Monday, August 06, 2007

Tribute to Frankfort Pilgrim College

Frankfort Camp Meeting ended last night. My mother has attended all but one her entire life--that's 80 camp meetings. The camp is held on the grounds of what used to be Frankfort Pilgrim College, which was merged with what became United Wesleyan College in (I think) 1972. Then of course UWC merged with Houghton in the early 90's.

I personally think it makes little sense for the records of FPC to be at Houghton when IWU is only about an hour away from where the college stood. Even many Frankfort reunions are held at IWU. Any politics is ancient history and a lesson in human insignificance--the players in Frankfort's closing have zero power today, just as all of us young whipper snappers will have zero power tomorrow.

Frankly, any power any of us today might think we have is ludicrous in the light of reality. Put any of those who boasted of power in Wesleyan circles in the 70's next to Richard Nixon, and it becomes laughable. Put any of our boast to power today next to that of Dick Cheney, and we seem pretty foolish (at least until he is impeached :-). Then put Cheney next to God and, wait, where did he go? He's so small I can't even see him. No man (or woman) can boast before the LORD!

The Indiana Central District of the Wesleyan Church voted this year to allow the board to sell the property for a million dollars if they find an appropriate buyer. The Pilgrims in the area--groups that pulled out of the church at merger--were a great candidate to buy it at first. Then the Wesleyans might have leased it for a couple weeks a year and the camp meeting could continue. But the Pilgrims are already in negotiations for property in Anderson and are divided in their interest in it anyway.

I am a sentimental person in feeling, although a pragmatist in action. The pragmatist in me recognizes that without a prophet with a vision, the money spent on the property might arguably benefit the kingdom more if it were used in some other way. No doubt someone could make something great for the kingdom from this property, but that person has not presented herself. I don't know the details of the situation, but there is a possible world in which my conscience would have to vote for the selling or closure of such entities.

But of course many an argument "for the betterment of the kingdom" ends up whittled away in something far less valuable than what we started with. I have an impression of many a cocky leader of the past thinking themselves to be something, arguing the "better for the kingdom" argument to change something, only to erect some shallow substitute in its stead. Many a youth professes himself to be wise, but ends up looking like a fool.

So my pragmatic side recognizes that selling the camp ground might very well be the right thing to do (although I do not know the actual data or arguments). But my sentimental side feels loss at this dishonored and abandoned part of my heritage. The boomers across the denomination have shunned the camp meetings just as much as they have shunned entire sanctification and the legalism they associated with it. Many of their complaints were justified. If I had been in power in those days, I might have voted with them.

But I think it is important to preserve the memories that inhabit those grounds, one way or another. My grandfather taught at the high school there for many years, without a salary for many of them. He was one of those that those in power knew they could get by without paying because he wouldn't complain. My mother's family lived off of runny potato soup in the cafeteria during the Depression. Most of my sisters finished high school there and at least started college. It was not a prestigious place. It wouldn't have stood a chance at secular accreditation without massive overhaul. From most perspectives today, it would be a rather odd place.

But it was the very stuff of the holiness movement. A person cannot be completely healthy unless she comes to peace with her past. And Frankfort Pilgrim College and the other places like it are part of our Wesleyan past.

A newspaper article from 1924, three years before the college started, indicated that 7000 people were in attendance for Sunday services on the camp grounds, with 2000 on average per day during the week. This was in the old tabernacle, torn down since the late 50's. It was in the shape of a T, much like a cross, although I doubt anyone planned it that way.

The chairs in the "wings" of the sanctuary faced the pulpit, much like a medieval cathedral. On the left was space for about a 50 person orchestra with tuba, drums, and violin. Those who participated received a free meal ticket in reward. On the right all the pastors and their wives sat, again, facing the pulpit. Behind the pulpit going up in bleacher-like fashion sat the youth. Everyone else sat in the normal place in front of the platform. Underneath the "youth section" of the platform, underneath the bleacher-like part, were cots where men could sleep for a dollar a night.

When district superintendent F. J. Goins built the current tabernacle, they intentionally built it too small for the youth to be up there--didn't like the youth being there. The result is that Frankfort did not have much in the way of an orchestra on the platform in my lifetime. Funny to look back at the politics of the past. The worship bands today are nuthin' new, or are drums or guitars. They were doing that in the 20's.

The college was closed soon after merger. Too many Wesleyan colleges in the same vicinity. Fair enough. Marion was accredited and more mainstream. I think by and large the Wesleyan Methodists were better educators than the Pilgrims. Frankfort was a Bible College with significantly less academic clout. Frankly, I'm just guessing at the arguments that might have been made at that time.

