Daily Sitka Sentinel

Presbyterians Gather to Observe End of Era

By Sentinel Staff
    Presbyterians and friends held the closing worship service last Sunday in Sitka’s 60-year-old First Presbyterian Church building.
    Calling the service a celebration of the church’s life, about 60 Presbyterians shared stories and viewed photos and other memorabilia at a legacy potluck afterward.

Presbyterians sing at a service to mark the closing of the Sawmill Creek Road church July 8. (Sentinel Photo)

    Last February the church announced that after several years of financial problems and dwindling membership, the church building would be closed and the congregation would continue as a fellowship under the Northwest Coast Presbytery.
    At last Sunday’s service, Jean Frank, on behalf of the church’s Session, presented the Book of Church Minutes – representing the return of governance and the facility – to Corey C. Schlosser-Hall, executive presbyter, who accepted them for the Presbytery of the Northwest Coast, Presbyterian Church (USA). They will be archived at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia.
    The Rev. Rob Mathis, who has served as a temporary pastor at the church, gave the final message.
    At the potluck held afterward in Latta Hall, speakers included Nancy Yaw Davis, whose father Leslie Yaw was superintendent and later president of the Presbyterian Sheldon Jackson School and College. She spoke of her “warm memories” and pointed out she was wearing her mother Caroline’s fur coat, on which – if she was careful her mother didn’t notice – she could draw pictures with her finger by rubbing the fur backward.
    Ruth Roth, 93, an active member of the church since moving here in 1964 with her late husband, a professor at Sheldon Jackson, reminisced about their years here; and Bonnie Cottrell talked about the fellowship she and her husband, Max, have experienced at the church.
    Others who reminisced at the gathering were Paulette Moreno, first grand vice president of the Alaska Native Sisterhood; Marcia Strand, with writings by her late husband, Martin Strand; Joy Wood with comments about her late mother, Evelyn Wood; pianist Kathy Newman, who recalled the first question she was asked by choir director Cynthia Turcott was whether she could sing; longtime member Irene Vaden; and Herman Davis, who urged keeping the church alive, “keep it breathing.”
    Several at the service were children or grandchildren of the Sheldon Jackson faculty and staff members who built the church with their own hands 1950s.
    Jean Frank read letters from well-wishers, including the Rev. Charles Bovee and his wife Edie, both retired from Sheldon Jackson College and now living in Chula Vista, Calif., and Bobbie Sherrod, who with her late husband John was a faithful church steward.
    Clergy and family members of pastors associated with the church over the years sent letters: interim pastor George Gilchrist; Duna Fullerton, widow of the Rev. Dan Fullerton; and Diana Sheahan, whose husband, Pat Sheahan, was SJC pastor.
    Rev. Mathis and other speakers quoted from the book of Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season.”
    Laura Turcott, who with her parents, Dave and Cynthia Turcott, provided music for the church over the years, led the group in singing the camp song, “We are the church,” which says “the church is not a building.”
    Schlosser-Hall, the Seattle-based presbyter of the NWC Presbytery said an administrative commission has been created to take on stewardship of the church property and has issued a request for proposals for future use of the building.
    “For the people our deepest hope is that they find a new spiritual home.  We already know that some of the members will be joining other congregations in Sitka.  Some will participate in other Sitka congregations, yet keep their membership with the Presbyterian Church (USA) held by the Presbytery of the Northwest Coast,” he said.  “A few wish to continue as a Sitka Presbyterian fellowship.
    “A step that some may take, but we profoundly hope they will not, is to drop out of church.  We will do everything in our influence to ensure everyone has a spiritual home and not be left out of the Body of Christ.”
    The NWC Presbytery has three priorities for the church building, he said.
    “Our top priority and highest hope is that it can be used by another Christian congregation to continue the sacred purpose for which it was built,” he said. “Our second priority is for a community service organization who exists to bless Sitka to steward the property.”
     “Our third priority by a long shot is to sell the property to a party that may redevelop it for other purposes.”
    He said the Presbyterian fellowship will meet 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday, July 15, in the commons area of Ruth Roth’s apartment building on Hollywood Way.
    The first Presbyterian church in Sitka was built in 1884 on the Sheldon Jackson School campus, then known as the Sitka Training School. A church in town was built in 1889, and the two congregations combined in 1936.
    Plans and fundraising for a new church began in 1935. In his 1985 memoir “Sixty Years in Sitka,” Leslie Yaw related that the present-day church was designed by a prominent Juneau architect, Linn Forrest, and built largely by volunteers from the church.
    The first log of the green hemlock piling was driven on Christmas Day 1953 and Andrew Hope, using small volunteer crews, finished the foundations in 1954, Yaw wrote. Construction of the church social hall and education wing, under the supervision of SJ maintenance chief Chester Latta, was finished in 1956. The new minister, Rev. William Gavin, secured a loan of $75,000 from National Missions to finance the sanctuary, and on Oct. 26, 1958, Yaw wrote, services were held in the new sanctuary.
    “We were a happy congregation to be using our new church after overcoming the many years of problems,” Yaw wrote.