The Jubilee Centinel
A Holy Heritage - 50 - A Faithful Future
In the Beginning...
1948
by John Murray Smoot, Pastor Emeritus
Jesus was half-way into his public ministry at thirty-one years of age. At that same age I was staring at closed doors. It was 1948. We had resigned from the Young Life Campaign in Seattle to go to China, but Chairman Mao had just occupied the university where we were scheduled to go with the China Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. We tore up our tickets on the USS General Gordon and unpacked our baggage.
On September 17, 1948 I was ordained to the gospel ministry in the UPNA church. Dottie and I had three children, Jack at 5 years, Jim at 3, and Jan at 1. We were stranded back on the east coast, living between my parents and Dottie's parents. What next, Lord? A church? Oh, come now, I'm a teacher and ordained as an evangelist!
I was taken on at Arlington Presbyterian and in the fall of 1948 the Baltimore Presbytery had to find someone to pastor the recently-relocated Central Presbyterian Church. Just an "old brown manse" on 2 1/5 acres on York Road in sleepy Towson, it had no funds available for salary. Arlington, the most alive church in the Presbytery, supplied funds. My first year's salary was $3,000 and free use of the manse, where all church functions were held. O.K., I'll take it if I can leave (for China?) on three weeks notice. We moved in with a truck-load of scrounged furnishings. I rang door bells. I hit the beachhead. And I scheduled our first service for the first Sunday morning of that coming January, 1949.
  |
 1954 - The first sanctuary (later became the gym, now The Loft) |
 |
Central's First Members in Towson
by John Murray Smoot, Pastor Emeritus
Twenty-one intrepid souls dared to commit themselves to an unknown and untried venture on York Road. John Murray Smoot was a stranger, and a brand new Presbyterian Church was yet stranger still - meeting in a farmhouse surrounded by a burgeoning new suburbia, sandwiched between Towson and Govans Presbyterian Churches.
Of that first group of communicants on April 14, 1949, only one remains faithfully involved: Dorothy Huss. Horace & Julia Lane proved to be the nucleus around which the fellowship slowly developed. Horace died this past year, and Julia followed him shortly after on Christmas Day, 1998. On October 16, 1949, Shearman & Helen Dance came on board. Helen is the only other one with us today from that year.
In the following year, 26 joined the church, including the leadership-laden stalwarts: Nelson Winter, Walter Causey, the McLeans, the Brittons, Jack and Freddie Loizeaux (who implodes buildings), and the famous stonecutter, Charles Klutch. Of the first 1950 class, which joined on February 5, only one remains: Helen McLean.
On June 3, 1951, three more special people joined us and still are a vital part of our congregation: Conrad & Thelma Staffa and Jean Stuart. Helen Hess, together with her husband and children, took on membership on December 21, 1952.
By the end of 1953, we were 169 communicants strong, with about $20,000 in receipts, of which approximately 25% went to missions outreach. By that time we had the support of such Christian stalwarts as Frank Hogan, the Smeltzers, Ervina Stauffer, Bruce Stuart, Betty Hoke, the Rev. Tom Llewelyn, George Leilich, Jim & Priscilla Shelly, and Bill & Beverly Snyder. On March 23, 1954, my wife finally joined Central, because China had closed it doors to missionary service. That is why I, a temporary pastor, stayed at Central for 34 years.
At five years (1954), we were in our new building (now called the gym) with strong leadership: Ed Emerson, Don & Jean Grove, John & Mary Simons, Herb and Reit Bure', the Daughertys, the Friels, the Helds, Elinor Judefind, the Manns, Harry Suter, Jo Cunningham, the Rev. Dick Loringer, the Rev. Dick Swartley, and John & Betsy Worman. No longer physically with us, their group and all their predecessors were the living building blocks upon which Central was established - 50 years at the same location and still doing business, the Lord's business.
