100 YEARS: CHURCH TO CELEBRATE WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS CENTENNIAL

The New McKendree United Methodist Church will hold a pageant celebrating "100 years of Methodist Women's Organizations" at the 5 p.m. service on Saturday, Sept. 27 and at the 8 and 10 a.m. services on Sunday, Sept. 28.

The pageant will portray how dedicated these early founders of the women's organizations were in their Christian programs at their many meetings each month.

It will also dedicate how "business like" the meetings were and also how fun the meetings were.

The 25-plus women in the pageant will present the history of New McKendree Church and the women's organizations dating back to 1897.

This will be done in various ways including singing, skits, dialogue and pictures.

One member will tell how the six "circles" were organized in the early 1930s. Also there will be about 30 pictures shown on a screen while the pageant is being presented.

Just a few of the pictures to be shown will be of the old church on the corner of North High and Washington; the present church building before completion in 1909; the march from the old church to the new one in 1910; part of the crowd of 600 who were fed in the basement of the church about two months after the dedication; the meeting of the St. Louis Conference of Episcopal Church South held in 1936 at the church; the 1928, 1940 and later New McKendree choirs; breaking ground for the education building in the 1950s and past presidents of the women's organizations.

Some of the dialogues will include the women telling how they worked to get their first organization- The Ladies Aid; how they pleaded their cause in 1921 for a simple restroom in the basement of the church; how they paid for a great deal of the repair on the church, parsonage, coal bill and sometimes the minister's salary.

The way the women worked to raise money for the previously mentioned projects and bills will also be portrayed.

There will also be a replica of an early "Bazaar" with the many women hawking their products to others.

A reception will be held in the Fellowship Hall at 9 a.m. on Sept. 28 for everyone to help celebrate this event. The "One Hundred Years Cake-1897-1997" will be served with punch.

The women in the pageant will dress in attire reflective of years gone by.

Doris Davault, who wrote the pageant with a little help from other women in the church, will narrate the pageant.