USA > New York > Queens County > Jamaica > The origin and history of Grace church, Jamaica, New York > Part 13
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The Circle of the Kings Daughters, choosing especially charitable work, sent many boxes of clothing to hospitals and schools in the mountain districts of the South and West. They became finally the branch of the Jamaica Hospital Relief Society, and worked specially for its sup- port. This Circle included in its membership many mar- ried women of the active families of the parish, and was efficient in good works.
These guilds were specially helpful in training workers for the nurture of the young in the Sunday School. The Primary Department of the Sunday School was a field for such important Christian work. Its most flourishing periods were under those who, like Miss Hester Boyd, Miss Augusta Simonson, and Miss Gertrude Gale, were among the most prominent in the activities of the Daughters of the King, and the Kings Daughters, while the Intermediate Department was directed by the older married women,
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Mrs. Lilian Ladd Church, Mrs. Philip Meynen, and Mrs. Wm. J. Ballard.
In the years immediately following the beginning of the twentieth century, the Parish Social Guild was an evolu- tion from the Parish Sunday School Guild, which organ- ization had a two-fold purpose, business and social. The business part was devoted to the building up of the Sun- day School, the publishing of a Church paper, the further- ance of the Parish House movement, and other Church work. The social part was furnished by the meetings which were held twice each month. The members came together at these times to transact the business of the guild, after which an entertainment of music and recitations and light refreshments was given. Any member or teacher of the school might become an active member of the guild, while all others interested in the work could become asso- ciate members. The guild in a few months had 36 mem- bers, of whom 26 were active and ten were associates.
Gradually the other people were drawn to the meetings and membership. The entertainments became more elab- orate, historic tableaux, in which young and old joined, amateur plays, physical exercises by classes from the public schools, dramatic readings and pantomimes, occasional ad- dresses with illustrations by pictures or acting, songs by musical unions and charades interested young and old, while, in the hour given to refreshments, the social spirit was cultivated, and strangers and newcomers into the parish were made acquainted with older parishioners.
The canvassing of the parish was the duty of one of the committees that proposed new members; the conduct of Christmas and Easter festivals and of raising of funds for the furnishing of a parish house, and the entertaining of
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archdeaconry and other diocesan meetings, came to be the province of a guild numbering nearly one hundred mem- bers, and directed by the most intelligent and active women and a few men co-operating with them. It would be un- generous to individualize when so many were thus actively employed as presidents, but two or three churchwomen were year after year employed in superintending and ap- pointing committees and directing the multiplied activities of this most useful guild, which became the leading factor of social growth and unity in the parish.
All would ascribe its success in large measure to the efforts of the earlier presidents, Miss Hester Boyd, Mrs. Kate P. Blanchard, Mrs. Philip Meynen and Mrs. George Meynen, and the secretaries, Miss Florence Detheridge and Mrs. John Higgins, and Mrs. George Morris, Miss Catherine Aymar, the Misses Oborne and Simonson, and Miss Port of the Normal School.
Mrs. Dr. Belden and Mrs. Wm. C. Baker opened their spacious houses to musical entertainments of the guild, where refreshments were served, and sums of money col- lected to buy a piano for the future Parish House, which was loaned and used by the Sunday School for many years.
An opportunity for Grace Church to co-operate with other churches in Jamaica and surrounding villages, in a work of Christian humanity and patriotism in the summer of 1898, brought together their active workers in caring for the sick and wounded soldiers transported from Cuba in the Spanish-American war. The Jamaica Hospital Relief Society was organized to relieve the hospital au- thorities from the great care and expense involved in such a humane work. On Long Island were located two great camps of United States soldiers of this war, Camp Black
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at Hempstead, for the concentration and instruction of volunteer regiments and recruits from the Eastern states, and Camp Wycoff at Montauk, to receive the sick and wounded brought back from the West India Islands and malarial districts of the South. There were at times 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers in each camp. A great military hospital camp was inaugurated in a few weeks at Mon- tauk Point, where steamboats and transports landed direct from Cuba the fever stricken and wounded soldiers.
Thousands lay in long rows of hospital tents, sick and dying and exposed to infection from innumerable flies and insects, that filled the hot tents. The water was also a detriment to health or recovery. These soldiers died by scores and hundreds every day, and the burying ground opened on the Point-swept by the Atlantic breezes-was rapidly dotted with wooden headboards.
There was a call to distribute these invalid and dying soldiers into the hospitals in the seaboard cities along the Long Island Sound, and in New York and New Jersey.
