Friday, October 31, 2014

Sepia Saturday: The Life of the Church

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.



This week’s Sepia Saturday photo showing party guests going through the buffet line could have been taken at any one of the many dinners at Cradock United Methodist Church.   Fellowship Dinners are what most Christian churches do.  Cradock was no exception.  In fact, if there wasn’t a dinner on the calendar when we were members back in the 1980s and 90s, we thought something was terribly wrong. 

There were dinners to thank volunteers.

Cradock United Methodist Church Dinner June 1984  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com


Cradock United Methodist Church Dinner June 1984  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
The "roast" for Reverend Ed was packed.
How did we even get to our seat?


There were dinners to bid farewell to a much loved minister and his family.













There were dinners to welcome the new one.

Cradock United Methodist Church Dinner 1984  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Eddie Leonard and Dana Tyson
Cradock United Methodist Church Dinner 1984  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Audrey Williams was confined
to a wheelchair, but she
could serve punch.



















There were Bunny Breakfasts for the kids at Easter.

Bunny Breakfast Cradock UMC 1986  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
The children eagerly watched for the Bunny to arrive.

I have long forgotten the many chicken casseroles and lemon meringue pies thoughtfully prepared at home by proud cooks, but I distinctly recall wonderful times spent in the kitchen with the men and women who kept that church alive.

People like Helen Barnes.  She was the Kitchen Nazi. 

Helen Barnes Cradock United Methodist Church http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
 Helen at the dishwasher
Wow - look at those pans!

She was good-natured but strict, even intimidating until you got to know her.  The kitchen was HER domain and she didn’t let you forget it.  That was one clean kitchen, cleaner than any commercial kitchen, without a doubt.  Helen didn’t let anyone else wash dishes.  You could brush the scraps into the trashcan; you could dry dishes; you could move the dishes to their rightful spot in the cabinets.  But nobody messed with Helen’s pride and joy, her commercial dishwasher. 






Some of the ladies of the Silver Anniversary Circle
Mary Williams, Cookie Mutter, Margaret Spruill,
Sue Scott, Frances Deyerle, Marian Garrett
And people like the ladies of the Silver Anniversary Circle.  My sister and I were among the youngest members.  I miss those days being in the kitchen with all those wise women, those funny women, those crazy women. 

We didn’t run out to a Cosco or Sam’s Club to purchase pre-packaged entrees and salads; we cooked from scratch.  Mary Williams taught me how to make gravy.  Betty Lewis and Margaret Spruill stood alongside me as we cut loaves of bread into cubes for homemade dressing – no bag of Pepperidge Farm turkey stuffing for Cradock's annual Thanksgiving Feast.  Measuring sage.  Mashing potatoes.  Shuttling gravy boats to the buffet table.  It was always a flurry of activity in the kitchen at Cradock Church.  And always laughter. 


Pig Picking Cradock United Methodist Church http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Not much left of the pig except the head !
The various circles rotated serving the United Methodist Men at their monthly dinner meetings. It was a good little fund-raiser for the Methodist Women and a strong motivation for the men to come out for the meetings.  The men had their own food-related fund-raisers too such as a pig-picking and a fish fry. 

Men like Ray Spruill, George Mutter, and Buddy Lewis couldn’t wait for their turn at the fryer which was tucked behind the church away from public view.



It’s not because they were selfless volunteers. It’s common knowledge that the Methodists were historically teetotalers very active in the temperance movement. The truth is that the men sneaked a cooler of beer into the boiler room in eyeshot of the fish fryer.  Men will be boys.  One time they were caught by the new preacher who looked at them and said, “I didn’t see a thing.” 

It’s true what they say about the power of food to bring people together, to build community.  People like the Lewises, the Spruills, the Mutters, and Helen Barnes were the life of Cradock Church.  Most of these fine people are gone now.  The dwindling congregation merged with another Methodist church and Cradock closed its doors.  The property has been sold.   But I have my Cradock Church cookbook with recipes and names to remind me of so many good times in a church that once was alive and well feeding its sheep in more ways than with a church dinner. 
















Get in line and sample the tasty blogoriffic concoctions prepared by the members of Sepia Saturday.




© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved

34 comments:

  1. Ah, those church dinners! How well I remember them. Our teenage youth group used to serve the dinners & then clean up after having dinner ourselves in the back room. I remember one time in particular when I was trying to impress a guy - I had glued long fake fingernails on because my own were always breaking. They looked beautiful & everything was fine until I stupidly volunteered to wash the dishes. Oops. After having my hands in that hot soapy water for a while, pink fingernails began floating to the surface & of course it would HAVE to be the guy I was trying to impress who first noticed them. I laughed, but I think my face matched the pink of those floating fingernails!

