Bible Union Congregational Church gave Palm City its spiritual roots

PALM CITY One of the earliest institutions in Palm City was the Bible Union Congregational Church. Only the Palm City Woman's Club, built in 1915, was older.

The church, located on the riverfront on land donated by Charles C. Chillingworth in 1921, had two claims to historical record in its early days: It was the first in the state to have a school bus to pick up children for Sunday School, and it as the second church in the state to be headed by a woman, founder, the Rev. Lucy Ayres.

The church owed its existence to Ayres, a graduate of Bible Teachers' Training School and daughter of a minister, who came to Palm City for her health in 1920. Although she was recovering from a serious illness, she saw a need for spiritual support in the community of about 150 residents and organized a prayer circle, Bible study class and Sunday School.

The first prayer circle was conducted in the home of Amelia Hall. By January 1921, Ayres was having church services in the Woman's Club although she was not yet an ordained minister. She persuaded residents to raise money for construction of a church. Her first collection for that purpose was $1 but in time she had $725, enough to start the building.

Palm City residents referred to her affectionately as the "Little Minister," and it did not seem to disturb them that a woman was leading their church.

Chillingworth, the developer of Palm City, donated the land for the church on the west bank of the South Fork of the St. Lucie River and construction of the church soon began.

When it was ready to be dedicated in April 1921, Ayres was not yet ordained and an ordained clergymen would have to open the church. Community leaders settled on the Rev. Mabel Guam Stevens of St. Augustine, the first woman to be ordained as a minister in Florida, to formally open the church. Ayres was ordained and given full control of the spiritual aspects of the church a year later.

Mabel Witham, whose father, John Blasko, made the first pews and communion table for the church, remembers it as a place of joy and peace.

"The two places I feel at home in Palm City," she told an interviewer in 1970, "are the woods and that old chapel."

The church is still on the riverfront but is now part of the United Church of Christ. It can be seen from the top of the Palm City Bridge to the south and west on the riverfront.

Read the original here:
Bible Union Congregational Church gave Palm City its spiritual roots