The Jamaica Hospital Board surrendered temporarily their new building on New York Avenue and facilities for nursing to the Jamaica Hospital Relief Society, which men and women of all the religious societies in town joined, contributing to its funds. They also offered and gave their personal services to the Society to nurse and care for thirty-four patients first brought from Camp Wycoff, and subsequently to another installment which filled the Hos- pital to its utmost capacity.
The officers of the Jamaica Hospital Relief Society were president, Rev. H. O. Ladd; secretary, Richard W. Rhoades; treasurer, Stanley Jordan; vice-presidents, Mrs. Clinton A. Belden, Mrs. W. E. Everitt, Mrs. Lewis L. Fos-
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dick, Mrs. Edwin Richmond, Mrs. Feodor Bernhardi, Mrs. T. J. Flynn, Mrs. T. W. Lewis, Mrs. Franz Hartig. Execu- tive Committee, chairman, J. Browne, Jr., Mrs. Manning Smith, M. D., Mrs. W. E. Everitt, Mrs. L. L. Fosdick, Mrs. C. A. Belden. Committee on Volunteer Aid, Mrs. Man- ning Smith, M D., Mrs. Philip H. Remsen. Committee on Sustenance and Clothing, Mrs. Charles H. Harris, Mrs. R. Purchase, Miss Maude Ryder, Miss Carey, Mrs. F. E. Detheridge.
Miss Gale, the president of the Hospital, Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Remsen of the Trustees and the whole medical staff directed by Dr. Geo. K. Meynen, the Chief Surgeon, gave unwearied effort, and there was a gratifying harmony be- tween the management and voluntary helpers. Mr. J. Browne, assisted by the firemen of Jamaica, attended daily to the arrangements for supplies, transfers and night watching. Rev. Dr. Ladd superintended and effected the transportation from Camp Wycoff, and the co-operation with the medical authorities there.
When the hospital seemed full, one Sunday evening, twenty-five additional patients arrived, and were disposed of, severely testing the skill and patience of those in charge. The citizens of Jamaica and Richmond Hill, and Hollis and Queens contributed liberally with supplies, and the churches made offerings, which were increased by private gifts of individuals.
Some of these soldiers were very sick, others conva- lescent from malarial and typhoid fevers. Not one patient died, in the three or four months that the hospital was thus used. The soldiers were mostly members of the U. S. Cavalry regiments, that had been in the battles and trenches around Santiago. They showed their gratitude
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in many ways. Extra trained nurses were provided with the voluntary ones, who served in this emergency.
Mrs. Eldora Ward, the superintendent of the hospital, directed with skill the volunteers who offered themselves from the homes and churches of Jamaica. Those who served for Grace Church, in this capacity as nurses, were Miss Gale, Mrs. Kirby, Mrs. Detheridge, Mrs. George K. Meynen and Miss Pauline Goodman. From other congre- gations Misses Alma Chadwick, Alice Carey, Eva Ham, Maud Pace, Leila Chapin, Kittie E. Lampman, Louise Baker, Mrs. Wm. E. Everitt and Mrs. Jesse Brown, Jr.
The attendants in care of sustenance and diet were Mrs. C. K. Beldin, Mrs. F. F. McClintock, Mrs. Manning Smith, M. D., Misses Luckey and Gertrude B. Browne.
Dr. H. S. Harris, chief surgeon of the Cavalry Division Hospital, Montauk, and the chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs at Washington for President Mckinley, wrote letters, expressive of their appreciation and gratitude for the work done by the officials of the Society, and the citizens. There were in all fifty-eight under their care for several months.
An accurate account of the receipts and expenditures was kept by the Executive Committee, and by request re- ported afterwards with vouchers to the War Department at Washington, from which was received over $850 in reimbursement, of which was expended about $350 in pro- viding an X-ray apparatus for the operating room, and the remainder was given to the building fund of the Hos- pital for the new addition made to it. A complete list of the soldiers, their regiments and residences was printed in Grace Church Chimes, and is preserved in the bound vol-
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ume of this church paper in the Memorial House of Grace Church. It is also here given.
The names of the soldiers who have received care in the hospital, nearly all of whom have come from Montauk army hospitals and most of them from cavalry regiments, are :
Ernest Dickhert, Troop F, 9th Regt.
James Snow, Troop F, Ist Regt., . Gloversville, N. Y.
Charles Jones, Troop K, 6th Regt., Rome, Ga.
James Roach, Troop B, 3rd Regt.
Robert Neppert, Troop K, Ist Regt., New York City. Charles Huston, Troop F, Ist Regt.
