A centennial of spiritual service

JERRY PERSON

This week, we’ll conclude our look at the first 100 years of the Community United Methodist Church.

We left off as the Wintersburg Methodist Church took a new name

and location on Heil Avenue in 1965. As we learned, the old church at

Warner and Gothard had become too small for its growing congregation

of some 700 members.

Longtime church member Charles Attridge recalled attending the old

church when he married Evalyn Tunstall in January 1942. Evalyn joined

the church in Sunday school as a child in the mid-1920s, and remained

an active member up to her death in 1996.

In 1966, the new church buildings were consecrated, and by that

October, its school nursery was ready to open.

Seeing the church through this change was Rev. Roger Betsworth. He

first took over the duty of ministering to the congregation in 1962,

taking over from Rev. Harry Leland.

Betsworth had an interesting career before coming to Huntington

Beach. In 1955, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served

the next four years on destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific

fleets. Leaving the Navy, Betsworth enrolled at Drew University in

Madison, New Jersey in 1959.

After he graduated from Drew in 1962, Bishop Gerald Kennedy

appointed him to the church in June of that year. Betsworth, with his

wife Joan and their three children, would remain at the church until

1969.

Betsworth’s associate minister at that time was Lawrence T. Young,

who also would remain there until 1969. Young graduated from Yale

Divinity School and had served one year with the Iona community in

Scotland and three years at the Kirkbridge Retreat Center in

Pennsylvania.

In 1967, the church enrolled 13 children in its Head Start

program. By the next year, the children increased to 60.

Attridge said that in 1970, Congregation Hillel -- a Jewish

congregation -- asked if the church would rent the sanctuary for its

Sabbath services until its synagogue was completed. During that time,

Charles L. Rose was serving as church pastor.

During Congregation Hillel’s first service, its rabbi, who had

been in a Nazi death camp during World War II, wanted the church’s

cross covered. But a vote in his congregation showed the congregation

thought the cross should remain uncovered, and the rabbi, in the end,

agreed.

The church has sponsored more Boy Scout, Girl Scout and Cub Scout

troops than any American institution. Boy Scout troop 568 has been

meeting at the Community United Methodist Church since 1972, and

today is under the leadership of Kenneth Baustian and Scoutmaster Pat

Justice.

Other troops meeting there include Girl Scout troops 628 and 701,

and Brownie troops 58, 59, 223, 862 and 1013. Cub Scout packs 404,

506 and den 5 also meet at the church.

The Methodist church provided both financial aid and personal

support to a family of Vietnamese refugees, who lived with the

Lindsay family in 1975.

The church supported Interval House, a shelter for battered women

that was under the leadership of former Huntington Beach mayor Norma

Gibbs, in 1979

Last week, Dix Helland recalled how he worked as an usher in

church under Charles Graham. To end this series, I thought we would

look at the life of Graham.

Charles was born on March 8, 1896, in an unincorporated area of

Orange County that would become part of Huntington Beach. He lived in

a house his parents built that still stands on Old Pirate Road,

across from the Meadowlark Country Club.

Charles attended Sunday school as a lad with Charles Applebury in

the old Wintersburg church.

He continued living at home until his marriage to Anna on March

15, 1917. Charles and Anna raised celery, sugar beets, lima beans and

two sons on their ranch.

He remained an active member of the church for 70 years before he

passed away on May 14, 1984. His wife Anna was also an active member

for 66 years until her passing on July 23, 1981.

Several ministers have come and gone since the new church was

built, including Donald Inlay (1972), Richard Burdine (1976), Galal

Gough (1986) and David Rogue (1988).

Helland told me that before St. Bonaventure Catholic Church was

built, its congregation met in a vacant lot at the northeast corner

of Heil Avenue and Gothard Street that had been owned by a Methodist

church member.

The present pastor, Mike Eggleston, will be leaving as senior

pastor on July 1. A new pastor will be leading the church into its

next 100 years of service to the community.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.