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WILKES-BARRE — Back in March, 1961, the Rev. Leonard Buxton remembers, a huge blizzard dumped 28 inches of snow on Wilkes-Barre, and the streets were not yet plowed when his wife, Loretta, went into labor with their oldest son.
Fortunately, the couple lived only a block from medical attention, and the church pastor blazed a trail, stamping through the drifts on foot so his wife could step in his footprints and reach the former Wyoming Valley Hospital on Dana Street, where Dr. David W. Kistler invited the minister to assist at the birth.
It’s a beautiful memory for the couple, who recently spent some time reminiscing with friends, but, Buxton said, “it really doesn’t have anything to do” with the 56th anniversary, soon to be celebrated, of the merger that led to the Albright United Methodist Church, which stands at the corner of Dana and Grove streets.
Yet, in a way, it does.
The birth of a new church — which took place when two congregations joined to form Albright in November, 1961 — can be likened to the birth of a child.
And the proximity of the former hospital to the parsonage suggests a compact neighborhood, filled with homes, a grocery store and more than one house of worship.
The old First Evangelical United Brethren Church, on Dana Street, where Buxton was pastor, and the old Salem Evangelical United Brethren Church, on Grove Street, where Buxton’s friend, the Rev. James Harring, was pastor, were, in fact, so close to each other that some neighborhood residents felt overwhelmed by the sound of ringing church bells.
“They wanted us to change the schedule so the bells wouldn’t ring at the same time,” Harring said, explaining the two church buildings, neither of which remains standing today, had been only about a block apart.
Soon the cooperation between the two churches would extend far beyond a bell schedule; members of the two congregations would vote in the autumn of 1961 to become one. But why had there been two Evangelical United Brethren Churches so close together in the first place?
According to the church history
• Salem Church’s Wilkes-Barre roots go back to 1871, when a traveling minister, representing the Evangelical Association of North America, visited and preached in private homes.
• Salem Church built a chapel in 1873, and was well-established in Wilkes-Barre by 1891, when a “stormy” conference meeting in Allentown led to a schism.
The split took place, Buxton and Harring said, because one group held to the idea that a believer “once saved” would be “forever saved” while another group held that a person could “backslide.”
“It was very petty,” Buxton said.
• During the next 31 years of separation, the new denomination began new congregations including, in 1894, the First United Evangelical Church in Wilkes-Barre.
• While the two local congregations may have considered themselves rivals for a time, their leaders decided, in 1922, to reconcile. First Church and Salem Church in Wilkes-Barre were both part of the newly reunited Evangelical Church.
• In 1946, the Evangelical Church merged with the Church of the United Brethren in Christ to become the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The two local churches were part of this new denomination.
• By the late 1950s, Harring led the Salem Evangelical United Brethren Church, and Buxton led the First Evangelical United Brethren Church. The two men had been friends who studied together at the Evangelical School of Theology in Reading and Albright College. They had even been roommates. Far from wanting to be rivals, they worked toward a merger that created the Albright Evangelical United Brethren Church. Both ministers served that church as co-pastors for a brief time; then Buxton left to serve a new church in New Jersey.
• The present church is known as Albright United Methodist Church because, in 1968, the Evangelical United Brethren merged with the Methodists to become United Methodists.
• The most recent merger was a small one, when the local congregation absorbed members of the former Parrish Street United Methodist Church in 2004.
Hearing about all these mergers for the first time can almost make a person feel dizzy, but church members said they are grateful for the increased unity among Christians.
Turning to a passage in the Gospel of St. John, Albright United Methodist Church’s current pastor, Eugene Sperazza, pointed out that Jesus prayed that all his followers would someday be “as one.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” said church member Thelma Marshall, of Mountain Top.
Marshall and another church member, Priscilla Keating, of Wilkes-Barre, remember one of the benefits of the merged congregation was having enough teenagers to form a strong youth group.
The youth group had opportunities to lead the Sunday worship service, Keating remembered, though she couldn’t recall the topic of the sermon she gave.
Carol Rhimes, of Tunkhannock, who had been the youth group coordinator, remembered it for her.
“I think you talked about the Good Samaritan,” Rhimes said.
Just as the Good Samaritan didn’t hesitate to reach out, Sperazza said the Albright community always welcomes new members. He pointed to a church mission statement that proclaims “We are all God’s children and invite everyone to come ‘just as you are.’”
