Chapter Three
†
February 15, 1959, was a cold day in Athens, but the congregation that crammed into the basement of the Henrietta Apartments was warmed by the knowledge they had beat the odds and would become a full church this day. Despite the washers and dryers pulsating upstairs, the parishioners felt nothing but delight as they listened to a sermon by Pastor Merle Franke, a regional secretary of the Board of American Missions for the ULCA. The organizational service itself was led by Dr. Raymond Wood, president of the Georgia-Alabama Synod.
The service opened with Hymn 60, but exactly which hymnal was being used remains unclear after 45 years. The group ended with Hymn 90, pleased indeed that Rev. Franke had come all the way from Chicago for the organizational service. Also present was the Synod’s Mission Superintendent Compton Usina. The Athens Banner-Herald published a brief story about the church’s foundation.
Franke’s presence wasn’t just ceremonial. The Board of American Missions, in fact, was so committed to making Holy Cross a formal church that it budgeted funds to assist the church in buying the long-discussed property on Alps Road for a new church, as well as a tract on nearby Janice Drive for a parsonage.
That evening, even though darkness came early, the members of the church had a family night supper at Memorial park at 5:30. A photo of the service in the basement of the Henrietta Apartments shows the group, folding chairs, and a cross hanging neatly from a steam pipe.
While the church began its mission to the glory of God and Jesus Christ, the problems with the basement location had multiplied, and finally, on March 29, the group took its portable altar, paraments, and other possessions around the corner to a large, cream-colored brick house at the Five Points intersection. This house (no longer in existence) had been a home and then had been used for numerous other functions before Holy Cross rented part of it for services.
The congregation held a business meeting on February 22 and voted to purchase the Alps Road property and the tract for a parish house at 215 Janice Drive. The church site is now in the heavily commercial area just before the intersection of Alps Road and the Atlanta Highway, but a 1959 photograph of the land shows nothing but woods and open land.
The move to the house in Five Points was logical. Holy Cross had begun to expand, since its formal designation as a congregation attracted more members and kept others from leaving. The laundromat seemed to be blasting during every service, and as far as the roaches were concerned, Mrs. Brittain wryly noted, “We decided to let them have the place.”
As the newest church in Athens, Holy Cross no doubt had serious challenges ahead, not the least of which was hiring a pastor. But the overall business decisions of a church are not the only parts of its history. For instance, by April of that year, the Lutheran Church Women were working strong.
On April 12, a Friday evening, the church met to begin planning a fund-raising drive. Assisting in the effort was one Edmund Foehle of Woodhaven, N. Y., a member of St. Luke’s Lutheran church in New York City. Part of what was described as the Lutheran “lay movement,” Foehle attended the April 17 service to talk about how to raise money to build a new church on the Alps Road land.
On June 28, the Rev. Parrish announced to the church that his services would be “terminated” on August 31. He was, after all, a mission developer, and Holy Cross had gone beyond that stage. Parrish, of course, had known the truth of it for several months, but during the establishment of the church, he worked hard for Holy Cross without letting on, since the congregation was working harder than ever for stability.
Meeting in the new facility, Holy Cross selected a pulpit committee to start the search for its first full-time minister. (The committee consisted of David Werner, Bill Westley, and Will Seifert.) This news—and the usual summer doldrums—hit the church in the pews and the pocketbook. (Actually it would be some time before the church had pews, but the metaphor is apt.) Dr. Wood in Atlanta wrote to W. A. Seifert, the secretary-treasurer of Holy Cross, expressing confidence, but it was clear that the congregation was worried about its ability to pay a new pastor.
While Parrish would feel pride in what he had accomplished, his concentration was understandably elsewhere, because his wife delivered their daughter, Christine Elizabeth, on July 2 at Athens General Hospital. While Mrs. Parrish and the baby were fine, the Sunday church bulletin couldn’t resist: “So far, the father is doing all right, too.”
With the return of fall and University of Georgia students, however, Holy Cross lifted itself from the summer blahs and began focusing more strongly on hiring its first pastor. With the help of a new mimeograph machine, bulletins were easier to print. The Church Council met several times with the omnipresent Dr. Raymond Wood, and it took only a brief few weeks for Holy Cross to call the first full-time minister in its history: the Rev. Arne Markland.
