Early Richardson
Excerpts taken from the 1986 history of FUMCR
In the midst of sophisticated, highly populated Dallas Metroplex area it is difficult to remember the time when Richardson existed as a small cotton farming community; in the shadows of mirrored
skyscrapers and thousands of living complexes. It is difficult to imagine sparsely populated are, with dirt roads, wagons being pulled by horses. Steam engines on the railroad tracks, farmers bring in their wares of cotton, eggs and milk to sell to the local merchants for their lively hood.
The pioneers' lives were uninterrupted by computers, televisions and motor cars going up and down the streets. They heard the neighbors in the gardens working and laughing, they heard the hammer of someone repairing a torn screen on their porch. They heard the bells ringing from distant churches at the noon hour.
The charter members of the First Methodist Episcopal South of Richardson did not have a home of their own from 1886 until 1898. When they meet once a month, they shared the worship house with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Richardson at Tyler and Texas. They meet once a month when the circuit rider came into town. Sometimes they had Sunday School and on the other Sundays they probably attended church in Renner, Frankford, Breckenridge maybe even as far away as Carat or Duck Creek.
By 1898 the These gentlemen were farmers and business man of the area. You will see the McKamy name still in the area of Frankford and Preston Road. There were several clans of Jacksons. The two named here were from Renner Texas. The Jackson farm stood at the corner of Frankford and Preston Road.
Therefore, with fifty dollars in hand the group purchased the property from the Houston Central Railroad at the corner of Polk and Greenville Avenue. The church was a frame structure of one room with windows of rainbow colored glass to be opened in warm weather. The entrance was at the front corner of the church. A steeple was overhead and another door was located in the back wall. In the financial
records of payments for the church there were many a name with "to pay after harvest."
There was a pot bellied stove at the front of the room. In the winter time a young man by the name of Dolph Wallis, at the request of his father, Rev. W.C. Wallis would traipse down in his knee high boots early on Sunday morning and light a fire in the stove so it would be warm by church time. He would clean out the pews and pick up papers left from the Sunday before. Put the Cokesbury songbooks in their places ready to be used. The choir was called up from the congregation and the piano would play out for those to sing their hearts out every Sunday morning.
women of the church decided it was time for the Methodists to get a place they could call their own. So, they meet together, as was often done in those days, and had a quilting day. They made an autograph quilt, made up of fifty squares. Those squares had family names embroidered on them. They had a sale or an auction. Sold the quilt for $50.00. This money was used to by the plot of land that was to become home for this small group of Methodists. The building committee and the first board of Trustees of that church were all from Renner, Texas. They had experience in building church buildings and wanted to do this for their neighbors, members of the Frankford Methodist Episcopal Church, which had just completed their new white frame church, wanted to help also. The Rev. W. H. Stephenson was the circuit rider during that year. J. S. Drumheller, J. L. McKamy, W. T. McKamy, O. P. Scott and W.W. Julian, P. Hamer, J. W. Crister, F. W. Jackson and J. A. Jackson began the new church.