Irene Hinson is the oldest member of the oldest church in Maiden who still comes to services each Sunday at Memorial United Church of Christ. The crumbling clay bricks of the old church are the foundation of faith stretching back to the days of her great grandfather and the founding of the village in 1883. The original coal-burning furnace still sits in the basement.

Her great grandfather, D.M. Boyd, was a charter member of the church, which was organized on Sept. 23, 1886.

The church was a part of Hinson’s life from the day she was born, on May 27, 1925.  She was baptized there a year later and attended church with her parents.

But when her mother died 26 years ago, her dying wish was that her daughter go back to Memorial United Church of Christ.

Hinson said she was glad she returned when she did.

A HUMBLE BEGINNING

As the first church in Maiden, Memorial United Church of Christ wasn’t just the spiritual root of one congregation, it was the spiritual home of the community for many years.  For decades, the church served as a meeting place for Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans in the community.

Rev. Joseph L. Murphy and Rev. Jacob Clapp held a weeklong spiritual revival in the village of Maiden in the summer of 1886 with evangelistic services.  In the beginning, there were 29 members who came together as a congregation that summer.

In the earliest days of the church, the congregation met in the store building belonging to H.F. Carpenter, Sons & Co., which stood on the corner now owned by Shell Union Oil Co.  When they outgrew that space, they worshipped in the school building, which stood in the same location as Maiden Elementary School.

In 1887, a year after the church congregation first came together, Carpenter, the founder of Providence Mills, proposed the idea of building a church in memory of his son, Perry Carpenter, who died in 1886 at the age of 23.  With the approval of the congregation, H.F. Carpenter, Sons & Co. donated two acres of land and paid to have the church built. Construction began on July 25, 1887.

Several members of the firm donated resources to the project. D.M. Carpenter donated the brick and D. Paul J. Klutz paid to haul it and Lonnie A. Carpenter paid for the masonry labor.  H.F. Carpenter donated the remaining $600 needed to pay for the church.

The church doors swung open for its first service in April of 1888, a Memorial Reformed Church, in honor of Perry Carpenter.

“When this church was new, the other congregations grew out of the people coming (to Memorial) because it was the only church,” Betty Hunsucker, a long-time member of the church, said.

From it came St. Mark’s Lutheran Church as well as First United Methodist Church of Maiden, Hunsucker said.

A vestibule annex and belfry were later, completing the church in 1914.

In 1926, the congregation revived the facility with new floors, ceilings, windows, pews and a choir loft.

“I like it because it is old and we still go by a lot of the old ways here,” Hinson said.

CHURCH LIFE

79-year-old Peggy Ikerd Cook remembers sitting in the front right pew of the church every Sunday morning with her parents, grandparents and her little brother Cecil.

“We always looked forward to going,” Cook said.

Granted, church was not an option in the Ikerd household, it was mandatory.

“If our parents didn’t go, we went with grandma and grandpa,” she said.  “Back then, you knew (not to complain.) We would get a whooping and still have to go.”

So Cook and her brother learned to enjoy it.

If the kids in the church started to misbehave, Rev. John Koons would holler in their direction and the children would perk up in an instant.

“He believed in listening,” Cook said.  “He was the same way in school.”

Cook said she and Cecil knew better than to act up in church.  They knew the consequences.

“My parents would thump us on the head,” she said.

Koons is the most well known preacher at Memorial United Church of Christ.  He became pastor there in 1919 and stayed for until 1944.

“He was the one who baptized me,” Cook said.

She said he was known to visit the church members at their homes.

Cook remembers her grandparents, Charlie and Mary Ikerd, would always give him eggs from their chicken coop when he came by.  Her parents and grandparents would sit and talk with Koons in the living room and then he’d mosey on home or to another house.

He was also a teacher at Maiden High School with a “strict” reputation, according to those who knew him.

Cook got to know him well during summer Bible school lessons.  She went from the time she was five years old until she turned 11.  She said the Sunday school classroom where the lessons were held was always packed with kids.

“We had little books, and (the teacher) read to us and we learned versus,” she said.

Koons returned to preach again in 1948 and remained there until 1953.

Now, Rev. Tim Wepner and Rev. Ronnie Parker share the preaching responsibilities.  Wepner has preached at Memorial for about 14 years.  Cook remembers his family with twelve children would fill up the church.

“He’d preach with one in his arms and another tugging at his pants leg,” Hunsucker, a long-time member of the church.

However, he left the church in 2006 to help his wife with a ministry in Winston-Salem, so Parker stepped in to fill the void, she said.  Wepner returns regularly to help Parker when he is unable to preach.

A WORK IN PROGRESS

The building continues to need repairs to its electrical wiring and the brickwork.  Rev. Ronnie Parker said.  With a congregation of only 15, he said it’s difficult to raise the money needed and they are a long way from getting it all done.

Hinson and the other church members often host working days where they spend the afternoon dusting and cleaning the church.

“We try to keep it up as best we can,” Hinson said.

After more than 125 years of use, it’s to be expected, said Cook, a life-long member of the congregation.

“It just amazes me it’s still here and it’s in as good a shape as it is,” she said.

Cook said the church just completed $2,000 of work rewiring the entire church.  She said originally, the church lights were all operating off a single electrical line, which created serious problems. With each flip of a switch, she said the lights would flicker.

After paying the electrician, the church has about $1,000 left in the budget, Cook said.  And yet, they have about $25,000 of work to do replacing the old brick.

The church also made repairs to the belfry where vines had destroyed the mortar.

“The vines about torn it down,” Cook said.

NEW LIFE

The church was on the brink of closing in 2006 when Rev. Ronnie Parker began preaching to the congregation of three.  At that time Cook was busy helping her mother in a rest home, so the only regular church attendees were Betty Hunsucker, Irene Hinson and Dot Hudson.

“Tim would come and preach for us every Sunday,” Hunsucker said. “He was worried what would become of us (after he left).  We told him everyone of us had a plan and not to worry about it.”

She added,“He was a special person.  We owe him a lot.”

Parker, a Maiden native, was asked to fill in while Wepner helped his wife with a ministry in Winston-Salem.

Although he lives in Charlotte, he drives up every Sunday to lead worship services.

“The congregants refused to allow the church doors to close,” Parker said.

With the help of the members, he helped improve the interest in the church through programming.

“It’s struggled through all these years and it’s kept going,” Hinson said.

They began having prayer meetings on Wednesday nights and added gospel music concerts to attract new members.

“We’re doing real good now,” Hunsucker said.

On Saturday, the church will be open to tours to share the church during the 125 anniversary celebration of the town.  Hinson said the church is just as much a part of the town’s history as anything else in it.  She also hopes that in sharing the church, more people will become interested and join their congregation.