The complicated history of a small church building

Someone asked the other day when this small church building at the intersection of North 13th Street and west Braden Avenue in Chariton was constructed. The answer is, "well, it's complicated" since the earliest bits are more than 130 years old; the newest, under 20.

Now owned by a Ukrainian Pentecostal group, this is the former home of, first, a Swedish Mission congregation; then the Chariton Christian Union Church, now located north of town along Highway 14.

I mentioned the Swedish Mission congregation Wednesday in a post entitled, "Swedes, Swedish and Chariton's Swedish Lutherans." This small group of immigrant families was formed during 1878 as a result of a division in Chariton's Swedish Lutheran Church (now First Lutheran), founded in 1869.

The founders were Reformed rather than Lutheran in theological outlook and took the name of the Swedish Mission Church organized in their homeland during that same year. In 1885, the Chariton congregation became affiliated with the newly organized Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant of America, now (in 2019) known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. A brief 1894 history of the Chariton congregation names the heads of the five founding families as Andrew Erlandson, L.J. Swangren, A.G. Swanson, Peter Bergman and Charles Rahmgren.

In 1882, the new congregation purchased lots at the intersection of Linden Avenue and South 14th Street in southwest Chariton and built the oldest section of the current building there --- a simple oblong frame structure with entrance doors centered on one end and matching rows of windows on either side. It looked much like the small country churches built about the same time across Lucas County. A parsonage also was built, apparently on an adjoining lot.

Nearly 30 years later, the Swedish Mission congregation became dissatisfied with the location of their church building and during April of 1908 purchased from J.B. Wyland for $1,900 property at the intersection of North 13th Street and Braden, two blocks to the northeast and three blocks west of the northwest corner of the town square. The house located at the intersection was moved to the north end of the property, along 13th Street, for use as a parsonage and during May, the thrifty Swedes picked up their old building and moved it to the new location, facing south.

The next year, during July of 1909, the congregation undertook major renovations. A 10-foot wing was added to the west side of the 1882 structure, covered by a third gable-end roof, and a tower nine feet square was tucked into the southwest intersection of the original building and the addition. The entrance doors were moved to the base of the tower and the large stained glass window that remains was inserted where the entrance once had been. The result was dedicated with considerable fanfare during early December of 1909.

This was the form of the building that served the Swedish Mission congregation for more than 40 years, but numbers declined significantly as the years passed. Some of the decline probably was related to the congregation's loyalty to the Swedish language. When the Swedish Lutheran church switched its services to English in 1929, the Swedish Mission folks advertised that services there still were conducted in Swedish, adding now and then when special events were planned that "all Swedes are welcome."

This was not a sound growth strategy in a city where the sons and daughters of Swedish immigrants had little interest in the native language of their parents and grandparents. In 1954, the remaining members gave up the ghost and signed the property over to the national Evangelical Covenant Church which in turn sold it to a new Christian Union congregation then forming in Chariton.

The Rev. Pearl Sams moved his family to Chariton in 1954 to pastor the new congregation and the old Swedish Mission building, little changed after 1908, continued to serve its members until July of 1985. During 1985, frustrated by lack of space at 13th and Braden, the Christian Union congregation bought a structure three miles north of Chariton built during 1975 by the ill-fated Calvary Baptist congregation and moved there.

David Barber, who was studying for the ministry, opened Good Shepherd Baptist Church, described as "Independent-Fundamental," in the now vacant building during August of 1985 and that congregation continued to occupy it until the spring of 2004, when it was disbanded.

During the early summer of 2004, the old church building was sold to Ukrainian immigrant families  organized as the Slavic Pentecostal Church who gave it its current form. The building was squared off, a new roof line established, the tower truncated and a lean-to addition made to the east. The entire structure then was covered in the light-weight stucco finish familiar on many buildings in Chariton owned by families with Ukrainian roots.

So there you have it --- the complicated structural genealogy of one of Chariton's smaller church buildings --- and also at least in part the oldest church building other than the original Sacred Heart (St. Marys) still standing in Chariton.