On the trail of visiting our past we looked for and found St. Mark's Presbyterian Church that Ann's family helped build, was baptized in, sang in the choir of and attended for many years of their Southern California days. It was located on 24027 Pennsylvania Ave in Lomita, CA. We were actually driving north on Pennsylvania, looking for one the houses Ann's family lived in when Wayne recognized the church from several Huff family home movies he had seen over the years.
When we got out of the truck and walked into the central compound like park, Ann immediately said it looked familiar. We found the office and were surprised that the pastor and secretary were there.
We told them who we were and why we were there. They began digging through their files and found many records concerning Ann's family's involvement in the development of the church in the 1950's and early 60's. They found record of Harlan's ordination to the position of Elder, Harlan's service as chair of the building committee, John and Ann's baptism records and several other bits of confirmation that we were in the right spot. These they freely copied and shared with us. When we told them we had home movies of the dedication of the building, they got really excited, so we called Ann's brother, John and he said he would send them a copy for their records.
We then walked around the grounds and memories began flowing into Ann's mind. Memories of 45 years ago when she was a little girl attending here.
Of course it looks much different now, but yet, it is so much the same.
Then as we were exploring, we walked into the chapel they used when Ann was there, that her father hlped build, that her mother sang in the choir in, and there on the wall were some pictures dedicated to the time when the buildings were being built. Ann glanced at them and recognized her pastor in the center of the picture, Rev Durham. This was a thrill to her and brought back fond memories of her times here.
Then looking a little closer she saw a picture of her as a little girl! "Hey, that's me!" was heard though out the chapel!
And sure enough, on closer observation, it was her!
Wayne immediately drug her outside and tried to take a picture of her in close to the same spot as the old picture. That's the chapel door off her right shoulder and the finished brick retaining wall that seemed so much bigger years before!
We went back in the chapel to look to see if we were close on where we took the picture and on closer examination Wayne heard, "Hey, that's my mom in the choir!" Sure enough, with a magnifying glass we were able to identify Ann's mom. She's the woman on the far left of the larger group of choir members in front of the far left window!
"Hey, there's me again!"
And sure enough, that's her next to the lady in the wheel chair.
"Hey, I am in another picture!"
And there we found Ann with her mother's arm around her shoulder with their backs to the camera.
Then she began looking at the pictures that dated a little earlier and found pictures of Harlan and John, Ann's dad and brother. They're not in this one, but...
But, here is Harlan bent over and John's back to the camera.
And here is John with his hands in his pockets and Harlan in the back on the far side of the trough
We took the pictures off the wall and took them to the office to identify the Huff family in the pictures, thus adding to the other individuals already identified and then hung them up again in the chapel and documented that Ann had come back to visit where she and her family had been an integral part of the early years of this location of St. Mark's Presbyterian Church in Lomita, CA.
But wait.... there's more! Remember the title of this blog was "Tale of Two Churches"? Well..... We had made an appointment to visit the Pasadena Chapel of Roses on 61 North Hill Avenue in Pasadena, CA where we suspected that Wayne's Dad and Mom got married. With great anticipation we visited, expecting to search records to verify their marriage here.
Well, the chapel looked familiar from pictures Wayne had seen and that are in files back in Medford, but the caretaker, even though he had said in e-mails that we could search the records, only allowed us to see the chapel and a few other rooms. He told us that the records are confidential, were housed in a separate location and I was not allowed to see them. This was a completely different story than Wayne got while corresponding with him in e-mails. Wayne was going to have a discussion with him concerning church records and family history....
...but thought better of it and asked if we could give him the info we have and ask if he could search the records next time he visits the storage site, to which he consented to do next month. We shall see.
Not quite the luck we had at Ann's family's church, but maybe another time, or maybe in March. Two churches, two stories.
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