St. James Online

Introduction: Tonight I would like to give our congregation a brief insight into how the Memorial Funds and the Minister's Emergency Fund got started approximately 46 years ago.

1. In 1962 St. James and Boger Churches called Dr. Felix Peck to serve both congregations. Dr. Peck came to us as a retired minister whose last job was as head of a council of churches in New York. Dr. Peck wanted to build a house on his homeplace near Lentz Harness Shop. Dr. Peck had several stipulations on his employment contract. He was to be paid the amount that social security would allow him to earn and we would pay his wife a small salary to do the bulletins and any secretarial work. The two churches were to keep their budgets at the same level and the extra money was to hire, at a small salary, an organist and choir director. The other money would go into a minister's emergency fund. Dr. Peck served approximately seven years as a part time employee who worked more than a full time employee would expect to work.
2. During this seven year period a lot of events took place. Herman Barringer, who lived in the house that David Barnhardt lives in now which is actually two houses this side of Arthur Kluttz's house, Herman Barringer, his sister Ruth Barringer and Mary Splude decided to give the church a challenge. They would give the church a $15,000 donation if the church would build an educational building and purchase a parsonage at the same time. Plans were drawn for the building. Hoy Moose gave us another challenge. He wanted us to add two more rooms to the end of the building and he would give us $7,500 as a donation, but there was one stipulation. We could not borrow any money to build the building. I was chairman of the building committee and a 29 year-old new member of the church and this presented quite a challenge.
3. The Warlick House became available and we decided to purchase it to go ahead with our plan. This is the house on North Main Street that is on the corner where you turn to go to the Library, the funeral home, and the Cabarrus Family Medicine building. This is also the house where Woody Foil's father was born and raised. Shortly after the purchase of the Warlick Home we learned that the old Colonel McAllister Home, which was owned by his daughter Virginia Smith, would be available for us to use the property as a parsonage. Ralph Austin and Arthur Kluttz came to our rescue and the two of them purchased the Warlick House. This allowed St. James to remodel the parsonage and satisfy the challenges.
4. The present educational building was built and the McAllister property was purchased and remodeled and we were able to do these two projects without borrowing any money. During this seven year period Boger was also able to build a fellowship building. A sizable amount of money was put into the Minister's Fund during this time as well.
5. The Memorial Fund got started a few years later and this fund is made up of a number of bequests from a number of different people over the years.
   1. Lee and Mable Moose, brother to Hoy Moose and uncle to Whit Moose, was one of the first large bequests coming to the church and to the cemetery fund. Lee and Mable were very active members of the church for many years. They taught Sunday School for years. Some of Lee's quotes are still remembered today on certain scriptures. Lee was instrumental in getting the constitution written for our church and we still refer to this constitution for church matters of question today. Lee and Mable left money to our church, the Cemetery Fund, Catawba College, and the Retirement Home in Hickory. This was the big start of the Memorial Funds for St. James.
   2. Miraim Foil, who owned the home that Nancy Green now owns, was the daughter of Dr. M. A. Foil and her brother was Sumner Foil. Miraim was a great contributor to the church and any time the church needed money for things, such as the air conditioning for the church, she was always a big supporter. She also purchased the choir robes for the choir. She and her brother Sumner left money to the church and to the Cemetery Fund in memory of their father, Dr. M. A. Foil. Miraim's sister Elizabeth Foil Wallace left memorials to the Cemetery Fund. Miraim Foil left $15,000 to be used for the interest for the musical needs of the church. The two pictures of oil paintings, one in the Chapel area and one in the choir room, were painted by Miraim, Elizabeth, and Sumner's mother Mrs. M. A. Foil. She came to Mt. Pleasant to teach art in the college.
   3. Hoy Moose left stock which was sold and the money went into the Memorial Funds.
   4. Mary Austin bequeathed the sum of $10,000 to the Memorial Fund, which was to be held as the Mary C. Austin Memorial.
   5. Ralph Austin bequeathed the sum of $10,000 to the Memorial Fund of St. James to be held as the W. Ralph Austin Memorial.
6. The Memorial Fund now has $120,000 and the Minister's Emergency Fund has $60,000 in it. Since the year 2000 when John Bigelow became our Pastor we have used the interest from these two funds to keep our budget low and obtainable. If you look at the budget we use, take the present year's interest and take one-fourth of the total interest to reduce our budget. This was to last four years when we started this and now eight years later we are still able to use this formula.