Harry Taylor, Troop F, Ist Regt., Chicago.
Roy Linville, Troop F, 2nd Regt.
Ira C. Thompson, Troop G, 6th Regt., Philadelphia.
J. N. Hepburn, Troop C, Ist Regt., . Hopkins, Mo.
B. F. Gambrill, Troop B, Ist Regt., . New York City.
Daniel Shelley, Troop G, 6th Regt., Philadelphia.
Edward T. Bennet, Troop C, Ist Regt. . Chicago
John Newman, Troop M, Ist Regt., Huntington, Tenn.
Edward Johnson, Troop M, Ist Regt., Bowling Green, Ky.
George Fidlar, Troop K, 3rd Regt., Princeton, Mo.
Henry Millar, Troop' M, 10th Regt., Louisville, Ky.
Otto Vockroth, Troop C, Ist Regt., Scranton, Pa.
Clarence D. Baker, Troop G, Ist Regt., . Chicago, Ills.
Thomas Davis, Troop G, 6th Regt., 805 2d Ave., N. Y. C. Hugh Hunt, Troop M, Ist Regt.
Arthur Hoefer, Troop D, 2d Regt., Kildare, Oklahoma.
Shirley Beard, Troop K, 2d Regt., Louisville, Ky.
Chris Fennern, Troop A, Ist Regt., Davenport, Ia.
Thomas Cox, Troop B, Ist Regt., . Troy, N. Y. James J. Rhodes, Troop B, 3rd Regt. Edwin C. Bracht, 2d cavalry, Fort Smith, Ark.
Robert Stehr, Troop A, 3rd Regt., . Canton, O.
Charles H. Seavey, Co. E, 21st Ill. Inft., .. . Dannemora, N. Y.
David Crews, Corp. Co. G, 20th U. S. Inft., Taswell, Ind. William Hendron, Sergt., Co. I, Ist Ill. Vol., .. Chicago. Paul J. Spillane, Co. B, 9th Mass. Vol., Boston, Mass.
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Charles Sliney, Co. B, 9th Mass. Vol.,. ..
.. Cambridge, Mass Albert F. Wesbay, Co. F, 2d Regt. N. Y. M., . Ozone Park. John J. Meyer, Co. M, 201 N. Y. V., Dunton. Frank Koph, Co. F, 7th U. S. Inft.,. Buffalo
There were at least four men from Grace Church who entered in the service of the United States in the Spanish- American war: George A. Stevens, of Co. A, Forty-seventh Regiment of Infantry, enlisted Sept. 16, 1899, at the age of 18 years, was in eight engagements in Southern Luzon, and had a record for continuous service of one year, 9 months and 17 days, as "honest, faithful and character good." He died in less than a year after his return to Jamaica.
Charles G. Smyth enlisted in the 201st Regt., N. Y. Vol- unteers, and served during the war. He was adjutant clerk at Camp Black.
Harry F. Reed enlisted and became first sergeant, Co. F, 201st Regt., N. Y. V. He was in active service in the Philippines; was promoted to be second lieutenant, en- listed in the U. S. Infantry, and rose to the rank of captain in the regular army after an honorable career in the Philippines.
George E. Cogswell enlisted in the U. S. Auxiliary naval service, where he remained till the close of the war. All of these were former members of Grace Church Sunday School, three of them communicants of the church. Messrs. Smyth and Reed were also members of Grace Church choir. Mr. Stevens was confirmed by Bishop Burgess shortly before his death.
On July 31, 1906, entered into life eternal Miss Harriet W. Cornwell from her home in Grove St., at the age of 85 years, 6 months. To no one were the memories and the
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GRACE CHURCH, JAMAICA. Interior, 1906. (Photograph by C. C. Napier.)
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prosperity of Grace Church more dear or prayfully cher- ished. She had held a singular position in the parish. Identified with it from childhood, she belonged to an old Long Island family, and was esteemed and loved by numer- ous friends and citizens. She was the oldest communicant of Grace Church for several years before her decease. Miss Cornwell was left early to give loving care to others. She maintained a widowed mother and invalid sister, and filled a mother's place for five orphan nieces and nephews. Ac- cepting these cares cheerfully, she carried on a millinery and fancy goods business in the center of Jamaica until she was eighty years old, and it was a blessing to her patrons to meet her and encourage her. No one was in need, or sickness or affliction, who escaped her notice or failed to be made known to those who could come to their aid. Her spirit was benevolent and charitable, and her regular at- tendance at church for many years kept her in touch with its life and inspired her prayer and deeds for its prosperity. Her last protracted illness proved her patient submission to her Heavenly Father's will. Kind and loving hands ministered to her to the last, and her works follow her, while she has entered into the joy of her Lord.
