The Erste Deutsche Methodisten Kirche (First German Methodist Church) at the northeast corner of 14th and Campbell was first listed in city directories of 1885. The pastor's home was next door east. Services were conducted in the German language and the church was packed on Sundays with young German immigrants who had come to Kansas City to work. Many were factory, plant, store and domestic employees. The church rendered a tremendous service to its parishioners during the period of transition from German customs and language to the American way. The post card was mailed from Kansas City by Minnie Schowengerdt Minnich to her friend, Mrs. Carrie Osborn, in Williamsville, Mo., in 1909. The Schowengerdts were members of the church and drove by horse and buggy from their farm south of Independence to attend services. (Later the large Schowengerdt family founded a new German Methodist church built in 1893 at Lexington and Spring in Independence.) The Rev. C. Wesley Schowengerdt, a member of this pioneer family and now a retired Methodist minister living at 3855 Blue Ridge Boulevard, remembers attending services as a boy at the church at 14th and Campbell, and also recalls the Sunday he occupied the pulpit, when he was a student of the ministry. His subject was The Waves of the Sea and Overcoming Your Obstacles. Mr. Schowengerdt says several of the Methodist churches here now were formerly of the German conference. Louis Wesley Schowengerdt, his son, is the present superintendent of the south district and lives at 11543 Baltimore. Ministers of the early church were John H. Helmes, 1887; J. L. Sternberg, 1895; H. J. Diercks, 1904; Rev. W. F. Isler, 1907; Rev. W. F. Havinghurst, 1915; Rev. C. L. Koerner, 1918. Kansas City Times, April 10, 1976.
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