Services

One thing I learned in talking with my dad about Mt Calvary was how many times they actually were IN church! Now, I feel like I'm at my church a lot and growing up felt I was at every function and every service at that church, but I don't think even that compared to how many times my dad found himself in church. The had so many opportunities to worship back then, which is something rarely found today. There was always Sunday School and normal Sunday morning service as well as Sunday evening service. There was also prayer meetings on Wednesdays and youth groups. But, they also had many special services throughout the year. For New Year's Eve they had a service where they would pray in the new year. Isn't that wonderful?! I love that idea! The kids would be in the basement, eating donuts and hot cocoa. Maybe playing a little ping-pong or something, while the adults met upstairs. Then when midnight would roll around they would either be on their knees praying or having communion. Dad said it wasn't until college that he actually was up and out in the streets to experience New Year's Eve the way most of us normally do. They would have a Thanksgiving service from 10-11 and another one in the evening as a time of praise and thankfulness. He did say though, by the time everyone had their turkey, they were all pretty sleepy for that evening service. ;-) Every Good Friday from 12-3 my grandpa, Father Dawson, and Rev. Lott (both from other churches) would get together and perform a service together. Always talking about the 7 words on the cross. This is something they did each and every year for many years. Then grandpa would give an evening service that night as well. I think hearing all that makes me realize even more what a testament to the love of Christ my grandpa, and grandma too for that matter, had. And, the desire he had to offer his congregation the opportunity to worship together and often. And, you know my grandma was right by his side the entire time. Our lives are often so busy we don't take the time to give praise and thankfulness to God like we ought to. We don't take time off to pray in the new year or listen to the story of the cross on our day off. I'm sure there were many times that dad got tired of going to church all the time. I know I did as a kid. But, to still have that foundation and knowledge and love given to you, before he even really knew to appreciate it is something in itself to be thankful for.

Bribery

In order for Miss Dodge to get my dad to behave better and do his work in Children's Church, she pulled him aside one day and told him she would give him a nickel if he learned the 100th Psalm. Well, heck!, a nickel was a lot back then, so he set to work to memorize that Psalm. He worked really hard and learned it and recited it to Miss Dodge and got his nickel. She realized this was the way to encourage my dad, so she continued to give him verses to memorize, all with the promise of a nickel if he did. He learned several verses this way. I didn't ask him if Miss Dodge lived long enough to see him become a pastor, but I wonder if those verses he memorized to get those nickels were verses he remembered and used when he was in college and later seminary and if she realized that she planted that seed all those years ago just in her attempt to get a little, ornery boy to do his lessons at church.

Children's Church

The picture above is the church my grandpa pastored for over 50 years. This little church called Mount Calvary had a ground floor and a basement. That was it. It had a sanctuary on the ground floor with a larger room in the back, a bathroom, and another small room beside the bathroom. When I was a kid that room was full of my grandpa's books, but I believe dad told me it was used at that time as a Sunday School classroom. Then, you would walk downstairs at the back of the church to get to the basement. This was a large room with heavy curtain dividers to section it off. The area you walked into immediately at the bottom of the stairs, they sectioned off for children's church. A very old Miss Josephine Dodge and her sister Miss Camilla Dodge ran the children's church during dad's time in there. They were spinsters who lived on Blackhorse Pike by the Wentzels. Dad said their favorite song was "I Met Jesus at the Crossroads" and they sang it every week - which dad used as the opportunity to sing it to me as well ... in its entirety. Even after I begged him to stop. Now the teachers would scotch tape something under one chair in the room and if you were good, they would call on your name to look under your chair to see if they had something under there. If they did, they got to sit in the gold chair the next week and get a lollipop. Dad sometimes had that tag under his chair, but he never won the prize. Why, you ask? Because he was never good, therefore never got his name called. He said he could tell me stories of some of the things he and his brother Carl would do to aggravate his teachers, so I think I'll have to post about those some time soon. :-)

*Thanks to Aunt Judi for the picture I was able to copy from her blog

http://www.runnemederemembered.blogspot.com/

Mount Calvary Union Church

Mount Calvary Union Church is the church that my grandfather was the minister at for over 50 years. Only ending his ministry when he was physically unable to do it anymore at the age of 88. It's a quaint little church just down the sidewalk from my grandparents' house. There's something about that church that just brings a smile to my face. Though we only would visit my grandparents once a year, I have many memories - snippets of things - that I remember about that place. They will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of that church next year sometime, so I asked my dad to share some memories of that little church that he called home for all of his young life. I asked him to list some of the people he knew over the years that came into his life during his life and he started listing off names of people, sharing brief stories about each of them. Going almost so quickly, that I couldn't keep up! Here are some of the people he mentioned...

