Mandaumin United Church Wyoming ON

Mandaumin United Church is set to say farewell, June 26, 2016 after 161 years.

A 2 p.m. church service that day, followed by light refreshments, will mark the final service for the church at the corner of Mandaumin Road and Confederation Line.

There will be historical displays, “and lot of reminiscing and visiting,” said church member Cathy Young.

For sale signs went up several weeks ago at the church where the decision to close was made in the face of dwindling membership.

Member Keith McManus said the congregation traces its history back 161 years to meetings at the former Dunlop school, just down the road, before a frame church was built in 1859 across the road from the current building that went up in 1881.

Initially a Presbyterian Church, until the United Church formed in 1925, the first of the congregation’s 28 ministers is believed to be a “saddle bag” preacher who stopped in Mandaumin as part of a circuit through the local farm communities.

“Our families have been here in this area for a long time,” and connected to the church for generations, Young said.

Her husband’s family farm dates back to 1855, the year the congregation was established.

McManus said his grandfather came to the neighbourhood in 1914.

In 1954, a social hall and kitchen were added to the church, followed by an education wing in 1965.

The church survived two fires many years ago, including a chimney fire that did minimal damage.

“The very next year, they had a much bigger fire at the front of the sanctuary,” McManus said.

But the structure was saved and restored, including a large mural painted inside an arch by Rev. Earle Waghorne, the longest serving minister at the church, and reproduced by Waghorne’s daughter following the fire.

When the church celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1930, it was a festival of events stretching over several days, including music, teas, a tug of war, ball games, a story-telling contest and more.

“That was the year they put the memorial stain glass windows in,” McManus said.

Waghorne was minister at the time of the 75th anniversary. He served in Mandaumin from 1921 to 1938.

“He was quite an inventor, and an interesting man,” Young said.

Waghorne ran a pipe organ factory in Mandaumin and built a large oven for a 500-pound chicken pie prepared for a community event at the church.

He also had a printing press and produced a monthly publication, The Churchman of Mandaumin, with news about the congregation, the community, and advertisements from local businesses.

Mandaumin, sitting on the border of Sarnia and Plympton-Wyoming, was once a busy community with stores, a blacksmith shop, grist mill and regular train service from its station to Sarnia and Wyoming.

And, the church was at the center of community life, both religious and mischievous.

Stories people tell about the church include the time someone took apart a neighbour’s wagon and assembled it again up on the church roof.

And the church made contributions to the wider world.

McManus remembers as a young boy when the Sunday School would collect pennies to help buy surgical gloves for a medical mission in Angola that Dr. Walter Strangway and his wife Alice ran from the 1920s to the 1960s.

McManus said Strangway was connected to the area and, along with the contributions for his surgical gloves, the congregation raised money to buy the mission a cow that was named Mandy, after Mandaumin.

The church was still holding popular community suppers and an annual bazaar until recent times.

“Nothing sudden happened,” McManus said about the dropping attendance.

“It was just a gradual trend,” he said.

“I know for a generation people have said, ‘Where are the young people?’”

About 25 people have been attending in recent times.

McManus said members knew the decision to close the church was coming, but it was still a hard one to make.

“We’ve started the grieving process,” he said.

When the Doors Open event returns to Lambton County, June 11 and 12, Mandaumin United Church will be one of 44 sites opening its doors to tours by the public.

“I’m hoping that people will come in and have a look,” Young said.

There are historical photos and artifacts through the building and plans are to see they’re all preserved in the United Church archives or local archives and museums.

“There’s lots of history within these walls, that’s for sure,” Young said.

By Paul Morden

From: https://www.theobserver.ca/2016/05/24/final-service-set-for-mandaumin-united-church/

 

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