Remembrances of Our Early History
The world was at war when this church struggled to be born. Europe was in flames and hardships abounded on every side here at home. We had no rich people in our company. We counted among our people a rural mail carrier, a store manager, a barber, a painter, a Bank teller, several widows, a woodsman, a jailer, a motel operator, several who were retired, a carpenter, a teacher and so on. We had a whole bunch of wonderful young people and children. One night our little Official Board met to decide whether to move forward in the face of insurmountable odds, to stand still, or give up. After discussing the options that lay before us, Mr. Bridges said, "This is not the easiest time to start a church, but it is the best time!" We all agreed and pledged to do our utmost to move forward.
The first services for the WESLEY COMMUNITY METHODIST CHURCH were held on the first Sunday in December 1940. At that time there was only one Methodist Church in Gainesville and a need was felt for a new congregation in the northern part of the city. The First Methodist Church, under the leadership of Dr. Henry W. Blackburn, determined to establish such a congregation on Glen Springs Road, between 9th and Alabama Streets near the subdivision known as "Suncrest". In cooperation with Rev. Ronk Buhrman, Director of the Wesley Foundation at the University of Florida, arrangements were made to move a small wooden structure that had formerly served as a student activities building near the campus. Mr. Tom Green, a member of First Church, was in the heavy hauling business, and had the necessary equipment to move the building from the Wesley Foundation property to the lot on Glen Springs Road. The building was brought out on a large flat-bed truck and positioned on stacked cross ties that served as the first foundation. True, the floor was uneven and it was hard to level the wickless kerosene circulating heater that was necessary to fight off the winter chill, but the project was under way and Rev. & Mrs. Robert J. Gisler, then serving the Cedar Key-Chiefland Circuit, were called in to conduct a week of Revival Meetings.
The little building only seated 70 people. Every square foot of space was used, leaving only room for a small piano, a pulpit, communion table and altar rail.
The result of the week's meeting was "zero" -- not a single member! As the Gislers drove back to Cedar Key with a car full of home made jams and Jellies and canned goods and all sorts of expressions of love and appreciation, Rev. Gisler commented to his wife, "I don't know where the Bishop will send us next June, but I know ONE thing -he won't appoint us to Wesley Community!" Came June, six months later, and the Bishop appointed them to Wesley Community Church where they served, taught, built and worked for four happy years, leaving a congregation of 150 members.
A temporary Parsonage was provided until a permanent one could be purchased. The Gislers moved in to the new parsonage on Saturday, Dec. 6, 1941 -- the next day was Dec. 7th -- Pearl Harbor Day!
The war years brought many unusual activities: the canning kitchen where community women learned to preserve food; gasoline rationing; red tokens for purchasing meat; etc. In the canning kitchen we learned how to seal cookies in tin cans so they would remain fresh and unbroken when shipped overseas to servicemen. The Preacher and his wife were denied sufficient gasoline to serve their work, so they bought bicycles from Mr. Paul G. Mann, manager of the local Western Auto Store and Treasurer of the church. Because of the shortage of sugar, many things disappeared from the shelves of our stores -- among them, grape juice for communion. We could get plenty of wine, but no grape juice. Since the law of the church forbade the use of alcoholic wine in the communion, the Preacher was stymied until he remembered that soft drink people could get sugar, so he went to the local bottler of "Grapette" -- a noncarbonated, artificially flavored, grape soft drink that was quite popular at the time. Following the service, a number of people came to the Preacher, smiling, wanting to know what kind of "grape juice" had been used for the communion service -- they LIKED it! Because of the gas rationing we had to carry our weekly church mail to the Post Office on our bicycles and do the stamping and sorting in the lobby. We used a little stamp moistener to save licking so many stamps. It was a simple tool, a little plastic tube with a sponge rubber stopper in one end. When filled with water the sponge rubber end served in place of the human tongue. One day when the Preacher stood at the stamp window purchasing his stamps, the lady clerk, wanting to be helpful, offered her large moistening sponge as a thoughtful aid. She was a member of First Church, a beautiful lady of dignity and kindness. When she saw that the Preacher had brought his own green plastic tube of water, she leaned forward, looking out of her little window, and in a voice that reverberated through the marble lobby catching the attention of everyone present, announced, "OH, YOU BROUGHT YOUR OWN LICKER WITH YOU!"
We soon outgrew the cramped quarters and began some simple additions. When First Church began building their new sanctuary, we used their old folding doors to create more classroom space. We needed a place for our young people -- and this created a big problem. Mr. Mann lived on a large wooded lot where many big pine trees grew -- about where the Searstown Mall was later built. He offered us a pine tree for wood for the building. Mr. Horne who ran a sawmill at the corner of Glen Springs Road and Alabama Street was persuaded to cut the tree into lumber. Mr. Green offered the use of one of his big trucks to haul the tree to the mill. Everything was set. The tree was cut down by the men and boys of the church but when it was positioned on the back of the truck we found that it was too long and too heavy out behind the truck so that the front wheels were lifted off the ground. By piling all the helpers on the front fenders and hood of the truck we were able to get the wheels on the ground so the truck could be steered -- however, every time we hit a bump, the front wheels would slowly rise, then settle back again.. We finally made it to the mill and soon thereafter the lumber was delivered and the "Youth House" was built -- a real homegrown endeavor!
