Hessel Church Centennial Celebration!

Hessel Church History

There's No Sidetracking This Country Church
By Dorothy Cundall

It's been chugging right along, thanks to the train that didn't run on Sundays.

THE SUMMER of 1909 was busy in the chicken farming area south of Sebastopol, California. Workmen had completed a brand-new schoolhouse, and the local school board serving the rural district asked Esther Hessel, a new college graduate, to return home to be the school's first teacher.
Shortly after she began teaching, Esther gathered her students around her one day and asked them where they attended Sunday school. She learned that the train that ran through the area to Sebastopol didn't operate on Sundays. It was too far to walk to a church in town, and many parents weren't inclined to hitch up their horse and buggy for such a trip on Sundays. So most of the children stayed home.
A concerned Esther announced that there would be a Bible study for the children at the schoolhouse on the second Sunday in September. The sun was shining brightly that day. and the children were eager to study the Word of God. So the first day of Sunday school was not to be the last.
In fact, Esther continued to instruct the children in the Bible on Sundays in the same room where she taught the three R's during the week. As many as 30 to 40 children attended during those first few months.

Adults Got Involved

It wasn't long before some of the parents helped organize an official Sunday school and named Esther the first superintendent. In 1912, the ever-growing group became affiliated with the American Sunday School Union, which is now called the American Missionary Fellowship.
When the Sunday school outgrew the schoolhouse, classes met at the meat market down the road. On Saturday nights, the butcher would push aside the display cases to make room on the sawdust floor for the students to gather the next morning.
As the number of children and adults continued to grow, some classes even met in automobiles ...with the teacher leaning over the front seat to instruct the children in the back.
In 1942, another member of the Hessel family donated land for a chapel, which was built with volunteer labor from area farmers. The women pitched in, too, straightening bent nails salvaged from old chicken houses that had been torn down.
It was just a simple building with no interior siding to cover the wall studs or roof rafters. But at least the people had a place to worship.
In 1945, Carl Jungkeit, a missionary with the American Missionary Fellowship, helped draw up incorporation papers to officially form Hessel Union Church.

Continues to Grow

Through the years, the church has undergone 10 building projects, including a larger sanctuary, fellowship hail, fireside hall, office complex, new parsonage, a two-story Christian education unit, bus barn and basketball courts. A new worship center seating 550 people was completed in 2003.
To fund the Christian education building with its 12 large classrooms, each family was given a small jar to place on their kitchen table, along with this poem: "A dollar down, a dollar a day. We can have the building for which we pray!"
My husband, Ron, served as pastor of Hessel Union Church for 42 years. When he retired in 1992, the congregation asked our son Rich to be their pastor. He is assisted by a staff of ten people.
And to think, it all started because the train didn't run on Sundays.

First Published in "Country Extra", January 2002

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