Pleasant
Grove Church
Founded 1873
Where everyone is Welcome!
Current Church Information
Church History
Cemetery Information
Annual Ice Cream Social
Other Pleasant Grove Churches
Church History
Compiled by Donna Jacobs
Following is the story of Pleasant Grove Community Church that has been
compiled from past histories collected and written for various
anniversary celebrations of the church and also records kept over the
past 131 years. I have tried here to give a brief overview of
Pleasant Grove Church and to write as accurate an account of events as
we have records for. Some of the information included is from
memories of people with connections to the church. Also, I
hope the reader will get some insight into the personality of the people
of the community and the church.
It should also be noted here that most of these records are hand
written and some spellings of names are as I could interpret them.
Additional information will be added periodically as more records are
checked. There is more information on some of the people
listed and I would be willing to pass on this information if you contact
this site with your request.
Dorothy Sowers Bielefeldt wrote a history for the 90th anniversary of
the church in 1963. The poem that is printed above was written by
her and was read by her at this anniversary. Her grandparents were
involved in the early start of Pleasant Grove, helped with the
construction of the church and were long time pioneer members.
Norma Keltner contributed much historical information to this history
for our 95th anniversary. She interviewed many former members who
had memories of their time attending church here. In 1973, Donna
Jacobs compiled an additional history for our centennial celebration and
more information and history was added at that time.
Some of the following history comes from actual church records and
secretarial records kept over the years and dating back to 1896.
Also, some records were found in old Methodist Conference records
pertaining to early circuit riders and early meetings of the church.
These Methodist records were presented to the church by Mrs. Julius
(Helen) Black at our 90th anniversary and the Methodist records gave us
confirmation of some of the history we were unsure about. Mrs.
Black was Chairman of the History and Records Committee for the First
Methodist Church, Ames, Iowa.
We are grateful to have all of these records and to be able to pass this
information on to families of members and those who have had a
connection with Pleasant Grove Church over these many years. We
appreciate any information given to us by community members and
"old-timers" who have memories of events at the church. This is
history that would otherwise not be available to us except for
their willingness to share their memories. If you are someone who
can add to our information about the church, we would welcome your input
and would appreciate you contacting us. We are particularly
interested in information on marriages, baptisms and former members and
any other information that might contribute to our history.
More information from our records will be added in the future. We
have lists of ministers, baptisms, marriages and death records that will
be added. We do have some gaps in these records and would
appreciate any information you may have pertaining to the church that
might help fill these gaps in our history.