Bill and Marion Manduka

Bob and Hazel Fisher

Paul and Vi Turner

Ben and Peg Wallace

Mr. and Mrs. Perozzi

Mr. and Mrs. Youngblood

El and Blanche Wentzel

Axel and Hulda Aspling (they referred to them as "grandma" and "grandpa")

Mrs. Nordt

Mrs. Haines

Mr. and Mrs. Harris

Mr. and Mrs. Krudwig

Mr. and Mrs. White

Mr. and Mrs. Kenders

These were just a few of the names I caught and was able to write down. In the stories he told, that I'll post about later, you'll hear more of the names of people that touched his life in many, many ways. Some of whom even I remember meeting and witnessing the deep love they had for my dad and my mom and my grandparents. This little church housed a great many people over the years, though it is small in size, and touched each and every one of them in one way or another. I'm not sure when the picture above was taken, but that is the front of the church, with my grandpa standing on the steps. I look forward to getting back there again sometime soon and walking down the little sidewalk to the church steps like I did when we would visit. Just wish that that little trip would be made after getting ready in my grandparents' house, with grandpa walking around, making sure dad was speaking out of a KJ bible and not the NIV, which dad would always tease him about. I miss that time. But, the church still stands as a testament to both my grandfather and the wonderful people of Runnemede that made it such a special place to worship the Lord.

Dirigibles

Lakehurst Naval Air Station was the landing grounds for dirigibles back in the 1950s. And, Lakehurst was just 15-20 miles north of Runnemede. Dad can still remember clearly seeing those dirigibles coming from a distance and as it flew in, it got lower in the sky, because it was approaching it's landing strip out at the station. Now you might be picturing the Goodyear blimp like we see flying over football stadiums and baseball games, but that's not what these were. These were mammoth flying ships - HUGE, amazing pieces of engineering. Dad said it was like they flew right over the house and would black out the sky with its enormity! Now this was during the Cold War, so in dad's young mind, it was like a huge Russian missile was approaching and it would oftentimes scare him. But, they became very commonplace and that fear didn't persist. He said he would see these things almost weekly, fly in from a distance, decend as it got closer. and fly overheard on its way to the naval station and was always an amazing sight. The picture above is of one of these flying ships as it ascended from the naval yard back in 1959.

The Lumberyard

When my dad was 7 yrs old, he was at an evening service at church when he heard the fire sirens go off outside. Because Runnemede at the time only had a volunteer fire department, several of the men in the congregation left quickly. Dad said it was either fall or winter, because it was already dark outside at the time. Though many looked around, wondering what the fire sirens could mean, they stayed and finished out the service. It wasn't until the service was over that he began to hear a commotion outside, followed by his brother Carl running in the church crying. Dad immediately ran out the front doors of the church to see what was going on. As soon as he stepped outside he was greeted by a wall of red. The sky had filled with the glowing sky from a fire at the lumberyard just a little over a block away. He had never seen anything like it and was scared to death! He said he was convinced that Satan was coming for all of them on a ball of fire. The fire was so intense that the sky was just bright red from the thing. After his mom assured them that they would be ok, they went home and got into bed. The fire still raging into the night. The next morning, they woke up and the fire was out, but he said that memory of that moment when he stepped outside the church doors is as vivid today as it was then - the glowing red sky of that massive fire.

The First Ball Game

When dad told me this story a couple months ago, I was holding on to it, because he wanted to have me do a talky blog with it. He thought it would better explain his experience. But, we've both been so overly busy, I haven't been able to get any new stories. So, I figured I might as well post it and do a talky blog about it later to add more of his ideas to the story. Here is dad's recollection of his very first major league baseball game experience...

As many of you know, by 1959 Dad was deeply in love with the sport of baseball. He had started getting into it a couple years previous to that. So, by 1959 he was obsessed completely with the game. He was a HUGE Phillies fan and listened to every game on the radio, cheering on his favorite players and occasionally getting to watch a game on their little b/w tv. On Aug 18, 1959 dad was invited to go a Phillies game at Connie Mack Stadium with David Wallace, Phil Musumaci, and the David's dad Ben. Ben paid for everything in fact, so that my dad could go. Now, Philadelphia is known as the city of concrete and steel. You drive into it and it's not particularly pretty. There are smoke stacks and buildings and it's fairly dirty. Not a lot of grass and plantings around. Well, they arrived at the stadium and walked in on the ground level, having to climb up to get to Grand Stand level. He said what happened next was perhaps the most sensual experience of his life - and by "sensual" he means "sense-heightening". Don't think I didn't raise my eyebrow when he said that. ;-) Anyway, when he walked out into the stands, he was immediately greeted by massive color. Green lawns, red uniforms (they were playing the Cincinnati Red Legs, so they had red uniforms too), browns dirt, etc... The players he had loved and watched on his small b/w tv were now it full form, in living color, right in front of his eyes. The smells of the stadium like cigar smoke, hot dogs, all permeated the air. The feeling he had inside as he looked around and experienced this whole arena was indescribable. You have to remember that his life was centered around baseball. He lived and breathed the sport. No one he knew loved it like he did. Collected full baseball card sets like he did. And, here he was living his dream basically by sitting in the stands at the ball field, ready to see his heroes play in front of his eyes. The game started off being very exciting. The Phils were up 8-0 very early in the game, but eventually lost 14-11. Though the outcome wasn't what he had hoped, the experience of that very first ball game is seared into his senses and as real today as it was then. He's been to many ball games since, but none quite as amazing as his first back on that summer day in August of 1959.