Through our diligent faith in Jesus Christ and our profound belief in his teaching we put our faith in motion and go out and teach the world that Jesus Christ is Lord!

WE PUT OUR FAITH IN MOTION

Welcome

Through our diligent faith in Jesus Christ and our profound belief in his teaching we put our faith in motion and go out and teach the world that Jesus Christ is Lord!

WE PUT OUR FAITH IN MOTION

Welcome

Church Our address is 12611 North Wilson Street, Mead, WA. 99021. (map)On the corner of Wilson and Farwell Rd

Call for details 509-466-7866

Contact Us

Rev. Jeff Wallace

 

Pastor Jeff has been pastor in charge with us at Mead UMC for five years now.  He was ordained Elder in 2007, and he says, “I am very privileged to walk with Christ and this congregation here in this part of the world!”


You can read from his regular column “You & Me. Us & God” in our church newsletter The Heartbeat.


Our United Methodist Book of Discipline gives specific guidance to the role of the pastor of a local church. The Discipline states that the pastor is to minister within the local church and to the world at large. He or she is to be the administration officer of the local church and to assume that the organizational concerns of the congregation are provided for. He/she is to oversee the total ministry of the local church in the nurturing ministry and in fulfilling its mission of witness and service in the world.


 

Our Pastor

This site is created to establish an online presence for Mead United Methodist Church. Through our diligent faith in Jesus Christ and our profound belief in his teaching we will go out and teach the world that Jesus Christ is Lord!

 

Our Mission

We are a congregation gathering to worship, celebrating new life in Christ, caring for each other, and extending God’s love into the world. As God calls us, we respond by saying “YES”.

 

Our Vision

To become a beacon community, inviting God’s Light and Grace to shine through us so that all may come to a fuller relationship with Jesus Christ.To Encourage, Inspire, Guide, and Promote Daily Living in Jesus Christ.
The heart of Christian ministry is Christ’s ministry of outreaching love.
Christian ministry is the expression of the mind and mission of Christ by a community of Christians that demonstrates a common life of gratitude and devotion, witness and service, celebration and discipleship.
All Christians are called through their baptism to this ministry of servant hood in the world to the glory of God and for human fulfillment.

About

Lest We Forget
125 Years
of
Mead United Methodist Church
1884-2009

Compiled by Allan G. Heritage

Inspiration

After seeing and reading the history of our church, as presented by Sharon Arnold, in the Heartbeat over several months it was my desire to put our history all together in one document along with additional input from other members of the congregation. This historical record was enhanced with “snapshots” of the workings of our church gleaned from reading minutes of meetings in the 1950s and the pages of the Heartbeat from the 1980s through early 2000.

Acknowledgements

This compilation of the history of Mead United Methodist Church would not have been possible without the input of many people…some directly and some because their recollections were passed down to others in the church.

Sharon Arnold
Joyce Kern
Richard McClure
Eva Loomis Stoneman
Jack Terzenbach
Norm and Rose Valsvig
Dot Van Leuven
Jessie Wells

Index
1
Peone Prairie: Before Our Beginnings
1
2
Our Beginnings
7
3
The Town of Mead
10
4
The Little Church on the Hill
13
5
The Wesleyan Center
15
6
Shady Slope/Farwell Church
17
7
Return to the Little Church on the Hill
29
8
Outreach Building and Mead UMC on Wilson St
31
Appendices
1
Excerpts from Minutes 1955-1958
43
2
Notes from the Mead/Green Bluff Heartbeat 1983-2000
50
3
Pastors of Mead
59
4
Historical Timeline of the Mead Church and the World Around It
61
5
Timeline: Growth of Methodism
65
6
Photography Credits
66

Our Beginnings

(Mrs. Dot Van Leuven, whose family, the Will Stoneman Family, lived on the prairie in 1879 and her aunt, Mrs. Eva Loomis Stoneman, who came to the Peone Prairie with her parents in 1888, have provided much of the information on our early beginnings. Mrs. Jesse Wells is credited for archiving this early history. Sharon Arnold spoke with Richard McClure of Mead on the early beginnings of our church. He is the grandson of Louis (Lars) Mickelson from Denmark, who owned land on Peone and Bruce Roads. He was one of the founders of the Peone Church located on the southwest corner of Peone and Bruce Roads. This building still stands and is used a private residence.)

The year was 1884. Chester A. Arthur was the President of the United States. Fur settlers, then residing on homesteads on Peone Prairie, built a small one-room building for a schoolhouse, in about the center of Peone Prairie, where Mt. Spokane and Bruce Roads intersect. On Sundays, the settlers and their families used the building for worship.

The Rev. Mark Waltz conducted the first preaching service. Later, Elder Anderson was installed as the regular minister for the first Methodist Church in the territory north of Spokane. This was before the village of Mead was established, but at about the same time, The Spokane Falls and Northern Railroad was being extended into Spokane. In conjunction with the new railroad, several small shacks were built at the present site of Mead to house section workers. The railroad was built parallel to what is now Market Street. Soon a small general store, hotel, boarding house, and houses were built and the village of Mead took shape.

In 1888, the Rev. A. J. Loomis, circuit rider, and his family arrived in the village of Mead. He preached at Peone Prairie at the schoolhouse and also at Mead. He also had to attend to those living in the ‘Northern Territory,’ now known as Wild Rose and Half-Moon Prairie. In 1890, the Mead Episcopal Church was finally organized. In 1891, the Theodore Cushings selected and purchased the first organ at a cost of $175.00.

In 1892, the first revival meetings were held in Mead at the school house. During this time the Mead Methodist Episcopal Church was formally organized and accepted by the Methodist Conference with 23 charter members.

