Yesterday was one of those magical days that will linger in my memory, providing joy whenever I access it.
Back in July during Easton, Pennsylvania’s “Heritage Day,” Mike Dowd, pastor of the First U.C.C. on Third Street–the church of my ancestors–told me they were going to hire someone to go through all the old church records. They needed an expert to see what was there, stretching back to the decades before the American Revolution, and to put the documents in some kind of order. The church officials hired Easton historian Thomas Jones for the job, and yesterday he presented his findings to the congregation.
My family and I, accompanied by my 88 year-old mother who was born and raised in this “German Reformed Church,” attended the service on a brilliant autumn day. Just walking through the front door with the colonial Easton flag draped overhead gave me a thrill. Meeting the historian and worshiping next to my family in pews that my ancestors have used for generations was the stuff of shivers and the lovely variety of goose bumps.
Tom Jones told me something about my six times great grandfather, Colonel Peter Kichline, that I didn’t know. In the consistory records, it showed that Grandfather Peter floated a loan so that the church could be built in 1774. “He was the miller,” Mr. Jones said. He had the money, and he had a deep interest in the welfare of the congregation.
To have that kind of godly heritage is something I’m very thankful for, and I hope to live up to my own abilities, to the praise of God and the good of others.
