PART II

Overview of Gwynedd History in the 20th Century

It is important to now take a look at this last one hundred years of Gwynedd Monthly Meeting. There are few folks here in our meeting who have lived more than eighty of those 100 years, and it will be difficult to fully express the many things that have taken place. As our small committee took a hard look at the task it seemed appropriate to “assign” various categories, have folks write their memories and then put everything together. We are well aware that we can most certainly overlook important parts but our hope is to convey the spirit that is the vital part of this meeting.

This is our spiritual home. We have faced many decisions, we have made mistakes, we have grown in the Spirit. We have had sad things happen and we most certainly have had “funny” things happen. If you take a moment and think of what has evolved in the last one hundred years, you’ll probably think of the technology, the telephone, the automobile, the many wars, and efforts to understand one another with our various points of view and our ways of interpreting the peace testimony. Growing in the Light takes constant attention. Living life as God wills us takes our attention all day and all night. Prayer has been an integral part of our way of reaching out to God and to each other. Business meetings have shown us that various points of view are brought into the Light and the outcome (acceptable to all) has been surprisingly different and workable. We have learned patience here. Decisions are made but some things are not on a human calendar. Having grown up a birthright Friend in this Meeting, I have seen many physical changes to the building itself and I have worshipped with Quaker saints in our midst. Worshipping today gives us the opportunity to feel their spirits among us.

Membership at Gwynedd has changed through the years. When I was growing up, the First Day School was small. The Evans and the Hallowell families made a big difference in the numbers. These two families would swell the group by adding 14 children (seven in each family).

There have been times when we wondered which way to turn as far as the groupings of classes. When I was 16 (around 1941) there seemed to be no other teenagers to make up a class, so I became the teacher of the 3-year-olds in the cleverest little corner “room”. It was two walls of Masonite (L shaped). It had little cutout windows and a doorway opening. When not in use it fit back in the corner of the room.

The bathroom situation was interesting. The men entered their room from the outside porch. The women had an entrance both from the porch and from the inside.

Earlier I mentioned the various “changes”. One of these changes came about in the 1990’s. The recording clerk had a laptop computer. With that she would record the Minutes, take them home, give me (as Clerk) a disk that I could then put on my computer to check, and send via email to the secretary to print. Today it is much simpler but we did feel we had broken ground into the next century.

Let’s think back to the wars mentioned above. The Meeting was supportive of the service rendered to the victims of World War I and was “comfortable” that it was the war to end all wars. Then the conflict that brought on World War II gave us more soul searching to support our members in the interpretation of the peace testimony. The elders gave counsel to those who wished to voice their conscientious objection and to those who wished to serve their country in a time of need. It was a time to encourage, to support, to extend love and to help each one to follow his or her leading. The 20th century was FULL of trauma. Along came the Korean War, then Vietnam. The Meeting did not want to close its eyes and ignore what was going on around the globe. We extended helping hands in an effort to care for the needs of humanity and to speak to that of God in everyone.

It’s also clear from the Monthly Meeting Minutes that Meeting members participated heavily in Yearly Meeting activities, and several served as clerks of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

-Regina Peasley, July 2000

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