7. We mentioned earlier Mary Splude, the sister of Herman Barringer and Ruth Barringer. Mary Splude had a daughter named Florence who married a Riddle who lived in College Park, Maryland, and they have kept St. James at heart and have contributed $1,000 to $1,500 almost every year and at the death of Florence Riddle a donation of $26,000 was given to St. James to be used in the best interest of the church. This donation almost paid for the new roof for the Educational Building.
8. Mary Rose Foil gave a donation of $5,000 for the sanctuary to be painted because she felt it needed to be done.
9. Mrs. Hal Warlick, Trudea as she was known to our congregation, when she retired moved to Mt. Pleasant and lived here for several years. Her husband was the son of Dr. Warlick who was a minister at our church and when he retired Dr. Warlick lived here until his death. Trudea later moved to Florida to be near her kin folk, but upon her death she left a bequest to St. James of $10,000 to mark the cemetery and to build a small park in memory of her husband Hal Warlick.
10. The most recent benefactor to our church was the bequest from Fred and Mabel Lowder. Fred Lowder was an ordained minister who worked all his life in the family business, Carolina Trailways, and lived in Asheville until his retirement and at his retirement he and Mabel built a home where he lived until his death. Mabel and Fred always had St. James foremost in their hearts and set up two funds for St. James at the death of Mabel. One fund composed of the personal property, other than certain bequests for the family members, was bequeathed to St. James in August 2006 in the amount of $250,000 and with interest will be worth approximately $281,122.19 by the end of the year 2008. Another trust fund was set up at First Charter Bank will b ein the amount of $280,415. The interest from this will come to St. James Cemetery Fund for the maintenance of the cemetery. This year the amount was $5,200, which will be perpetual for the maintenance of the cemetery. This plus the other money in the Cemetery Fund should be enough to maintain the cemetery. These two bequests of Fred and Mabel Lowder are worth $516,537.19. St. James needs to be eternally grateful to all the people mentioned over the last 46 years and remember these people who have had the forethought to challenge us to be inspired to make things happen for the best interest of the church. With these funds we must be good stewards and remember we are to spend only the interest of these funds and our church will always be financially sound.
11. Before we stop we need to look at some people who are not with us now. M. D. Swaringer, who was for a lifetime the financial secretary and taught everybody how to cook all those meals.
12. When we hear the Community Choir at Christmas why do they sound better than ever? Part of the sound is the hard work and practicing, but part of it is the sound equipment paid for by Joe and Tasha Moose.
13. We have Carol Moffitt who pushes the Womens Bazaar to new heights of profit with the many items for sale. Also the women who spent all year long making the quilt to be won in the luck drawing and produced many dollars for a chance to win the quilt.
14. The new Reformed Church flag which was purchased by Dr. Bern Moorehead earlier this year.
15. The stain glass crosses made by Don Howell add so much to our sanctuary.
16. The plaques on the wall in the Chapel show the names of many members of St. James who gave money to help with the remodeling of the church, new restrooms downstairs and upstairs, and the decorated parlor.
17. Let's not lose sight of the many donations that have been made to make things happen over the last 46 years even to the last year with the new roof, the coverings of our stained glass windows, painting the outside of the church and the purchasing of the additional land in addition to the land the church purchased four to five years ago to allow for future needs of the church.
18. The plants in the circle of the parking lot and the upkeep of these plants are in honor of Edna Hatley by Edna's son-in-law Bernie Smith.
19. In the last 15 months many long term maintenance things were done out of the necessity to keep our church and educational building in good repair and this is work that will not need to be done for many years to come.

Closing: In the past 46 years no outside money has been borrowed. We have only used money within the church, different treasuries, and the interest from the memorials and the ministries fund. Take your year book and add up the memorials and the treasuries of all the different organizations and you will find that our financial net worth is pretty high. If we keep up our giving and be good stewards of the money we have we will be even stronger in years to come. If I have left out any item I will apologize and I hope this report will give new members some history of the church and for the members with long standing this will bring back some memories of years past and make you remember some of the people you have known and what they did that made a lasting impact on the future of our church.

These events have happened through the years because of the cooperation and insight of the many different Consistories that have had the best interest for the church and working together and looking for the future needs of St. James. Special remembrance should go to Ralph Austin who helped to get these funds started and maintained in the earlier years.

I have had the pleasure of serving almost continuously on the Consistory over this 46 year period.

Respectfully submitted,
Fred E. Morrison