Memories of the Parsonage 1966 by Betty Lanka

Zion’s parsonage has had many changes over the years. The last major interior renovations were done in 1965-1966 just prior to Pastor Russell Gromest coming as Zion’s pastor.

As you entered the parsonage front door in 1965, you could go directly through a hallway to the kitchen. A wall was built to close up the hall, making a front room vestibule with the staircase and a laundry area off the kitchen. The kitchen and bathroom were modernized.

Before this time there were no offices in the parsonage. As church secretary, I had to print the Sunday bulletins in the parsonage basement on an old mimeograph machine onto which I had to literally “paint” the ink. In previous years the Ladies Missionary Society used to whitewash the basement to keep it looking good. Doris Craig remembers her mother describing this yearly project to her.

The two rooms in the back of the parsonage both downstairs and upstairs had not been used for many years. The downstairs room had once been the cook kitchen. The old brick fireplace was still on the back wall. Upstairs was an attic room with a small servant’s room. The small window for this little room can still be seen from the driveway. A small spiral stairway connected the two floors. The men of the church changed both rooms into offices. The downstairs room became a pine-paneled office with a powder room for the pastor. Upstairs was transformed into the church secretary’s office with storage closets under the sloped roof sections, and a new mimeograph machine was moved into the office. When the Christian Education Building was completed in 1972, the secretary’s office and the pastor’s office were both moved there and the offices in the parsonage became family living spaces.