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CHAPTER XXI.
The Parish House, Enlargement of the Sanctuary, Local Missions, Bishop Littlejohn.
The celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the organization of Grace Church had already been proposed as a time when there should be some worthy gift of the people to the service of Him who had wonderfully sus- tained her in all her poverty and trials and struggles to maintain the principles of the Anglican Church. The rector had in many ways kept his project of a parish house in the mind of the people. In November, 1898, he had made a direct appeal to the congregation and parish, in an article in the Chimes, which so fully set forth what the aim of such an undertaking was, or should be, that it was pro- phetic of what was destined to be accomplished in a later rectorship.
This is such a justification of what the people did after- wards attempt to do, that it is here preserved.
THE USES OF A PARISH HOUSE.
[From Grace Church Chimes, November, 1898.]
There is often an indefinite idea of the uses of a Parish House which this article will try to make clear.
It should be understood that our Episcopal churches have, rather more than other Christian bodies in America, taken upon themselves the character of institutional churches.
If a church was, as it used to be, simply an organization for religious services, it would have no need of any other building than a house of worship. Two hundred years ago, when Grace
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Church was founded, there were no missionary societies in America for the extension of the church in other countries and in our own. There were no local missions, no Sunday School instruction, no guilds to clothe and feed the needy, no industrial schools, no efforts to bring youth together away from secular temptations, for exercise, recreation, and mental and moral instruction under the control of the church.
But Christianity has entered into a larger sphere of influence, and interprets the spirit of Christ's words and efforts to save men, as designed to give them sound minds and bodies, with a Godlike character, and to promote purity and happiness in social relations. The Church has therefore awakened to the larger enthusiasm of Sunday School assemblies, and fosters brother- hoods, guilds and social unions.
Hence our Churches have need of facilities for these works as much as for worship. There are those in every congregation who forget that in our country and age every generation has a broader and higher education than the previous one, and their needs and tasks are to be met by the Church in a way which corresponds with their advanced culture and associations.
A parish house therefore includes a large assembly room for Sunday School, missionary and ecclesiastical conventions, and for other purposes than worship. These are entertainments of a health- ful nature, lectures, concerts, social re-unions of a large congrega- tion. These frequently recur in a church of historic standing and central location in a city and diocese like Grace Church. The fur- nishings and embellishments of such a room make it desirable for the use of the community. These should be commodious and com- fortable, and tasteful as well as churchly in character.
A gymnasium in a parish house gives a room for the active ex- ercise and diversions of the young of both sexes, so as not to inter- fere with the order and decorum of the larger assembly room. The fees for regular attendance go far to support a gymnasium.
The guild rooms for the missionary society with their store rooms for material and the products of their labor are important features in a parish house. The brotherhood and Knights of Temperance rooms, the library and reading room provided with books and magazines and papers give attractions of a home-like character to
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those who are willing to avoid saloons, and would cultivate a fond- ness for reading and study. The rector's room and reception room for parishioners make him accessible to the many who seek and need his counsel, aid and services. To these are added, when con- venient, industrial school rooms and dispensaries for the poor.
There is one part of the parish house which is peculiarly the care and pride of the women-the kitchen and refreshment rooms where they can attract and interest their families and friends, and show Christian hospitality to brethren and strangers of other local- ities.
Grace Church, with such a parish house as this twenty years ago, would have added very largely to her numerical and financial strength today. The approaching bi-centenary of our church in 1901 is a point at which every well-wisher for Grace Church will aim to have these and an enlarged church building accomplished. It is a work urgent now to begin, that it may be finished then. It is a work of intense interest to all who shall engage in it. It is peculiarly a work for women of the congregation to undertake and begin without delay. They can count upon a strong and ready support of the men.
Let them make here a memorial of names and families identified with Grace Church in two hundred years of honorable history. They will thus memorialize their own active and willing service to Christ.
This appeal was followed by other efforts, and was so far responded to by the Wardens and Vestry that they authorized the rector to engage an architect, Mr. Albert Parfitt, of Brooklyn, to make a set of plans embodying the ideas of the rector and fulfilling the purposes of a parish house. This caused a more definite consideration of the project in the parish. When the plans were presented, with a builder's estimate of a cost to build and complete the parish house for $25,000, the Vestry were unable to agree to undertake the building of so large a structure, and voted against it. One hundred dollars was voted to the architect for the expense of preparing the plans. They were substantially the same that were afterwards made
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OF GRACE CHURCH
for the Memorial House erected at twice the cost on the same ground for which these plans were made, but with- out the addition of a rectory at the West end, which com- pleted the design.
