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: 1950 to 1964
Compiled by Donna Jacobs
Pleasant Grove Church continued active during these years but sometime
in the early 1950's, Rev. Lookingbill's health failed and he could no
longer carry on his duties as minister at the church. Though the
congregation wanted to continue, they could not function without a
minister. In 1960, Rev. Hector Thompson, who was a retired Episcopal
Pastor from Ames, was asked if he would be interested in preaching at
Pleasant Grove. He helped the community people get the church open
again. Rev. Thompson started an Easter tradition that we still observe
today. Small potted, blooming plants are given to the children at the
Easter Sunday Service as an example of new birth and new growth. Thanks
to the help of Rev. Thompson in reopening the church in the 1960's the
church has been able to continue to hold services and other church
activities until the present time.
Rev. Thompson continued to serve as minister for 5 l/2 years until his
health failed. The church continued to have services with part-time
ministers, until Rev. Clay Lumpkins agreed to fill our pulpit. Rev. Clay
Lumpkins was pastor at the Congregational Church in Gilbert. Again we
had a connection with Gilbert. Rev. Lumpkin continued to serve for a
period of 4 years.
This period of time in Pleasant Grove gave the ladies of the church a
chance to gain some insight into what it was like to direct church
services. As the time for services at the Gilbert church overlapped the
time for services at Pleasant Grove, someone had to fill the time at the
beginning until Rev. Lumpkins could get to the church from Gilbert. This
task became the job of various ladies of the church. ( We could never
seem to persuade the men of the church to take on this task.) All of the
preliminaries of the service, including music, announcements and lessons
or scripture, etc. were taken care of before Rev. Lumpkins arrived. He
only had to walk in and preach the sermon for the day. This was a great
learning experience for us who took part. During his time at Pleasant
Grove we had our first confirmation class on Mar. 19, 1967. Three young
men of the church were confirmed. They were Robert Rahto, James Roberts,
and David Keltner.
In 1967, an altar was built for the church by Oscar Trueblood of Ames. A
new gas furnace was installed to replace the old coal furnace. The old
furnace had given up and in the process had blackened the basement with
soot. From the annual report for that year, I find it said, "that a
flurry of fund raising began and the furnace became a fact. It was
installed by the men of the church and was a great improvement over the
old coal furnace."
A work day was scheduled and the sooty basement became clean again and
with a new coat of paint over the walls and ceiling, and also on some of
the workers. On June 15th, 1968, it was decided that the outside of the
church needed a new coat of paint. Volunteers were needed again. The
word went out to all the members to bring sack lunches, paint brushes,
scrapers, water, ladders, and elbow grease and to come early, and the
job was done.
Following Rev. Lumpkins, we had a student from Iowa State University.
His name was Randy Pelham. He served the church for almost 4 years. Many
part time ministers have also preached here. Oliver Knott and Terry
Yocum served the church for several years each and returned later to
fill the pulpit when needed. The church continued to be served by
retired ministers, students and lay preachers. One of the biggest
challenges for a small congregation is the problem of finding and
supporting ministers.* A more extensive list of ministers and dates of
service will be added later.
In 1968, a Sunday School report showed that we had an average of 17
attending each Sunday. There were 20 to 30 people attending Sunday
Worship Services. At this time the Sunday School Supt. was Mrs Glen
Keltner. Sunday School Teachers were: Pre-school: Mrs. Carl Samson;
Primary: Mrs. Glen Keltner; Intermediate: Mrs. Martin Jacobs, Jr.;
Juniors: Mrs Ronald Rahto: Adult Leader: Mr. Clint Sheffield. The
youngest student was Brian Jacobs, age 4, and the oldest person
attending was Clint Sheffield, at age 89.
Board of Trustees at this time were: President, Carl Samson; Vice
President, Mrs. Rhoby Matters; Treasurer, Mrs. Stella Roberts;
Secretary, Mrs. Donna Jacobs. Other board members were: Mrs. Hilda
Petrus, Mrs. Dorothy Keltner, Mr. Louis Osborn.
The Ladies Club of the church was organized in January, 1964.
At this time the Ladies Club consisted of 13 members. Stella Roberts was
President; Vivian Osborn was Vice President; Dorothy Keltner was
Secretary; Harriet Durby was Treasurer, and Norma Keltner was Historian.
The ladies of this club were busy raising funds for the church and many
times came to the rescue of the church to help with paying bills. They
held money raising projects, such as bake sales, selling cook books,
tearing rag strips to make rugs and selling them. Vivian and Wayne
Osborn sold us chickens one year, and we had them dressed and frozen and
sold them to make money. Many good chicken dinners came from that
project.
The annual ice cream socials were always a big event of the church and
community. The ice cream was always hand cranked and made the Saturday
before the social at one of the members' homes. One of the grocery
stores in the area would let us store the gallons of ice cream in their
freezer until the following Saturday. The first few socials that we
held, we made the ice cream the same afternoon that we served it and
were still making ice cream when the people were arriving. Many people
enjoyed watching this process. There were children and adults who had
never seen ice cream made this way.
In order to save on the cost of ice, we would all freeze half-gallon
milk cartons of ice to use to chill the ice cream. Dorothy Keltner also
froze rhubarb for pies in milk cartons. All were surprised when two
cartons were broken open and inside was frozen rhubarb. Even the day of
the ice cream social was a busy day. The people of the church arrived
around noon to start carrying all the tables, chairs and benches up the
stairs to be put on the east lawn. Pies and cakes and drinks had to be
put out and then all hoped that it would not rain. We had very few times
when it rained on us through all those years of socials.
Eventually, our congregation got small enough that it was felt that
there was not enough people to do all the work necessary to hold ice
cream socials, so the socials were discontinued for a few years. Friends
and people from the community kept asking when we were going to have ice
cream socials again. So we have started the tradition again.
These years at Pleasant Grove were very busy and all members and young
people were very active. The Sunday School had a good turn out every
Sunday. During the summer, some years, we had Bible School for the
younger children. This was for a one week period, usually held in June.
One of our volunteer teachers was Legatha Petersen from Story City. She
was especially liked by the children and after the children got to know
her they all called her Grandma Petersen.
Our teens during that time formed a group called the Apostles. This
group, also, took part in activities to raise funds for special church
projects. Many of this group attended CFO camp. Their sponsor and leader
was Dorothy Keltner, who also chaperoned them on their trips and when
they attended the CFO camp.
In September of 1964, the city of Ames, Iowa, celebrated their
centennial.
We were invited to enter a float in their parade. One of our
members had a hayrack we could use. We decorated it, added a sign
about the church history, put the old pump organ on the hayrack and
added three church pews. Some ladies of the church dressed in pioneer
clothing and rode in the pews while Wanda Rahto played the old pump
organ and we sang old hymns as we rolled along.
Two of our young men from the Sunday School sat on the back of the
hayrack as pioneers. We really enjoyed the day and we
received a trophy as runners-up in the organization category of the
parade.