An annual event was the Sunday School summer picnic, held for many years at the farm of the E. Wells family. An Epworth League for youth was formed in 1895, and it functioned for several years. The little white schoolhouse functioned as the Mead Church until 1911, when the school district began using the building as a music room. As late as 1956, the old white schoolhouse was still being used as a storage room. (photo 2.1)

In 1902, the first Ladies’ Aid Society was formed. This group worked in earnest for a church building. The first venture was a blanket social. Suppers, programs, sales, and every other moneymaking idea they could think of were tried. The first bazaar was held in November 1903, at which the ladies sold fancywork and other articles. They made nearly $100, and the bazaar became a tradition for many years.

When the Ladies’ Aid had accumulated $250 in the Building Fund, the building program began in earnest. Subscriptions were taken in cash and labor among members and friends of the church. James Berridge gave the two lots for the building. The new red brick church (located at 12200 N. Freya) cost $1800. (photo 2.2) On October 28, 1904, the Mead church was dedicated by B. E. Koontz, Presiding Elder, of the Spokane District of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

During 1908 the Peone Methodist Church was built. Also churches were built at Pleasant Prairie, Foothills and Green Bluff. Peone, Pleasant Prairie, and Foothills were placed together in a circuit for one minister, with a parsonage at Pleasant Prairie. Mead, Green Bluff, and East Peone (known as Beaver Creek) combined and had one minister, who resided in Mead. Pastors needed a team of horses and a good ‘surrey’ or buggy to attend their many duties. With the unimproved country roads, transportation was not very pleasant and often difficult and dangerous, but these valiant pioneers carried on and the churches grew.



The Town of Mead

According to historians the town got its name from General George Meade of Civil War fame. Somehow when the town was named the “e” was dropped.

On 160 acres July 1887, the town of Mead was founded by Berridge. He had seen considerable action in the Civil War with Generals William Tecumsch Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant. He had been in at least nine battles and wounded several times.

Rev. Jonathan Edwards writes in History of Spokane County Washington published in 1900.

“(Mead) is the second station north of the S. F. & N. Railroad. The west end of Peone prairie reaches about to the town, making it the supplying point of an extensive and fertile agricultural country. Cushing and Bryan conduct a large mercantile store and are doing a profitable business. There is also a blacksmith shop in the place, and a school house with almost sixty scholars. The Methodist Episcopal Church has regular preaching in school house, and also a Sunday school. A Modern Woodsman organization has been in existence for several years and is in flourishing condition. The post office is in the Cushing & Bryan store.”

In 1920, electricity came to Mead, and it was quite an occasion when electric lights were installed. Also, in the same year the Peone Church closed its doors, and it stood vacant for eleven years, until the Peone Grange took over the building.  Mead never had a bell, so they purchased the bell from the old Peone Church. In 1931, the bell was hung in the Mead church after the belfry was reinforced to support the bell. It rang merrily on Sunday mornings and to call the townsfolk in case of fire or other disasters.  (In 2002, the bell was moved from the Shady Slope/Farewell location and installed at 12611 N. Wilson, alongside the Community Resource Building which was being used as a “temporary church” until the construction of the new church could be completed.) (photo 3.1)

Before the depression and moving into the 1930s the women write about these church records of the 1920s, “In going through the church records, we find minutes of the Official Board of the church meeting held on October 26, 1920, with Mr. Bradley, Pastor, presiding. The first issue facing the church then was finances. (sound familiar) A paper was passed around and $322 was subscribed to put towards a pastor’s salary. A position of janitor was authorized at $1.00 per week. The steps needed to be repaired: so someone was delegated to get the job done. The parsonage needed repair and a window light was needed. The Board asked the Ladies’ Aid Society to pay the bill. The matter of putting a cistern in the parsonage was discussed at some length. A committee was formed to look into the cost. It was finally decided to pay $45.00 out of the money on hand to Mr. Bradley for salary. With the pastor receiving his money, the meeting was adjourned.”

“Retiree keeps Mead in historical context.” Title of an article that appeared in Spokesman Review in the late 1970s by Jim Spoerhase.

Herschel Kern, husband (deceased) of MUMC member Joyce Kern and 60 year resident of Mead, recalls living in Mead in earlier days. Mead had a saw mill, slaughterhouse, flour mill, brickyard and a hotel. “It seems to me that there was a lot more going on in Mead then than there is now,” Kern said.

His father had built a blacksmith shop in 1926. He changed it over to an auto garage as the horse was replaced by the automobile.

Before the auto, Mead was the stop over for those living in the outlying area where they would spend the night before going on into Spokane the next day.

Mead had a very complete Mercantile store, several grocery stores and a meat market.  Mead even boasted dealerships for Ford and Chevrolet and four or five service stations.

The auto was the “down fall” of Mead as it made it easier for more people to go to Spokane to shop.

Between 1910 and 1980 the official census showed a growth of only 513 (1137 to 1650 residents)

The oldest building still remaining was the Mead Market.  The owner at the time of the article, George Root, doesn’t know exactly how old the building is but has a 1912 calendar issued by the market.

Most of the old/original buildings are gone.  The hotel build in the 1800s by James Berridge burned down in 1938.

In 1949 Mead organized a volunteer fire department which later became a part of County Fire Protection District 9.

In the summer ice was delivered to Mead. The ice was purchased from the Great Northern Railroad at Hillyard and hauled up to Mead.

Mead wasn’t a regular stop of the Great Northern but residents could have a local train flagged down for them to board if they wanted to travel by rail.

Berridge was a member of the Mead School Board for 20 years and the organizer of Mead’s Grand Army of the Republic post.

 

Church History

Oct/Nov 2011

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