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  2. Reading this post made me hungry! Such warm memories of kind people and good food. Can there be a better combination? Love this post Wendy.

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    1. With Thanksgiving coming up, I'm looking forward to pulling out my much stained copy of the recipes we used at the church dinner.

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  3. I enjoyed your post Wendy. Wonderful memories. I have a couple of great church and school cookbooks too, they are the best!

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    1. They ARE the best. They have REAL recipes for the kinds of food real people eat. They also usually have great standards and good basics rather than trendy recipes.

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  4. Sorry to hear the church has closed but that must happen a lot these days, as church congregations are getting a lot older.

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    1. You hit the nail on the head. And the church is in a community in transition -- families with the means left for better communities with stronger schools. The aging church members didn't have the energy to do the kind of work that young economically disadvantaged families needed. I certainly hope that whoever bought this church recognizes what a great facility it is and will build maybe a non-denominational community church.

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  5. It certainly was cooking on a grand scale. Why is it that I have come back to Sepia Saturday on a week that seems to be dominated by tables full of food - and there is me on a diet!.

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  6. What a delightful post! that kind of collaborative event brings people of all ages! and obviously of varied skills! together to have fun

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    1. You are so right. In my circle were women who couldn't cook worth a lick, but they were great organizers or clever with table decorations. I remember some of the men who were so good at welcoming visitors and putting them at ease.

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  7. Love the Bunny Breakfast! And church cookbooks are the VERY BEST -- the wisdom of all those women; the collective experience and knowledge.

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    1. I love good ol' fashioned cooking, down-to-earth, and REAL. No scouring the market for specialty ingredients.

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  8. Glad to see the men got into the act as well; no doubt they thought they had earned their tipple.

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    1. Oh yes, the men earned a tipple. What's a tipple?

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  9. Were you, perhaps, the church historian that you have so many photos of church dinners? Do you have them in albums? I suppose, in another few years, the descendants of these people who are now gone will be thrilled to find your post with their ancestors in an informal setting. I know I would be!

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    1. No, I wasn't the historian. When I was thinking about this answer to the prompt, I remembered having pictures of Reverend Ed's "roast," but I was surprised to find so many other photos. And guess what -- I have names on the back. Go me!

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  10. What an enjoyable post about a community of people who hosted/hostessed so many gatherings. But a community does go through birth, growth and then decline, much as living things. I've been a happy member of several of these communities (usually built in churches.)

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    1. Watching a church struggle and die is hard. I think I'd rather be there at its beginning .

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  11. I come from a family of Methodists who were tee totallers and I have certificates of their involvement with the temperance movement. My Grandmother signed a certificate that she would abstain from alcohol when she was six...........and she did!

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    1. Certificates -- that would be interesting to see. I suspect if any of my Methodists signed such a certificate, they eventually broke their word.

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    2. They are very colourful. You must have missed that week :)

      http://www.shazlex.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/peace-and-plenty-reward-of-temperance.html#comment-form

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    3. How did I miss that? I checked my own blog and see that I did indeed participate that week, and I make a point of visiting everyone. Anyway, thanks for sending the link. Those certificates are quite fancy and colorful.

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  12. The church supper must be one of the few common experiences that unite all religions. I can still remember the warm aroma of the kitchen at my grandmother's church. It was nothing like a school cafeteria or restaurant.

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    1. So true. Somewhere this same story is being played out at a church preparing for a Brunswick Stew dinner.

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  13. I'm wondering what a pig-picking and a fish fry could be. A spit roast and a barbecue maybe?

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    1. There's a picture of the cooker for the pig - in fact, you can see the pig's head. At a pig-picking, the WHOLE pig is roasted in a big cooker, like in the photo. Supposedly everyone just picks meat out of the pig right off the grill, but frankly that's a bit gross, so usually the meat is removed from the pig, chopped and then served with barbecue sauce. A fish fry is a separate event; fish is battered and deep-fried in oil.

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  14. Oh! This is such a fun post Wendy! What wonderful memories. I have a few church cookbooks in my cabinet as well. A few of our favorite recipes have come from one that was produced back when I was a child. The cookbook belonged to my mom, but now I have it. It's seen better days, but it's still a treasure.

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    1. There is nothing better than a well-loved and well-used cookbook that still has gravy stains and cookie dough bits on the pages.

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  15. What a treasure that cookbook is, prompting so many memories; I wish I’d held on to more of mine. Making everything from scratch is an art and sadly dying out in this busy modern life.

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    1. The best part of a church dinner used to be getting all that good HOMEMADE food. Nowadays the church dinner is not quite so enticing but instead a collection of store-bought cakes and platters. People say, "I don't have time." Poppycock -- they just don't TAKE time.

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