Chapter Five
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The day had finally arrived. Holy Cross Lutheran Church, on March 19, 1961, held first services in its new sanctuary at 155 Alps Road in Athens, and all was shining that day. Though temporary pews were used since the ones purchased had not yet been fully restored, nothing could stem the tide of faith and happiness from the community of believers.
The day was picked with some deliberation, since the Church Council clearly wanted to be in place for Palm Sunday (March 26) and Easter the Sunday after that. During the service and open house later in the afternoon, nearly 300 people from Athens and surrounding towns visited the new church.
As the weather warmed, Evergreen Landscaping donated its time and talents to beautifying the church grounds.
“Though small and modern-looking for its time, our church structure was pleasantly attractive,” said Markland. “Jean and I designed the pulpit, baptismal font and pew screens, and also drew the church symbols, which were attached to the chancel’s side screens. We also fabricated a redwood sign which was installed close to Alps Road. Needless to say, when the first service was held in the new building, the congregation was justifiably pleased at a task well done, and thanks to God were gladly given.”
While much effort had gone into building the new church—which was widely praised for its modern look—the life of the church went on as it had for several years now. Parishioners came to church and Sunday school to restore their souls and increase their faith. Teams visited hospitals and nursing home, taking flowers and spending time talking to people there. Men and women of conscience and thoughtfulness talked about Christian education for children.
One early indication of how Holy Cross might be unusual for its time and place was a church-sponsored multicultural program—an evening of Indonesian dance, featuring Ms. Rubia Hutasoit, a visitor to the home of Dr. Jordan’s family.
Aware of how much the church owed other congregations that had given them help in time of need, Holy Cross donated its old chancel furniture to a mission congregation in Macon, St. Luke’s. Members of Holy Cross also demonstrated their own generosity as they had since 1955, providing funding for the pews, chancel furnishings, kitchen appliances, and new hymnals.
The changing of pastors is always a difficult time for congregations, and Holy Cross was no sooner settled in its new structure on Alps Road when it found out that Rev. Markland would resign at the end of August. Minister since the fall of 1959, Markland had been accepted as a student at New York University, where he would begin work on a doctoral degree. Complicating matters was that church organist, Louise Chapman, was resigning at the same time.
One of Markland’s last duties was touching: He solemnized the marriage vows of two Finnish exchange students at the University of Georgia. Apparently he managed to get through the service and still pronounce the names of the groom (Alpo I Aapola) and the bride (Helena Maija-Liisa Huatala).
“I found my two years at Athens to be rewarding and enriching,” Markland said. “For the first time in my life, I went door to door, meeting people and inviting them to worship. Only a few took up the offer, but it wasn’t for a lack of my trying. The people in the congregation proved to be exceptionally helpful, generous, and dedicated to the project, making my contribution most enjoyable. I remember the people with fondness and gratitude.”
Holy Cross didn’t have to wait long for a new minister. On Oct. 1, 1961, Rev. Edward Breuer, First Vicar of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Atlanta, saw an opportunity in Athens—which had by then begun the growth spurt that would continue unabated through the turn of the century.
Breuer was young—he had graduated in May from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia after earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Lehigh. (He had been captain of the Lehigh Soccer Team his senior year. Unfortunately, the soccer craze that would one day engulf Athens like the rest of America was years in the future.) The local newspaper ran his photograph, and indeed he was youthful. The faithful Rev. Raymond Wood came back yet again from Atlanta for Breuer’s installation service on Oct. 29. Married to the former Theresa Ann Heisler of Atlanta, they had a new baby with an appropriate name: Philip Luther Breuer had been born in Atlanta on August 9.
When Rev. Markland and his family moved to Staten Island, the Breuer family relocated into the parsonage on Janice Drive, where an open house was held from 2:30-6 on November 19, just before Thanksgiving.
With a new pastor and new church facilities, Holy Cross had a blessed Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the first Christmas dinner was held at the church on December 18—turkey and all the trimmings. Chaplain Don Wilson of the U. S. Navy Supply Corps School in Athens, his wife, and Theresa Breuer presented a musical program.
From the beginning, music was at the heart of Holy Cross as it had been with all Lutheran churches since Luther’s day. Unfortunately, choir robes are expensive, and with all the other expenses facing the congregation, they had not been high on the list of priorities.
Proving yet again that God provides for those in need, however, in March 1962, St. John’s Lutheran Church in Brunswick purchased new choir robes and looked around for someone who might need their old ones, which were still in very good condition. The new and growing church in Athens had a need, and St. John’s gave the choir robes free to Holy Cross.
The effect must have been important, as a robed choir, all will agree, adds considerably to the elegant formality for which Lutherans are known.
The major news during 1962, however, was the dramatic realignment of the Lutheran Church, which had been under discussion for more than two years. On June 29, the New York Times made clear the importance of the event when it ran a story with this headline: LUTHERANS MERGE INTO GIANT CHURCH. The event drew nationwide comment, and Holy Cross members watched with interest and fascination.
The new church was suddenly a major force. The United Lutheran Church in America, which was the synod to which Holy Cross belonged, brought its 2.5 million members. These were “chiefly of German background,” according to the Times. The Augustana or Swedish congregations brought 630,000 members, while the Finnish church added 36,000. With the 25,000 members of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church, the new church had 3.2 million members, more than the 2.6 million confessing members of the Missouri Synod.
The entire church was reorganized, and the Georgia-Alabama Synod became the Southeastern Synod, with Rev. Wood, active as always, being named the first president of the synod.