So the days of my childhood were days of buildings disappearing one by one. The old tabernacle was torn down five or ten years before I was born. I have fun memories of sneaking into closed buildings as a child--the condemned boy's dorm with its cob webs, what used to be the chapel and cafeteria with an old walk in refrigerator (that we walked in). We snuck in what used to be the library and found a jar with a brain in it--or at least that's the way I remember it.

The cottages that still stand are precious from the standpoint of memory, embarrassing from the standpoint of realty. They're a fun week in the summer, but sobering to remember that faculty and others one time lived all year round in these sorts of structures. A secret storage compartment behind one of the stairs houses my can collection with cans dated 1976, 1986, 1996, and 2006 (remember real aluminum cans?).

The grounds echo of the Depression and poverty in some respects. The spot where the old library stands had a building for old people in the 20's. In 1929 an anonymous German Baptist there (still with an accent) sprinkled my mother, thinking she ought to be baptized. My grandfather was part of the Quaker influx into the Pilgrim Holiness Church. To my knowledge he was never baptized to the day of his death.

Underneath grass at one point are the remnants of a brick sidewalk where many a couple once walked (probably not allowed to hold hands). A circle of sidewalk puzzles the person who doesn't know that a stone fountain once stood there.

It's like many a place half abandoned. The unaware walk through ghosts and memories without even realizing it. Me--I don't own the rights to these memories... I don't even have very many. They are really the property of others. I wouldn't have gone to Frankfort even if it had still been open when I was of college-going age.

But I can still write a tribute to Frankfort Pilgrim College. Let those who think their memories are more valuable because they are different or more sophisticated, be reminded that they too are dust and as grass that withers. No one's memories are more valuable than anyone else's if they are truly valued.

17 comments:

Keith Drury said...

I think technically United Wesleyan was not merged with Houghton but HC only took over the records..am I right?

The whole camp meeting thing reminds me of the Bourne Idenity... forgetting who were were makes us unable to know who we are. Identity is in memory. Most would like to forget camp meetings, as you've said. Others remember them with fondness (though usually not with enough fondness to take their families and stay all week).

I wish districts would simply spin off the camp meetings to independent boards to run on their own--and if people support it fine, if not then let the property be sold and the proceeds revert. That's what West Michigan did and within a year the camp meeting was running happily --a camp can be self-supporting when the district quits using "tax monies" to subsidize it. John Dunn used to say of such things, "Let each tub sit on its own bottom." Subsidizing programs seems to slow down the process of a program becoming self-supporting. that's my favorite solution. hay we do with churches--we help them get started but once they are going we let the church support itself and if they don't we let the property revert.

That being said, camps are one of the things a district "gives back to the laity." While most laypeople don't go, many still would like it to be there if they decide to attend some day. In that it is like prayer meeting. We can say "it is mostly old people attending" and think when they die off there will be no more attendees--but we forget other folk might be getting old enough to attend in the future. Even us.

Thanks for a good trip down memory lane. I have similar good feelings for Frankfort including the general conferences held there) but soon we will drive by it and see something else there. Like we do the campus of United Wesleyan College in Pennsylvania now.

Ken Schenck said...

I don't know about merger with Houghton. But didn't Frankfort merge with Allentown?

From what I understand the camp meeting itself is self-supporting. It's the rest of the year that the district subsidizes.

Pastor Rod said...

Ken,

You've done so many good things in this piece that I don't think I can begin to identify them all.

I can identify with many of your memories, though mine were at Fairmount, home of the mean Wesleyan Methodists.

I also like the way you have deconstructed the political maneuvering. Everything seems so important at the time, but more time shows them to be trivial. And the people who seem so powerful are really insignificant.

Yes, there certainly were people "who boasted of power in Wesleyan circles." And the same posturing continues today.

I've heard those same arguments "for the betterment of the kingdom" that seem foolish now. And, what's worse, people have been trampled in the name of "the betterment of the kingdom."

This is powerful:
I have an impression of many a cocky leader of the past thinking themselves to be something, arguing the "better for the kingdom" argument to change something, only to erect some shallow substitute in its stead.

You also give a good reminder that it is not always the big, flashy things that God uses. In the church we should not be using a worldly standard to measure importance.

Thanks for being so honest and transparent.

Outstanding post.

Rod

theajthomas said...

I really enjoyed your post but coulden't really relate - I'm from Beulah land and all is well and always will be forever and ever no matter what.

Anonymous said...

