Methodist Church celebrates 95 years

KATHERINE YAMADA

A few families gathered on Sunday, June 12, 1910, in a rented house

to organize a Methodist church in north Glendale.

The congregation of what is now North Glendale United Methodist

Church will gather once more on Sunday, June 12, 2005, this time to

celebrate its 95th anniversary. At the end of the month, the

congregation will disband, due to dwindling enrollment and changing

demographics.

The church has had a roller-coaster ride during its 95 years.

Small at first, the membership burgeoned during the 1940s and ‘50s,

then began a slow decline.

Land was purchased by the congregation on Fairview Avenue near

Central Avenue in 1911, and within two years, a wood-frame church was

built.

“This little church building met the needs of the day, including

an outhouse; no such thing as indoor plumbing,” recalled Ruth Brager

in a history she compiled for the church’s 80th anniversary. “They

outgrew that small building and so they built a larger church at the

corner of Central and Glenoaks Boulevard in 1921. It was much larger,

with an auditorium and classrooms, a small kitchen in the basement

and indoor toilets!”

Then membership started falling. In 1938, a young minister named

Evert Ezra Ellis arrived with instructions to close the little church

down within six months. Instead, within five years, he had increased

the membership from 65 to 630.

Sunday morning attendance boomed in 1940 after Allen Lannom, a

young Occidental College student, became choir director. Word spread

that the church had a great music program and soon a new sanctuary

was needed.

A young window dresser at Webb’s Department Store, Shelby Simmons,

led the project. Simmons had studied architecture for two years and

designed a unique, modern church that opened in 1942. Called the Tower of Light, the structure was cited for its design by an

interdenominational architectural board in New York City.

The church was very active during World War II. The Men’s Club

organized a Saturday night canteen (the first of its kind in the

city) in the basement. They drove downtown, collected servicemen who

had no place to stay, and brought them to the church. The Women’s

Society served breakfast, with doughnuts made from Lucille Heacock’s

recipe. More than 8,000 men stayed overnight during the course of the

war.

Another first came in 1986, when the Glendale Employers Child Care

Consortium opened. About 90 children enrolled.

Bud Lovik, who has attended the church since he was an infant, is

the current historian. He said the congregation has merged with the

First United Methodist Church on Kenwood Street and that the Central

Avenue property will remain in control of the merged church.

“It is a wonderful corner for a ministry of some sort,” he said.

KATHERINE YAMADA’S column runs every other Saturday. To contact

her, call features editor Joyce Rudolph at 637-3241. For more

information on Glendale’s history visit the Glendale Historical

Society’s web page www.glendalehistorical.org; call the reference

desk at the Central Library at (818) 548-2027; or call (818) 548-2037

to make an appointment to visit the

Special Collections Room at Central. It is open by appointment

only.