This Week in Texas Methodist History March 5

Reports Show Impact of World War II Industrialization on Church Membership   March 1943

One of the most dramatic demographic movements in Texas history was caused by the industrialization during World War II.   Hundreds of thousands of Texans moved to take advantage of new war industries and those industries also attracted non-Texans.  Obviously the large cities gained the most new residents, but even some rural churches saw their membership balloon.  

After the November 1942 annual conferences, the Journals for those conferences were printed.  For those of you not familar with Journals, they contain the minutes of the conference, committee reports, and statistics---pages and pages of statistics.   In March 43 the Journal of the Texas Conference was available and the editors of the Advocate deciced to run a story on all the Texas Conference churches that had added at least one hundred new members from Novembeer 1941 to November 1942.  As you might expect, Houston was well represented.  Bering, First, Epworth, St. Paul's, Reed Memorial, St. Andrew's, Epworth, Northside, Grace, and West University all claimed gains in membership of greater than one hundred.  So too did other coastal churches such as First Galveston, First Beaumont, and Port Arthur Temple.  Newcomers on the coast included smaller cities that benefitted from the construction of wartime industries.  They included Freeport and Goose Creek (Baytown).   Marvin Tyler and First Longview all had similar gains.  

The real surprise though was the cluster of rural churches that were near the East Texas Oil Field concentrated in Gregg County but extending into neighboring counties such as Rusk County.  Carlisle, Harleton, and Overton all reported more than 100 new members received in that one year.  

To be fair, most of the membership growth was based on transfers from membership in an existing church so the net membership gain was not as spectacular as the raw data would suggest.  In short, Texan moved their membership from rural churches to urban ones and it zeroed out.  The one exception in the whole list was Carlisle.  Of all the 23 churches on the list only Carlisle reported more new members who came with vows instead of transfer.  They reported 86 new members by vows and 26 by transfer.  

From November 1941 to November 1942 Pastor J. B. Waggoner had baptized 58 adults and 11 infants, not bad for a church that reported 410 members.  After such a spectacular year, he was appointed to Karnack at the 1942 annual conference and was replaced by A. A. Leifeste, one of pastors who had come into the new Texas Conference in 1939 from the German branch of Methodism.  As a trivia note, the Annual Conference delegate from Karnack in 1942 was T. J. Taylor---Lady Bird Johnson's father.  

Don't confuse this Carlisle with the one in Trinity County.  This is the Carlisle in Rusk County.  You might not know about it because in 1940 the town changed its name to Price.    The name Carlisle stays on in the school district.