Wednesday, October 16, 2002

Letter tells of new church in 1902:


The following is borrowed from the Aug. 4, 2002, bulletin of First United Methodist Church in McLean, Texas. It's a letter that belongs to the Noel family, one of the pioneer families of the church. The letter was dated Aug. 1, 1902:
Dear Papa,
What wonderful news we have for you. We now have an official town, McLean, it was incorporated a few weeks ago and also an official county, Gray Co. You can send our mail to McLean, Gray Co., Texas now and not to Abra Post Office. But even more important we are going to have our own church.

The other day Mont and I met with 5 other couples, the R.S. Jordan's, the S.A. Cousin's, the A.A. Christian's, the C.E. Bogan's, and the R.N. Ashby's. We have been meeting in homes and with the help of your friend, Bro. Wallace, and some other ministers, have almost completed the paper work for our church. We hope to have it all finished by the middle of October and will begin meeting in the school.

It will be the first church in our town and in our county. Pray for us that it will survive.
Your loving daughter,
Maude Noel