Through the fall of 1962 and into 1963, Holy Cross went about the business of being a church. Prayer was needed in October 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted. Athens and other Georgia cities watched with fascinated horror as long convoys of military vehicles streamed south, heading toward Florida, and—for all the congregants knew—an invasion of Cuba or full-scale war with the Soviet Union.
Prayers around the world were answered when the crisis was defused and war averted.
Church records during the rest of 1962 and on through 1963 are scarce, but the area around Holy Cross Church was changing dramatically. With the construction of Beechwood Shopping Center, other businesses began to spring up, stretching farther and farther out the Atlanta Highway, which, until the late 1950s, had been a two-lane country road going through woods and farmland. Despite the fact that Holy Cross owned three acres, it found itself suddenly beginning to be hedged in by businesses, and more than one parishioner probably worried that not long in the future, the church would find itself surrounded by restaurants and retail stores.
Rev. Breuer had a serious illness in late 1963 and recuperated at the parsonage, but the signal event that fall was the assassination on Nov. 22 of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. On Nov. 25, Holy Cross held a service in memory of the country’s fallen leader, and prayers were offered for Kennedy and his family.
On Sunday, February 16, 1964, Holy Cross celebrated its fifth anniversary as a full church, and it was a time of celebration and homecoming. While Wood, who must have by now seemed like a part of the congregation, delivered the sermon, Rev. Ernie Parrish, the original mission developer, returned to assist Rev. Breuer in the liturgy. Since 1959, Parrish had been at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Newport, Tenn., but returning to Athens and a new church must have brought him pride. (After all, he had seen the congregation through its early days in a basement beneath a coin-operated laundry.)
By that year, Holy Cross was beginning to outgrow its facilities, and though there was room for more buildings on the site, a proposal to the congregation to begin another building program lost by the staggering vote of 40-3. (As far as this writer can tell, this is likely the most lopsided vote against a proposal in the history of the church.) Still, with 71 enrolled in education classes on some Sundays, something had to be done, and so a trailer was added to the lot, and it held the pastor’s office and two Sunday school classes.
The church also began what was called a two-year “radical long-range program” to study Christian education. Average attendance at 11 a.m. services was about 75, though that dropped by about 15 during the summer. Whatever the actual number, church records show a “serious need for space and teachers.”
During that year and 1965, two women’s “Circles” were formed within the overall organization of the Lutheran Church Woman for the first time. They were active in clothing drives, delivering Christmas baskets for shut-ins, collecting magazines for the hospitals, and giving love and care for patients in nursing homes. The Altar Guild also came into being, and a chapter of the Luther League was organized, and its members did everything from “making cancer bandages” to trick-or-treating for UNICEF.
Until the advent of the so-called “mega-churches” in the past 15 years, virtually all small-town congregations have gone through regular cycles of financial feast and famine. If a church exists long enough, you can count on two things: there will be a financial crisis, and some issue will become so serious the church either considers dividing or actually goes through with it.
During 1965, as the war in Vietnam was beginning to be a national concern, Holy Cross faced two oddly simultaneous facts: the church had grown so much that the new church was uncomfortably crowded while financial problems caused the church to drop its janitorial service. While the church had a paid secretary, a volunteer in the position made it possible to lower that salary, even though the Church Council voted against it as a bad precedent. The property committee flatly admitted frustration, since the exterior of the church badly needed painting, but no funds were available for it.
Still, the church in 1965 and 1966 increased the music budget slightly, noting in its annual report that, “We may say without boasting that we are a singing congregation.” Still, there was yet another change in the church’s organist and choir director in those days—something that was not uncommon with other, long-established churches.
Pastor Breuer had been at Holy Cross since the fall of 1961, and by late in 1966, he had decided it was time for a change. The church turned to 36-year-old Rev. Robert Hauss, who at the time was a chaplain and counselor at Grady Hospital in Atlanta.
More than once in the life of Holy Cross, temporary or supply pastors have held things together while the congregation sought a new leader. This was the case now, as Breuer left after the service on Jan. 31, 1967, and Hauss wasn’t able to start until that fall.
Hauss moved to Athens with his family: wife, Mae Ann; daughter, Susan; and son, Stephen. He was installed as new pastor of Holy Cross on Sept. 10, 1967, though a family reception wasn’t held until late October. Pastor Harvey Huntley, new president of the Southeastern Synod, who had replaced the irreplaceable Raymond Wood, led the installation service.
Unfortunately, church records on the Hauss ministry from 1967-1974 are almost non-existent. The current writer hopes someone will be able to add some depth about these years.
By the early 1970s, Holy Cross found itself sitting on an increasingly valuable piece of property as Alps Road turned into one of the city’s most vital shopping areas. Set well back from the road itself, the church decided, after long discussions, to sell part of its property to the Sambo’s restaurant chain. While this took a considerable amount of pressure off the church financially (and added to the county’s tax rolls), it also meant that the church was starting to be closed in.
After six years of leading Holy Cross during a fairly quiet time in its history, Hauss felt compelled to return to counseling and decided to leave the congregation in Athens. He left in February 1974, and Holy Cross called, as its new minister, Rev. Kenneth Ellsworth Morelock, who had been serving at the First United Lutheran Church of Memphis, Tenn. He, his wife, and their five children moved to Athens in February.
The six years of Morelock’s pastorship of Holy Cross brought a number of profound changes for the congregation, and challenges beyond anything the church had yet faced.
Chapter 6