We wanted a real Communion Table, but "store bought" ones were far too expensive, so the Preacher and his wife went to Sears and bought an unfinished, wooden breakfast table, got plywood and paneled in the space between the legs then drew and cut out the letters for the words "IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME" from plywood with a jigsaw, put it all together and had a nice altar. Beautiful! Later they made two 3-step wooden candle sticks, painted white. We were so happy. There was a window in the door that led to the Sunday School rooms. Anyone walking through the hallway could be seen by everyone in church -- an annoying distraction. We located a company up in New Jersey that made a product called "Windowphane" -- an oiled paper with glue on one side and stained glass window colors and designs painted on the face. A couple of rolls of that stuff, carefully applied, and the problem was solved and beauty was added to the little sanctuary!
This was war-time, and the Esty Organ Co. was busy making "Field Organs" for the military chaplains. We found that the Miller Piano Company in Jacksonville had the same organ in a furniture case of walnut wood. It was light weight, had no motor for it was powered by a foot pumped bellows and it played loud enough for our use at Wesley. Mrs. Lowe was promoted from "Pianist" to "Organist"! It was a happy day for all of us. And because of its light weight, we could harry the little organ from place to place as needed.
Things made of metal were non-existent. We could not even buy a little baptismal bowl, but the Publishing House announced that they could supply a wooden bowl and Mr. Bass was happy to buy one and present it to us.
We wanted much to have a regular Methodist Hymnal, but they were expensive and many of our people were accustomed to singing from "shaped notes". After much struggle we had the money and were delighted to learn that the Hymnal came in "round" or "shaped" notes. We bought half of them round and half shaped and had a wonderful time singing the old and the new songs.
Dr. Blackburn and our District Superintendent, H. Carter Hardin, wanted to start a church in East Gainesville, just east of the Jewish Cemetery. They located an unused chicken-brooder building, cleaned it up and got Mr. Green to move it to the selected lot. It was named "Centenary Methodist Church"in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the organization of the Florida Conference in Tallahassee. It was put on a circuit with Wesley Community. At first we only had 7:30 pm services there, moving Wesley's service up to 5 pm. This didn't work out, however because of something the city-boy Preacher didn't know. Mr. Holder, our Sunday School Superintendent, patiently explained that we had to go back to the 7:30 hour at Wesley "because the cows wouldn't let down their milk until the sun went down". So we split the difference: BOTH services began at 11 am and at 7:30 pm. The Preacher and his wife would start the 11 am service at Centenary with a hymn and sermon and leave letting the laymen receive the offering, do the responsive reading, other hymns, etc., while the Preacher and his wife raced across town to Wesley, where the laymen had started the service with hymns, prayers, readings and offerings -- himself getting there in time to start the sermon at 11:30!
We had grown so much that we just HAD to have a larger church. We contacted Russell Seymour, a fine architect in Jacksonville and a member of Snyder Memorial Methodist Church. He came up with some delightful plans for a "Florida Church". It would have a one-way sloping roof with the highest part to the left of the building and a row of windows up at the top. This was designed so that warm air rising would go out those windows and draw cooler air in the lower windows -- there was no such thing as "air conditioning" of churches at that time. The floor was to be of cement with large rounds of cross-cut pine logs floated into the wet cement then sanded and polished to a high natural pine luster. The exterior walls were to be made from Ocala lime rock. This hard rock forms a crust over the limestone that is mined in that area and is used for road building foundations. This top crust rock is waste material for them and could be gotten cheaply. We later found that this was actually petrified wood. About the center of the east wall, about 3 or 4 feet from the ground is a petrified log in the shape of a cross. (This is what is now the Social Hall.)
Work was progressing on the new Sanctuary for First Church and for the Chapel at the Wesley Foundation. Our new church was just beginning. Bishop Arthur J. Moore was to lay the cornerstone for First Church and Wesley Foundation and every effort was made to include OURS making it a 3-way event the same afternoon. The southeast corner was laid up in rock and a place for the corner stone was blocked out and later that afternoon, OUR cornerstone was laid with appropriate ceremonies by the Bishop. Everyone pitched in to help with the new building. We needed "rip-rap" for the concrete -- coarse pieces of rock or stone to be mixed in with the cement for the foundation. We all walked around with open eyes picking up old bricks, broken concrete blocks, rocks, and stuff like that. The pile grew high and we broke the pieces with sledge hammers. Wooden frames were built with various grades of chicken wire nailed to them so that large pieces could be separated from the smaller ones. Many an evening saw the Preacher and his wife shoveling rip-rap against the screens for use the next day. We made our own concrete, mixing it in a hand-turned, barrel-shaped cement mixer. Many times we worked at night by lights strung from the 'end of extension cords. The ladies made sandwiches and boiled strong coffee in a large blue enamel coffee pot over an open wood fire, ammunition against the bitter cold. Sometimes we had to stop because the cement froze. The southeast corner of the building has a heavily reinforced foundation. We expected to build a tower there.
Then everything stopped suddenly. Mr. Wigglesworth, the only stone mason in town, the man who had done such a masterful work on our growing wall, was drafted! He's the one who explained that in setting rocks, the mason must heft it several times, tossing it up to see where the center of gravity is so that the heaviest part is down, thus making a stable wall. He's the one who set the stone cross in the east wall.