OUR HISTORY
The first Methodist Church building in Caruthersville stood on the corner of Third Street and Eastwood Avenue. It was built in 1881, and the white frame church was so small that it "seemed more like a home than a church".
The exact dedication date was lost when the church records were destroyed in the parsonage fire of 1927.Life in the small church from 1881-1901 was warm and sincere, hospitable and devout. Other Protestants, who had no church home worshiped with the Methodists, it's one room crowded to overflowing.
The fellowship of the community was centered in the church. Life was not easy for the members as they emerged from pioneer times. They felt the need for God and Christian fellowship.The new red-brick church was erected on the site of the present building on land which was given to the church by James B. Eastwood in 1894. The Methodists had not built sooner because it was a graveyard. By 1900, however, bodies were no longer being buried there and the ground was available for building.
When the workers were excavating to lay the foundations for the new brick church, they discovered cast-iron coffins of Spaniards. When the new building was dedicated in January of 1901, the congregation gathered at the little white church on Third Street and walked in a procession to their new church on Ward Avenue.
Church officials and the pastor agreed that it was appropriate to name the church Eastwood Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, honoring James B. Eastwood who had donated the land.In time this red-brick church would prove too small for the growing membership, even though additions were made to the building, and in 1928 the membership had the first brick church torn down and began building the fine large church of today.
The Second building was also named the Eastwood Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South when consecrated on May 26, 1929.Hardly had the Methodist settled in their new building when the depression hit! There were fourteen years of anxiety and striving, fourteen years of labors of love, before the building was paid for. At last, in 1943, the building debt was paid in full.In 1949, only six years after the building debt had been paid, the Methodists remodeled their sanctuary.
Again in 1952, the church began building the educational building. This project was finished in 1955. The front classroom of the educational (children's) building was transformed into a little Chapel in 1968. Since then, no major building projects have changed the outside face of the church.
Eastwood Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South became known as Eastwood Memorial United Methodist Church in 1968 when the Methodist Church joined with the Evangelical United Brethren.Like it's predecessors, Eastwood Memorial United Methodist remains a warm, sincere, and hospitable church to call home.
*This history was taken from "A History of Eastwood Memorial United Methodist Church" by Alberta Haw Klemp, written in 1979.
