really scolded the entries at that time.

 

[Genevieve]

Once again, I'm incredibly grateful to Mr. Huntley. He did all the record keeping in the early days of the church and seemed to be as meticulous and interested in the church as I am. I wish I could have met him!

Maybe you will meet him in the next life!