Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to…, happy birthday to you. I would be surprised if you knew who this birthday greeting was for. We sing this today to celebrate the 170th birthday of Epworth’s Sunday School; hopefully we’ll party to celebrate it in 5 years.

What brought this up? It’s an odd year to recognize. Well, believe it or not the history committee is still going through documents that have been stored in various places around the church. We were working on cleaning some musty ones that had been stored in the basement when we came across a history of the Sunday School that was written in 1940 for the celebration of its 100th birthday. It’s much too big for our little column, but we would like to share a little bit of it with you.

“In 1840, one hundred years ago, a Sunday School was organized in a little brick schoolhouse (later a blacksmith shop) that stood near the railroad on the south side o Broad Street between Riverton and Palmyra, close to the boundary line between the homes of Dr. Mark and the Visiting Nurses. This Sunday School was organized and conducted by members of the Isaiah Toy family, assisted by some of their neighbors. Frequently the meetings were held in the homes of Mr. Toy and his neighbors.

Epworth M.E. Church was organized thirteen years later than the Sunday School…

By that time [1916] the School had advanced to a completely graded school. There was a large orchestra … six organized classes; two classes for men and four classes for women.”

The history committee has not yet begun to explore the Sunday School’s records and have questions for the Palmyra Historical Society. We look forward to sharing more with you in the future.

Do you have memories or stories of your experience of Epworth’s Sunday School that you would be willing to share? Let us know. We would love to hear them.

With God’s love,

The History Committee