The project of the enlargement of Grace Church by extending the sanctuary was then vigorously presented by the rector, and met with more encouragement. Sev- eral plans were proposed and sketches drawn by architects. The people were interested, and followed the suggestions made that those living in Jamaica should not only con- tribute themselves to this memorial undertaking but appeal to the many families whose ancestors or near relatives had been associated with the history of Grace Church, and whose churchyard was their last resting-place.
The near approach of the bi-centennial celebration added energy to these efforts. The rector preached a sermon in January, 1900, on "Memorials for God's Service," which bore much fruit by the blessing of God on his words. It was published in the Chimes and reached the whole parish. A committee in the Vestry was ap- pointed on the enlargement of the chancel and the pur- chase of a new organ. Mrs. S. S. Stocking made the first notable donation of a stained glass window over the altar for a new sanctuary, to be built by Mayer & Co. of Munich, as a memorial of her husband, the Rev. Samuel Seabury Stocking. The subject chosen was Christ send- ing forth his Disciples "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." This magnificent window, originally de- signed for Grace Church, has since been copied for several other notable churches in the United States. It harmon- ized perfectly with the plans for the sanctuary, which had been presented by Messrs. Cady, Berg and See, of New York, and adopted by the Vestry.
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The larger gifts which followed were in the form of memorials: an organ by John M. Crane, Esq., in memory of his wife, Harriet Seabury Crane; a pulpit by James Denton and brothers in memory of ancestors who early had been connected with Grace Church and the Vestry; a communion rail by C. C. Napier, in memory also of his parents, brothers and sisters; a reredos of carved oak by W. S. and F. Cogswell, in memory of their parents; and an altar of eschallion marble with marble pavements, by Mr. Theodore Johnson, in memory of his father, Rev. William Lupton Johnson, D. D. The prayer desk and seat, and sanctuary seats, were given by Rev. C. A. Belden and mother in memory of Rev. S. S. Stocking.
The crowning memorial of all these and other gifts else- where described in this history was the erection of the sanctuary itself by Mary Rhinelander King in memory of her parents, John A. and Mary Colden King, at a cost of nearly eight thousand dollars.
Work was begun by the contractors, Messrs. O'Connor & Booth, on June 3rd. The rear wall of the church was removed and the furniture of the church transferred to the chapel on Flushing Avenue, which had been refitted by the Vestry, and where services were to be held during the improvements made in the church.
The building of the sanctuary, the renovation of the church structure, and the erection of the memorials required nine months. They were consecrated, and the church reopened for services April 9, 1902. The amount contributed and expended on these improvements was $15,096.68.
Individual gifts, not entering into the treasurer's reports through the Altar Guild and rector's hands, increased this sum to over seventeen thousand dollars.
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The subscriptions and donations for the new sanctuary amounted to $13,739.10; with $1,357.58 additional, bal- ance paid by Miss Mary Rhinelander King, the total was $15,096.68. The individual gifts, whose value cannot be given, are elsewhere enumerated in this history.
During these activities and extraordinary gifts of the parishioners and communicants and friends of Grace Church, there was increased effort to enlarge the local mission work of the church.
On Sunday evening, April 21, 1900, the first Sunday after Easter, services of the Church were begun by the rector at the residence of Mrs. H. Bisbee at Springfield. These were continued for two years with much hopeful- ness that a chapel would be erected and the services per- manently established. Rev. G. Wharton McMullen, of Queens, was placed in charge, under the direction of the rector, who also often officiated. In June a regular cele- bration of the Holy Communion was instituted for the second Sunday of the month, and a class for confirmation was prepared by the rector.
An altar and furnishings and vestments were presented by the Church people in Roslyn, Queens, and the Kings Daughters of Grace Church. A plot of ground, consisting of five lots, was offered for a chapel by Mrs. H. Bisbee, fifteen subscriptions amounting to $172 pledged towards $500, proposed to be expended on the chapel, for which plans had been made. Ten or twelve baptisms and nearly as many confirmations testified to the faithful work of the priest in charge, who ministered to congregations of thirty-five or forty persons. Yet there came in the changes of this community, by fire and removals to other places, a serious question as to continuing the work, or making it permanent by building a chapel. At the end of two years
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