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This is From the Archives, where we present something from our extensive collection of archival photos, records and all manner of materials dating back to when the church was First Methodist Episcopal, to First Methodist, to Church of the Savior, to St. Paul's to Crossroads.
One of the most interesting things to do with our archives, with such a large amount of material available, is to find bulletins or newsletters from about the same time of the year that we're in now, and see how different and how similar such materials, and the church itself, were at that same time of the year decades ago.
This week's Archives item is a newsletter from when the church was First Methodist from October 22, 1943, about the same Sunday and time of year we're at right now - but of course 83 years later.
Someone at some point decided to name the church's newsletter The First Methodist, which, although it might not seem like it at first glance, is a very clever name for a newsletter of a church of the same name.
The first thing that the editor of this email newsletter in 2026 that you are reading right now notices is who the editor of their newsletter was 83 years ago. It was Donald Farley, then the music director at the church. Mr Farley's picture has been featured in this section of the Chronicle Weekly before.
So, 83 years ago, a musician was in charge of communicating news and information to the church. And so it also 83 years later. Interesting.
The theme of the entire newsletter that week was mission to the world. And 83 years later, this church and the United Methodist Church writ large are still engaged in mission throughout Canton, Stark County and the world.
While still on the very front cover, and right at the top, the reader may notice a line about an American soldier in Iran. In 1941, Allied forces invaded and occupied Iran to secure an oil supply for the war. This could be the subject of an entire other discussion, but for our purposes here it is another example of how things may be seen to be similar or different 83 years later.
While still on the front cover, there is a piece from Wendell Wilkie about missions in the world. Wilkie was the Republican Presidential nominee in 1940, and the only Republican in that campaign calling for the United States to join World War II. If you follow the piece to the back cover, Wilkie brings up China and how, in his opinion, China will have to be "tied with the western democracies" in the future.
Again, for our purposes here, it leads one to wonder what Mr Wilkie would make of the geopolitical situation with the United States, China and Russia 83 years later (our present, his future), and how similar or different it might be to what he had expected or hoped for.
There is also an interesting coincidence in this newsletter from 1943 related to this month in 2026. In 1943, Mr Farley decided, as the editor, to quote John Oxenham on the back cover - "All Christly souls are one in Him throughout the whole wide earth." That is a line from the hymn In Christ There is No East or West (number 548 in our hymnal), and wouldn't you know it, our own Crossroads Choir under the direction of Beth Polen just sang an anthem this month which included that hymn.
It's fascinating to see the schedules and the services and what people were doing practically in the church in these newsletters and bulletins from decades ago. Were they singing the same hymns, or different ones? What was their take on a particular lectionary reading, and how might it be the same or different from ours today? Were people in 1943 asking for contact from the church without themselves contacting the church? (See page 4 - that last one is still a concern today, actually.)
But this newsletter from 83 years ago shows that a church is also inexorably part of a larger world, with larger concerns and problems than just who will be there for the quilting party. It shows that those larger concerns are also the concerns of the members of that church, no matter the decade or century.
And if you sit and read it from cover to cover (as you really ought to do), this newsletter from 83 years ago also comes across to a modern reader as being remarkably, for lack of a better word, political - which is very interesting.
There is no doubt historically that Christian mission from America or Europe has sometimes been used to try and change or eradicate native cultures. But what mostly comes across to the reader of this 1943 newsletter is the very straightforward idea of service to others, put simply and directly by its musician editor Donald Farley on page 2:
"Let everyone do something."
(Click to open the PDF in a new window.)
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