The Henrietta German Methodist Church was actually the third of the four churches in the community to be founded. The first church in the community was the Henrietta Baptist Church. It was organized in 1842 and the building was built on the Henrietta hilltop in 1850. In the early 1860s, a number of German people settled in the southwestern part of Henrietta Township, known as the “German Settlement”. They organized a German Evangelical Church and built a little church on Fred Berg’s farm on Green Road over in Erie County but most of the members came from Lorain County. Other German evangelical Churches were established in the neighboring communities of Brownhelm, Vermilion and Amherst and the Linwood Park Tabernacle was built along the shores of Lake Erie near the mouth of the Vermilion River.
The first meetings of the German Methodist Church were held in the members’ homes in 1867 and later in the old school house (the white house just north of the brick home on Gore Orphanage Road). It was surprising how the German and Swiss people joined together in this new little church. The Portmann and Baumann families joined the Haueisen, Geissendeorfer, Schlechter, Moulder, Volk, Brickmann, Uhlie, Hilberg and Denzel families. There were a large number of young people of marriageable age in this group and it was not long before there was one wedding after another; almost without exception they were all given in happy marriage and became staunch church members and community families. Rev. George Berg, a retired German Methodist Episcopal minister, officially organized the third church, German Henrietta Methodist Church, on April 24, 1872. By 1875, a church was built on a three-quarter acre lot on Telegraph Road and a cemetery was started on the eastside of the church. The church was completed at a cost of approximately$2,500 and was dedicated by Dr. C. F. Paulus of Baldwin Wallace College in Berea. The dedication services were held in German in the morning and in English in the afternoon.
The fourth church to be established was of the German Reformed denomination. It was built in the “German Settlement’ on Garfield Road not too far from Green Road in 1873. Before they joined the United Church of Christ, they were on a circuit with the Mitawanda church west of Vermilion. After the union they were on a circuit with the South Amherst UCC, which is still the current arrangement.
In 1880, 1882 and 1890, more German immigrants arrived in the community and were welcomed into this faith community. The Reusser, Buchs, Meyers, Schneider, Ladrich and Fredrich clans joined. The Angersbach’s, Emmerich’s and Bonnett’s came over from the Brownhelm Evangelical Church. The Born brothers and their families started attending shortly after arriving from Germany. Services were held in German until the early 1900s. In 1925, after most of the German-speaking members had passed away, English became the official language for all services. The church was often called the Swiss Church.
The congregation was very mission-minded, sending out a number of their young adults into foreign mission field and into their own home conferences as preachers. The church’s membership has never been large but they have been an active and spiritually minded fellowship. In 1907, Reverend Ernest Baumann and Reverend Ezra Baumann both went to South America as missionaries. Ernest went to Argentina and Ezra to Chile. Brothers Christian, Fred and Albert all became ordained Methodist ministers who served in various capacities in the church. Their cousin Dr. Hobart Amstutz was a missionary in Singapore for over 40 years. He attained the high honor of Bishop of the United Methodist Church in Southeast Asia. During World War II he was interred in a Japanese prison camp for three and a half years. Franklin Baumann, now a retired minister living in Virginia, served in the mission field in Cuba prior to Castro seizing control of the country. After losing her husband to cancer and raising her family, Myrtle Baumann went to seminary and became an ordained minister, who severed several local churches before her passing. The most recent addition to this list is Dr. Ken Ehrman, who presently serves as Senior Pastor of the Eden Prairie United Methodist Church in Minnesota. His wife, Dr. Sally Dyck, became Bishop of the Minnesota Annual Conference in 2004. We hope that this legacy continues to be passed on to future generations of our church.
Over the years several improvements have been made on the building. In 1901, the old box stoves were replaced with a coal furnace, which has since been upgraded to gas, and the present curved pews replaced the original ones. Air condition was not added until recently. In 1922, the building was raised and a basement was dug to provide space for a kitchen and a Sunday School room. In 1950, an addition was made to the rear of the church for three Sunday School rooms upstairs and a new kitchen, nursery and restrooms in the basement. Extensive remodeling was done in 1969-70 under the direction of Peg Smith, an interior decorator and church neighbor. The church entrance was remodeled and new double front doors added. The sanctuary and basement were carpeted and the church interior was painted. The most recent additions to the church were the carillon and an elevator to make the sanctuary handicap accessible.
Up until 1914, the Henrietta German Methodist Church was a circuit church with the parsonage at Vermilion. When it was apparent the Vermilion church would be closed, the Henrietta congregation decided to become an independent charge. This meant they would need to provide a parsonage for their preacher. The church chose to build a parsonage across the road from the church. A “kit house” was purchased from Sears Roebuck and completed for about $4,000. The parsonage has often been rented out as the church has been a two-point charge and the preacher has often chosen to live in the other parsonage.
In 2001, the church took a fairly large step of faith and moved from a two-point charge to having its own pastor. This has worked out well. Making pumpkin rolls and having a food concession at the local county fair handled an increase in church apportionments that went along with the move to a single charge. People of many ages, families and friends join together to work on these projects, which not only meet our financial obligations but also spread our love of God out into the community.
In 2008, however, the church had several pleasant problems to deal with. The Sunday School had outgrown the available rooms and the adult class was meeting in a nearby home. The pastor did not always have privacy for counseling session because his or her office was shared with the church secretary. The congregation had outgrown the sanctuary. Several options were considered to solve these issues. In April, the church chose to try a second service for a year to see if we could attract local people not currently attending church to an earlier service. It has worked out well and we brought three new members into each service this Easter and have several more families interested in a second membership class scheduled to be held during the summer plus confirmation class will need to be scheduled a year earlier than originally anticipated. Church Council decided to ask the current renters to move and to move the church office and adult Sunday School to the parsonage in the fall of 2008 and the pastor began a new class on parenting for the younger adults. Taking these steps of faith has worked out well for the church and we have begun partnering with the local school system to meet needs of its students in hopes of also building a rapport with unchurched school families as a way of looking toward future expansion of our programs into the community surrounding the church.
The Henrietta United Methodist Church’s mission statement is “To become and make disciples, to serve wherever Jesus calls us.” As the local body of Christ, it endeavors to spread the love of Christ to those it comes in contact with each day, to those in the church family, to those in the community, to those in the nation’s military, and to the friends it has yet to meet in countries all over the world.
REFERENCES
(1970; 1987; 1998 and 2008) Henrietta United Methodist Cookbook
Baumann. J.B.(1964). Then and Now: A Family and Community History. Amherst, OH: Hoffman Printing.
Henrietta United Methodist Church
To Become & Make Disciples, To Serve Wherever Jesus Calls Us.