A native of Brooklyn, Markland and his wife Jean had a small son, David, and on August 20, he accepted the call and began making plans to move to Athens. Markland had received his bachelor’s degree from Augsburg College in 1949, taught high school for a while, and then went back to school, receiving his bachelor of divinity degree from the Northwestern Lutheran Seminary in 1955. He had served as a chaplain in the Air Force for four years and during that time had been stationed in Georgia (as well as Texas and Japan), so he wasn’t entirely a stranger to the South. Jean was from Minnesota.
Markland came at a time when Holy Cross was beginning to gather steam. That November, the first issue of the church newsletter, the Holy Cross Messenger, was printed, and the Georgia-Alabama ULC Women received the Holy Cross chapter as a member.
“Hoping for an assignment to a parish located near a major university, I wrote Dr. Wood, explaining my situation,” said Markland, retired and living with his wife in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2005. “His reply came within a few days, mentioning the possibility of serving Holy Cross in Athens. I interviewed with the Church Council and was then extended a call. The congregation had finished its organization process the previous February, and a building program was a distinct possibility.”
While church leaders hoped that the new church could be built by spring, the coming of winter and usual construction-related delays pushed the date back, and while some congregants must have been frustrated, most knew that the church had come far in a very short time.
Markland and his family were received into Holy Cross on November 15, transferring their membership from Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Markland was not officially installed as the pastor of Holy Cross until December 13, 1959—the first United Lutheran Church in America pastor ever in Athens. The always-faithful Raymond Wood presided over the event.
“Shortly after Jean and I, with our son David, arrived in Athens, the Church Council held a special meeting with Roy Murphy of Urbana, Ill., giving an orientation of the proposed new building,” said Markland. “Murphy, it turned out, was not only an architect but was involved with a construction company that the ULCA was using for building first-unit structures throughout the country.”
Markland noted that the preliminary drawings for Holy Cross were in a modern style “similar to many Air Force designs.” The first reactions from the parishioners were skeptical at best.
“Murphy and Compton Usina [the Synod’s home mission coordinator] proceeded to give the group their presentation, while the Council, an exceptionally talented group, listened in stony silence. This was my first look at the building proposal, so I paid close attention to the dynamics of the meeting.”
Markland said the Church Council wanted a more traditional structure, but being aware that the ULCA Board of American Missions and Synod controlled the purse strings, “accepted the inevitable.” After that, the internal support for the structure and organization for it went very smoothly indeed.
That Christmas was a time of promise and reflection for Holy Cross. From the days in 1955 when it began in the basement of a restaurant in downtown Athens, it had grown until it had a full-time minister and a parsonage, and it had bought land to build its own church.
“Athens was a small city at the time,” Markland remembered, “mostly colonial in style. Its downtown was also small, located in a two-three block area. Alps Road, where the new church building was to be located, was in an attractive semi-rural area. Janice Drive, site of the ranch-style parsonage, sat in a brand-new development. Two other Holy Cross families lived on the same street.”
Markland had some awareness of what it would be like to develop a Lutheran congregation in the South because he had become friends with several pastors in the Savannah area, attending their services and visiting with them about Lutheranism in Georgia.
“I had also served for some six months in Virginia during World War II, so I had an idea of what to expect,” he said. “My approach was to build a strong community of believers who would think of themselves as family. It seemed to work. The congregation worked harmoniously during the two years I was there. Members were exceptionally loyal, dedicated, and generous with time and money.”
Still, there was much for Markland to learn about Athens. While he found himself warmly accepted by other local pastors, he remembered one pastoral meeting, held at a Baptist church, where he was told that the following week’s political business for the city of Athens was often conducted on the front steps of the building immediately following Sunday’s service.
“I also remember being asked by one of the senior Baptist pastors what a Lutheran was,” said Markland. “I smiled nicely and told him a Lutheran is a member of the world’s largest denomination outside of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Would he like to attend a class of mine on grace? He smiled back. The point was taken, and I felt at home with the brethren.”
Chapter 4
