Bits of History

     Bernice Gilpatric was a gracious lady who lived her religion. The members and friends at Center Harbor Congregational Church, UCC, give thanks for her contribution to the church.  The parish hall that is connected to the church, memorialized as "Gilpatric Hall", was built in 1987. The $53,000 from the sale of the Bernice Gilpatric home and furnishings made this possible.

     Bernice was a very quiet and much loved lady. She was always ready to help anyone when needed. She cared for several old people in their final years. Children loved to visit. She made cookies for them.

     The area’s telephone switchboard was kept in the living room of her home on Kelsey Avenue in Center Harbor. Here the operators, including Bernice, sat on a high chair and connected the calls on the terminals for local residents.

     Bernice also donated a China cabinet with a rounded front, along with a set of Spode dishes, to the Center Harbor Historical Society, located on 25B. These items, as well as photos of her and the switchboard, may be viewed by appointment. The public is welcome to join the Center Harbor Historical Society meetings held in Gilpatric Hall during the summer.

     Caption of a photo circa 1970 found at the C.H. Historical Society:
Telephone operators in Bernice Gilpatric’s home: L. to R.: Eva Young, Theodora Woodman, Bernice Gilpatric, Virginia Haines, Janet Henrickson, and Carrie Kelly.

     Amy Brown and her family moved to Center Harbor in 1929, when she was 9 years old.  They lived in the house now owned by Bob Lamprey.  Her father worked for the I.G. Lunt Grocery Store, which was located in the building now housing Yikes and Sam & Rosie’s.  Amy remembers that during the pastorate of the Rev. Cleeves, a visiting evangelist named Homer Grimes from Texas spent a week at the Center Harbor Congregational Church leading meetings every night.  Amy was inspired and decided to join the church in 1932 at the age of 12 years. 

     The pastor she remembers most clearly was the Rev. Albert Coombs, and she attended church services on Sunday morning and Christian Endeavor meetings Sunday night. Sunday School was held in the sanctuary with small groups of children and a teacher meeting in different corners of the room!  She went to Prayer Meetings on Thursday nights for the young people, during which everyone had to choose a passage from the Bible to read to the group.  Although Amy says she was shy and did not look forward to that part, she enjoyed the games and refreshments!  When asked what passage she might have chosen, she mentioned John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”.

     Mrs. Jackson started a Junior Choir, and Amy and the girls wore white gowns with red rayon capes, while the boys had a dark gown with a white overblouse. Her choir sat in the back of the church on a long pew, which is in the school room at the old Center Harbor School, now the Center Harbor Historical Society’s Museum.  Amy attended that school until she went to the high school in Meredith.  After choir practice, Mrs. Jackson would give each of the youth a nickel to get an ice cream cone at Nichols Store on the corner across from the Library!

     Amy was president one year of the Quinabaug Outing Club when the group set up a family skiing hill up behind the church.  Someone had rigged up an old car engine at the top of the hill with a motor to run a rope tow for the skiers!

Amy married Clyde Brown, who was three months older than she, and whom she had first seen at the beach as a young teen.  While he was at UNH, she was in nurses training, and after marriage in 1941, they eventually settled back in Center Harbor on Kelsea Ave.  Amy was the school nurse in many of the surrounding towns, eventually covering the schools within the Inter-Lakes School District for 26 years before retiring.  Clyde started his own insurance company, and they moved to a house on Meredith Neck where they lived for over 30 years.

     Amy wanted to return to Center Harbor and she now lives up behind the church, although she misses her house on the lake.  Her two daughters and their families had a reunion last summer at a place on the lake, and Amy marvels at the wonderful group that came from the family that she and Clyde began so many years ago.  This year Amy will have been a member of this church for 75 years, and we celebrate her life in our midst as a blessing to the church.

     Submitted by Mary Alice Warner on January 30, 2007

     This couple joined our church in 1974. Adolph owned a gas station in Center Harbor and invested his money wisely.

     After Adolph’s death, Gertrude (Trudy) gave up her home and moved to the Bishop Brady Home in Laconia, but still managed to attend worship here until a short time before her death in 1995. By all accounts, she was a woman “before her time”.

     The couple had no children. The church received the majority of the estate left by these faithful members.

     Thanks to them...

1) The land was purchased next door to the church, where the large parking lot is.

2) The scholarship fund was established.

3) The Mission Trust Fund was established. This fund yearly matches a sizeable percentage of mission giving.

4) Seed money was provided for Community Caregivers.

