Tribute to Frankfort Pilgrim College

Frankfort Camp Meeting ended last night. My mother has attended all but one her entire life--that's 80 camp meetings. The camp is held on the grounds of what used to be Frankfort Pilgrim College, which was merged with what became United Wesleyan College in (I think) 1972. Then of course UWC merged with Houghton in the early 90's.

I personally think it makes little sense for the records of FPC to be at Houghton when IWU is only about an hour away from where the college stood. Even many Frankfort reunions are held at IWU. Any politics is ancient history and a lesson in human insignificance--the players in Frankfort's closing have zero power today, just as all of us young whipper snappers will have zero power tomorrow.

Frankly, any power any of us today might think we have is ludicrous in the light of reality. Put any of those who boasted of power in Wesleyan circles in the 70's next to Richard Nixon, and it becomes laughable. Put any of our boast to power today next to that of Dick Cheney, and we seem pretty foolish (at least until he is impeached :-). Then put Cheney next to God and, wait, where did he go? He's so small I can't even see him. No man (or woman) can boast before the LORD!

The Indiana Central District of the Wesleyan Church voted this year to allow the board to sell the property for a million dollars if they find an appropriate buyer. The Pilgrims in the area--groups that pulled out of the church at merger--were a great candidate to buy it at first. Then the Wesleyans might have leased it for a couple weeks a year and the camp meeting could continue. But the Pilgrims are already in negotiations for property in Anderson and are divided in their interest in it anyway.

I am a sentimental person in feeling, although a pragmatist in action. The pragmatist in me recognizes that without a prophet with a vision, the money spent on the property might arguably benefit the kingdom more if it were used in some other way. No doubt someone could make something great for the kingdom from this property, but that person has not presented herself. I don't know the details of the situation, but there is a possible world in which my conscience would have to vote for the selling or closure of such entities.

But of course many an argument "for the betterment of the kingdom" ends up whittled away in something far less valuable than what we started with. I have an impression of many a cocky leader of the past thinking themselves to be something, arguing the "better for the kingdom" argument to change something, only to erect some shallow substitute in its stead. Many a youth professes himself to be wise, but ends up looking like a fool.

So my pragmatic side recognizes that selling the camp ground might very well be the right thing to do (although I do not know the actual data or arguments). But my sentimental side feels loss at this dishonored and abandoned part of my heritage. The boomers across the denomination have shunned the camp meetings just as much as they have shunned entire sanctification and the legalism they associated with it. Many of their complaints were justified. If I had been in power in those days, I might have voted with them.

But I think it is important to preserve the memories that inhabit those grounds, one way or another. My grandfather taught at the high school there for many years, without a salary for many of them. He was one of those that those in power knew they could get by without paying because he wouldn't complain. My mother's family lived off of runny potato soup in the cafeteria during the Depression. Most of my sisters finished high school there and at least started college. It was not a prestigious place. It wouldn't have stood a chance at secular accreditation without massive overhaul. From most perspectives today, it would be a rather odd place.

But it was the very stuff of the holiness movement. A person cannot be completely healthy unless she comes to peace with her past. And Frankfort Pilgrim College and the other places like it are part of our Wesleyan past.

A newspaper article from 1924, three years before the college started, indicated that 7000 people were in attendance for Sunday services on the camp grounds, with 2000 on average per day during the week. This was in the old tabernacle, torn down since the late 50's. It was in the shape of a T, much like a cross, although I doubt anyone planned it that way.

The chairs in the "wings" of the sanctuary faced the pulpit, much like a medieval cathedral. On the left was space for about a 50 person orchestra with tuba, drums, and violin. Those who participated received a free meal ticket in reward. On the right all the pastors and their wives sat, again, facing the pulpit. Behind the pulpit going up in bleacher-like fashion sat the youth. Everyone else sat in the normal place in front of the platform. Underneath the "youth section" of the platform, underneath the bleacher-like part, were cots where men could sleep for a dollar a night.

When district superintendent F. J. Goins built the current tabernacle, they intentionally built it too small for the youth to be up there--didn't like the youth being there. The result is that Frankfort did not have much in the way of an orchestra on the platform in my lifetime. Funny to look back at the politics of the past. The worship bands today are nuthin' new, or are drums or guitars. They were doing that in the 20's.

The college was closed soon after merger. Too many Wesleyan colleges in the same vicinity. Fair enough. Marion was accredited and more mainstream. I think by and large the Wesleyan Methodists were better educators than the Pilgrims. Frankfort was a Bible College with significantly less academic clout. Frankly, I'm just guessing at the arguments that might have been made at that time.

So the days of my childhood were days of buildings disappearing one by one. The old tabernacle was torn down five or ten years before I was born. I have fun memories of sneaking into closed buildings as a child--the condemned boy's dorm with its cob webs, what used to be the chapel and cafeteria with an old walk in refrigerator (that we walked in). We snuck in what used to be the library and found a jar with a brain in it--or at least that's the way I remember it.

The cottages that still stand are precious from the standpoint of memory, embarrassing from the standpoint of realty. They're a fun week in the summer, but sobering to remember that faculty and others one time lived all year round in these sorts of structures. A secret storage compartment behind one of the stairs houses my can collection with cans dated 1976, 1986, 1996, and 2006 (remember real aluminum cans?).

The grounds echo of the Depression and poverty in some respects. The spot where the old library stands had a building for old people in the 20's. In 1929 an anonymous German Baptist there (still with an accent) sprinkled my mother, thinking she ought to be baptized. My grandfather was part of the Quaker influx into the Pilgrim Holiness Church. To my knowledge he was never baptized to the day of his death.

Underneath grass at one point are the remnants of a brick sidewalk where many a couple once walked (probably not allowed to hold hands). A circle of sidewalk puzzles the person who doesn't know that a stone fountain once stood there.

It's like many a place half abandoned. The unaware walk through ghosts and memories without even realizing it. Me--I don't own the rights to these memories... I don't even have very many. They are really the property of others. I wouldn't have gone to Frankfort even if it had still been open when I was of college-going age.

But I can still write a tribute to Frankfort Pilgrim College. Let those who think their memories are more valuable because they are different or more sophisticated, be reminded that they too are dust and as grass that withers. No one's memories are more valuable than anyone else's if they are truly valued.