Ken, I liked your post. The cool university you teach at and the upscale Wesleyan mega-churches now thriving owe alot to these odd places and people that we want to forget. Their sacrifices and commitment laid the groundwork for today. Being a baby-boomer who never really cared for the old camp meetings and legalistic version of entire sanctification, I still honor their memory and contributions.

Keith Drury said...

ken, yes you are right about the first merger... I think the "united" in united Wesleyan came from THREE (former Pilgrim) schools... the merger of Frankfort, Kernersville (NC) and Eastern Pilgrim (by then called Penn-Wesleyan).

As to the resulting institution's "merger" with Houghton, if I recall it correctly only the management of the records was given to Houghton, it was not a full merger--but Houghton has 'acted" like all united graduates are now Houghton alums... even though technically I don't believe it is true.

I also think you are also right about the comparative academic strength of the Weselyan Methodists and Pilgrims... the Pilgrims "lost" all their campuses except the Bartlesville campus which absorbed the WM's Miltonville school.

But that is all about education... your post was really about camp meetings and (more so?) leadership. Good post.

Scott D. Hendricks said...

What's in the cans?

Rhonda Foley said...

If you'd like to see what's happening with Frankfort Camp now, check out:
www.frankfortcampministries.com
You can also connect with old camp or College friends on Frankfort Camp Ministries Facebook page.

We would love for you to visit sometime!

Ken Schenck said...

Thanks to you and all who are working to preserve and re-present this heritage...

Travis J. Johnson said...

I just came across this post so I know I'm a few years too late! Thank you for this tribute. My grandpa went to Bible school there in the 40's and my mother went to high school there in the 60's. In fact, my wife's grandpa is the oldest living alumni of the school (Guy Mowery). He is 98 and now lives across the street from the school at the Clinton House Nursing Home.

I used to live right across from it as a kid & played on the grounds many, many times. The church where I am youth pastor (Frankfort Bible Holiness Church) almost bought the campground but the district pulled out of the deal at the last minute.

Be that as it may, I hope that the current owners will continue to use the camp to propagate the message of full salvation. Our wold certainly needs it. I sure know Frankfort does!

Ken Schenck said...

Never too late ;-) I believe Melvin Smith actually wrote a history of Frankfort College since I posted this.

dirkhilt@ymail.com said...

How can we get a copy of Melvin Smith's book about the history of Frankfort College? Does it also include the history of the campground?

Steven Jones said...

I just read this for the first time, prompted by your most recent related post. I was looking to learn more about the old college, and your blog was a top Google result. I have so many memories of the place, but even the things you mention are ghosts to me. I always wondered what the circle of bricks was about.

I've heard so many stories but am not sure how many to believe. My grandparents were old Pilgrims, and they told me most of those old cabins were originally built when the property was functioning as a tuberculosis sanatorium of sorts.

In many of my memories there I was not particularly constructive. But one of my finest memories was helping to install new windows in the tabernacle, replacing those scary old vertically opening things. I actually missed the old ones. I haven't gone back there in years, but I'm eager to now.

Steven Jones said...

I just read this for the first time, prompted by your most recent related post. I was looking to learn more about the old college, and your blog was a top Google result. I have so many memories of the place, but even the things you mention are ghosts to me. I always wondered what the circle of bricks was about.

I've heard so many stories but am not sure how many to believe. My grandparents were old Pilgrims, and they told me most of those old cabins were originally built when the property was functioning as a tuberculosis sanatorium of sorts.

In many of my memories there I was not particularly constructive. But one of my finest memories was helping to install new windows in the tabernacle, replacing those scary old vertically opening things. I actually missed the old ones. I haven't gone back there in years, but I'm eager to now.

Ken Schenck said...

Yes, the grounds were a tuberculosis sanitarium before it was purchased. There is a book by Melvin Smith on the history of Frankfort Pilgrim College, but I don't see it on Amazon. I have a copy.

I've also posted a little in conjunction with the story of my grandfather, which is linked in the post I did today.

I loved those old windows they used to prop up with 2 x 4s. You could feel the cool breeze as a storm would approach in those lovely days of early August.

Anonymous said...

It merged with the Wesleyan church. George Beverly shea was a member of the Wesleyan denomination and was there in lake junaluska camp in North Carolina for the merger. The school produced some very talented musicians. Edsel Goins was called the Pilgrim holiness churches George Beverly Shea. Violet Walton was in a trio that was asked to travel with the Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea.

Anonymous said...

Edsel had a beautiful baritone bass voice as did GBS