     When Gene Manville joined the church in 1937, he was under 10 years old, but his older sister was joining and he insisted that he join too.  At that time, Gene’s grandparents, the Greens, his parents, his aunt and his cousins were all part of the church.  It was his extended family who donated the first Christian flag which stood at one side of the altar, with the American flag on the other.

     Gene continued to attend Sunday School, an hour before the worship service.  He was expected to wear his best to church to show respect for the Lord, and still chooses to wear a suit and tie as a symbol for his regard. The only space for classes was the parlor under the sanctuary, so there were curtains to divide the room for different ages. Orion Bickford’s father was the janitor for the church and for the school up the hill, and he was up early to start the wood fire to heat the church building in winter. On Sundays Gene was not allowed to play baseball or any games as his family believed that the Sabbath was to be a day of rest, and set apart from the other days of the week.  Popcorn on Sundays was a family tradition as well!

     Gene remembers that the church celebrated Christmas with the Grange, which was on Kelley Court off of Kelsea Ave.  One year there would be parties and a community Christmas tree at the Church and the next year at the Grange.  The Grange was a national association of farmers, and locally it was most of the men in town. There were two secret societies which also met in the Grange building: the Redmen, and Pocahontas for women.  Gene’s father was a leader in the Redmen, and wore a striking red velvet stole with gold embroidery, which Priscilla has kept.

     These and other organizations helped put on Memorial Day and July 4^th parades, with swimming races, and a ski tow in winter up behind the church, now Chase Circle.  Many of Gene’s activities were centered in the church, with two hours on Sunday morning, Sunday evening singing with programs often led by the youth, and Thursday evening prayer meeting. 

     The Rev. Albert Coombs ministered to our church, which was yoked for a time with the Moultonboro United Methodist Church.  Gene and the children from Center Harbor were driven in a school bus to classes there for a time.  The pastor commuted from one church to the other.

     The organ in the church was originally in the rear, was moved to the front with the choir sitting in the pews on the left, and then was moved to the rear again when the back wall was extended to make room for the organ and the choir.  Gene has seen many changes in the church building, and has served with the many pastors who have ministered here.

     We appreciate Gene’s sharing his family history in this church, the ways in which he and his father have kept watch on the building over the years, and the many ways he and Priscilla have contributed to the life of the church.  When he was a young boy, Gene used to help pull the bell rope to call people to church.  Carrying on the family tradition, his grandsons Tyler, Travis, Nathan and Nicholas now help to ring the bell, and to carry on the Manville family’s place in the life of the Center Harbor Congregational Church.

       Gene shared these memories with me on December 11, 2006.  —Mary Alice Warner

     Gail Hewitt officially joined Center Harbor Congregational Church on February 25, 1960, though she remembers teaching church school in the years 1957-1959, while she was in high school.  Gail Mudgett grew up in Center Harbor with her brothers and sisters, and first lived in one of the green houses on the Red Hill property (now belonging to the N.H. Musical Festival). Her father was a farmer, and they later moved just up the hill from the church on Old Meredith Road, across from the then church parsonage.

     Gail and her siblings attended church, and she attended high school in Meredith.  Gail had many good times in the Youth Fellowship, with the pastor, Rev. Raymond.  She said they had hay rides, sledding parties, and swimming in the pool at the Margate in winter.

She was married after high school, and lived for a year in Meredith, where she had her first child. She and her husband built the house she lives in at 159 Lake Shore Drive, where her other three children were born.

     Gail taught church school again from 1960 to 1982, with some breaks for raising her four children, and back surgery.  Sunday School classes were often held in her home or at the parsonage, as there was no room at the church. She taught with Margaret Matheson, Keith’s daughter, and Lucille, Keith’s wife played the piano and led worship for the children.  She remembers Gertrude Martin who played the church organ.  Gail was also a Deaconess for some years, when women Deacons were called that!

     Gail laughs when she recalls one of her Sunday School Kindergarten boys, 5 year old, Justin, who was involved with others painting a mural of Bible stories.  He asked, “If God made us, who made God?” 

     Gail took time, waiting for inspiration, and then answered, “God is and always has been”.  Her aunt, a biblical scholar, told her she had given just the right answer!

      These were Gail’s memories as told to me, Mary Alice Warner, on November 8, 2006

     A certificate of thanks and appreciation was given to church member Kyle Libby for the new sign:

     "In grateful appreciation for conceiving, planning, constructing, and installing our beautiful and functional new church sign as a part of your Eagle Scout requirements. We cherish the thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and care you have shown in this project and congratulate you on reaching the highest goal in scouting.
       For the Congregation on this day, August 26, 2006."