Prides Corner church celebrates 100 years since its inception

It started with a meeting at Clark’s Store on the corner of Brook Street and Bridgton Road, when the Westbrook and Gorham Sunday School Association decided Prides Corner needed a Bible school of its own.

On Sunday, the members of the Prides Corner Congregational Church will celebrate the 100-year anniversary of that meeting, which marked the first step in the formation of their parish.

A lot has happened during the past century. The school became a non-denominational church society and later, a member of the United Church of Christ. It moved from Elmwood Avenue to a building on Pride Street, which was largely erected by the parishioners themselves. The members started a nursery school and established annual traditions, like the Harvest Fair in October and the chicken pie supper, held last weekend.

But, in preparation for that supper, the dozen women who sat picking at poultry with plastic gloves Friday made clear the congregation’s greatest accomplishment.

“It’s the community of this church that makes it so vital in people’s lives,” said Janet Hawkes, whose late husband Kenneth was a minister at Prides Corner in the 1930s and ’40s.

“It’s fun just being able to sit here and talk to someone who’s 90,” said Corie McCarthy, a member of the church for 35 years – almost her whole life.

“It gives you a chance to make friends and that’s most important in most people’s lives,” said Shirley Allen, who joined the church 10 years ago when she moved to Westbrook from Gardiner.

“I’ve made a lot of friends here,” she said.

Perhaps the closeness of the Prides Corner church’s community can be attributed to the fact that so many of the members are tied to its history.

According to the Rev. Diane Harvey, at least four of the church’s 125 active parishioners are related to founding members.

One of them, Nancy Curit, who grew up on Brook Street, has kept coming to the parish despite the fact that she moved to South Portland, then Portland.

“When I had my kids, we brought them here. Now one’s bringing hers here,” Curit said.

Other members, like Harold Gower, helped construct the building on Pride Street in the late ’50s.

Gower remembers the tightly packed services at the old church on Elmwood Avenue, when the congregation outgrew its house of worship.

“The building was so small, they just didn’t have room,” he said.

In about a year, the new church was built. Gower operated the crane that raised the arches in the sanctuary. He said he and other parishioners would come to the church right after they got out of their day jobs and would work half the night.

“We pounded a lot of nails,” he said.

Though the new church didn’t have a big kitchen, in 1976, Nancy Curran took it upon herself to start having monthly bean suppers, which are still held on the first Saturday of each month, from September through June.

“Sometimes we’d get up to 90,” she said about attendance at the early suppers.

Now, it takes about 40 volunteers to serve the 200-300 people who come for the two kinds of beans, ham, macaroni and cheese and homemade pies.

“It’s family style,” she said. “Not just plopped on the plate for you.”

Though the parishioners barely skip a beat between holding one event and planning for the next, they’ll take some time after the 10 a.m. service Sunday to sit down for coffee and reflect on the church’s history and the part it’s played in their lives.

“We had our 50^th anniversary here. He had his 95^th birthday here. I had my 90^th,” said Gower’s wife, Karin. “This church means a great deal to us.”

Harvey said she’s expecting a big crowd for the service, for which members are invited to dress up in costumes, representing whichever decade they chose.

Harvey’s been the interim pastor at Prides Corner since the Rev. Susan Gilpin, who led the congregation for 12 years, left in January. She said she’s learned a lot about the church’s history, but what’s impressed her most is the active role that the parishioners take in its operation.

“I think that’s the strength of Prides Corner church,” she said. “The minister’s the spiritual leader, but the members lead out the mission.”