CHURCH A WINDOW ON CITY'S PAST.

Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Few buildings in Springfield predate the Ebbert Memorial United Methodist Church, which has stood in solid brick stateliness at 532 C St. since 1916.

Its well-documented history provides a glimpse into the personalities and values of some of the city's earliest residents, including the church's namesake, James Ebbert, and its benefactress, his niece Margaret Morris.

Methodism came early to the Springfield area, according to a slim volume called "History of Ebbert Memorial United Methodist Church," which covers the growth of the denomination from 1868 to 1986.

Its author, the late Allene Bechtle, was a retired educator, said Rose Mary Shrode, secretary to the congregation since 1969 and listed as publisher of the book.

Bechtle did the book as a project in conjunction with a writing course she took at the Willamalane Park and Recreation District's senior center, Shrode said.

"I don't know if she took the class because she wanted to write the book or if she wrote the book because she needed a topic for the class," she said. "I know she would take what she had written to class, and they would critique it."

According to the book, Morris left her parents' Iowa home in 1902 and moved to Springfield to live with Ebbert, possibly to care for his wife, Elizabeth, a member of the pioneer Brattain family, who was in ill health and died about a year later.

After her aunt's death, Morris remained on her uncle's farm on Marcola Road, caring for him until he died in 1915. As beneficiary of his estate, she pledged $15,000 to the Methodist Church to replace its outgrown building on Second Street, with two conditions: that the new church should cost at least $25,000, and it should be named for her uncle.

Groundbreaking took place in March 1916, and the new building - the total cost of the church and its adjacent parsonage came to $40,000 - was completed and dedicated in December that year. Besides her original donation, Morris also gave the congregation two large stained-glass windows in the sanctuary.

The church's first services in 1868 had been held in a small schoolhouse on Mill Street, where the school district's administration building now stands. In 1871, the congregation began sharing facilities with the Baptist Church at Second and C streets; 10 years later, the Methodists bought a storefront on Main Street between Second and Third streets for their services.

In 1885, the congregation built a church on the southeast corner of Second and B Streets, where it remained until Ebbert Memorial was built.

Designed by architect A.J. Crandall of Lebanon, the church had a "footprint" 66 feet by 99 feet, with a "pink-gray brick veneer over a wood frame," according to a religious magazine of the time, the "Pacific Christian Advocate."

"In it are a fuel and furnace room 16 by 40 feet; a kitchen fully equipped and thoroughly modern, 14 by 23 feet; dining room 40 by 34 feet; and ladies' parlor 36 by 20 feet," the article said.

The use of "Wilson rolling partitions" allowed the basement area to be divided into separate classrooms or opened up "into one great reception hall." The main sanctuary was designed to seat 450 people, with an additional 200 balcony seats.

The design of the church included 19 windows on the basement level, 16 on the main floor and 14 on the upper level, `30 of these being art glass and costing $2,573," according to a description at the time.

The church still has its original stained-glass windows, which were removed in the 1980s and transported to Salem, where they were dipped in an acid bath to clean them and then re-leaded, Shrode said. When they were reinstalled, sheets of protective, high-impact plastic were placed on the outside of each window to protect them from accidents or vandalism, she said.

Morris, who died in 1961 at age 94, was described as "intelligent, shrewd and exacting," according to the Bechtle book. People who remembered her recalled her as "a large lady, very reserved," who wore a dark coat and hat as she made her way "slowly and erectly down the aisle to a certain pew on the east side of the sanctuary."

Despite her seriousness and "her belief in good stewardship of money," Morris apparently indulged in at least one bout of frivolity.

"She spent some of (her inheritance) for a daring and unusual happening for those days - a trip to Hawaii with a friend," Bechtle wrote.