This Week in Texas Methodist History November 28 President Selecman Announces Gift to Build Fondren Library at SMU, December 1, 1935 Minister’s Week and the Fondren Lectures , both held at SMU in Dallas, were once two of the largest events in Texas Methodism. Both events attracted ministers from Texas and surrounding states to listen to to distinguished speakers and authors. Untail fairly recently McFarlin Auditorium was filled to standing room capacity to attend the lectures. President Selecman used the Fondren Lectures of 1935 to announce one of the most significant gifts in SMU history---Walter Fondren of Houston had pledged $400,000 to build a library that would be named in his honor. Walter Fondren (1877-1939) was one of the pioneers of the Texas petroleum industry. He had learned water well drilling in Arkansas, but moved to Corsicana and applied the same skills to oil drilling. He followed that up with drilling at Spindletop and the Humble Oil Field. Along with others he organized the Humble Oil Company (later Exxon USA) and other smaller companies. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fondren was using her financial skills to invest in Texaco, a decisions that resulted in storck ownership worth millions of dollars. Walter and Ella Fondren were loyal members of St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Houston and were very generous with their wealth. When SMU was a fledgling institution, they created the Fondren Lectures at SMU and also scholarships for theological students. On December 1 1935, President Selecman announced the gift of the library to the University which, like other private universities, was reeling from the economic downturn of the Great Depression. The new library was to be built on the east side of the quadrangle facing McFarlin Auditorium. The architecture would be consistent with existing buildings and would cost $400,000. Walter Fondren died in January 1939 while attending a Methodist event in San Antonio. Mrs. Fondren directed the Fondren Foundation for years after that sad event. Major gifts to Rice University, Southwestern University, and the Houston Methodist Hospital under Mrs. Fondren’s leadership continued Walter’s philanthropic legacy.

This Week in Texas Methodist History November 21 Community Church in Kermit Becomes Methodist, November 1945 During the heyday of American Methodism there was a common boast---“There are more Methodist churches than post offices in the United States.“ The boast was probably true because of the geographic reach of the denomination. Other denominations often were geographically concentrated. Southern Baptists in the South, Lutherans in the upper Midwest to which Scandinavian immigrants had come, Roman Catholics in areas with concentrations of Irish, Italian, Polish, French Canadian, and persons of Mexican origin. Religious census data showed Methodists as the largest denomination in many counties in the Ohio Valley, but few counties reported zero Methodists. The Permian Basin town of Kermit was lifted up as the largest town in the United States without a Methodist church. The town was relatively young, having been founded in 1916 and incorporated in 1938. The transition from ranching to a petroleum based economy resulted in a population boom. Like many boom towns, there was a community non-denominational church. Such a large percent of the population consisted of transient oil field workers, such an arrangement made sense. The denominations preferred cooperation instead of building churches that might wane as the boom turned to bust. At the end of World War II Kermit had a population of about 5,000 but no Methodist church,. Quite possibly it was the largest town in the US without a Methodist church. The pastor of the community church was Fulton Moore. He led the congregation into the Methodist church. The religious enthusiasm at the close of World War II encouraged Methodists to begin a church building program, Crusade for Christ. The easiest way to start a new church was to transition an existing church into a Methodist church, and the Kermit church was one of the earliest examples of such a church start. Incidentally 1945 was also the year Kermit got a bank. By the time conference met, there were about 300 charter members, and 25 charter members of the WSCS. They met in the junior high and started a pledge drive to build a church building for between $50,00 and $75,000.

This Week in Texas Methodist History November 14 Texas Conference of the MEC Meets in Navasota, Celebrates End of World War I, November 20, 1918 Bishop Charles B. Mitchell was he presiding officer as the Texas Conference of the MEC met at Lee Tabernacle in Navasota on November 20, 1918. As the reader learned last week, the African American Texas Conference had a European American as its bishop—as it had for the 52 previous sessions. Bishop Mitchell was from St. Paul, Minnesota. The mood was one of joy and optimism and hope. The Great War (now known as World War I) had ended less than two weeks earlier. The Versailles Conference had not occurred. Much of the hope of “making the world safe for democracy” was still in the air. Family members looked forward to happy homecomings with returning soldiers. Military experience had been transformative for many African American soldiers. Although their service was in racially segregated service units, the experience of being in France presented alternatives to the vicious Jim Crow world they knew back home in East Texas. As the District Superintendents of the of the four districts (George Belcher—Beaumont, J.E. Bryant—Houston, A. Wade Carr—Marshall, Tooley M. Jackson—Navasota) the progress of the church was evident. As agricultural lands in France and Belgium were taken out of production, and nations struggled with feeding and clothing their armies, agricultural prices spiked. Texas also increased its industrialization thereby providing employment. The District Superintendents reported increased giving to the churches and especially church construction projects that had been made possible by the increased prosperity of the church members. On the other hand, there were disruptions. Trinity Houston, the oldest church in the Conference lost its pastor Willis King (later Bishop) as he accepted a teaching position at Gammon Seminary. D. A. Runnels, appointed to the Liberty Circuit, half way through the year took at job at the Southern Pacific yards in Houston and moved his sick wife from Liberty to Houston so she could receive better care. He continued to serve his circuit on weekends. The big disruption was the influenza pandemic. The pandemic hit the hardest in Texas just two months before conference, and much to the financial good news among the churches stopped. For example E. F. Jackson of the Montgomery Circuit caught the disease and was unable to preach for two months. The epidemic struck just as churches were gearing up for the Centenary Campaign and threw a monkey wrench in those plans.

This Week in Texas Methodist History November 7 Bishop Matthew Clair Presides over Texas Conference of the MEC in Palestine, November 1922 Texas Methodists with an interest in history are almost certainly familiar with Bishop Robert E. Jones, often identified as the first African American bishop of the MEC. His prominence as editor of the edition of the Christian Advocate published in New Orleans for the benefit of the African American conferences of the MEC is one reason for his prominence. The other is that his memory is preserved in the name of Jones Memorial UMC in Houston, a thriving congregation highly visible from State Highway 288. Historians are famous for qualifying statements, and we do need to qualify some of the aspects of the Jones story. Jones was actually the first elected African American bishop of the MEC with jurisdiction in the United States. The denomination created a position called Missionary Bishop mainly to serve the Liberia Conference. Another qualification was that another African American was elected bishop along with Bishop Jones in 1920. He was Matthew Clair (1865-1943). Born in Union, West Virginia, Clair was licensed and sent to his first pastorate, Harper’s Ferry. He rose quickly in the ministerial ranks and became famous in the denomination for building Asbury Church in Washington, D. C., a building that could hold 1800 worshippers. Asbury UMC dates to 1836 and was instrumental in founding several other Methodist churches in the District of Columbia. The church building erected during Rev. Clair’s pastorate is still in use and on the National Register of Historic Places. Upon his election, Clair was assigned to the Liberia Conference, but also maintained a home in Birmingham, Alabama. It was from that home that he came to St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Palestine, Texas in November, 1922 to preside over the Texas Annual Conference of the MEC. The Conference was thriving. It had district seats in Beaumont, Houston, Marshall, Navasota, Palestine, and Paris. The conference had within its boundaries, Wiley College in Marshall, one of the outstanding historically Black institutions of higher education in the US. Wiley’s president, Dr. Dogan, was a member of the conference and frequent delegate to General Conference. Much of the pride of the conference was finally having an African American presiding officer. Since its founding in Houston fifty seven years ago, the presiding officer of the conference was white. Bishop Clair died in 1943 and is buried in Washington, D. C.