By Jared Olar
Library assistant
As announced in the Pekin Daily Times last month, Pekin’s historic Second Reformed Church will hold its last worship service this Sunday, Nov. 24, due to dwindling membership. This week’s “From the Local History Room” will look into the standard works on Pekin’s past for a retrospective on the church’s history.
Starting out 145 years ago, in the 20th century Second Reformed Church became known as “the Dirksen church” because Pekin’s hometown U.S. Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen and his family were members. Though Second Reformed’s church building, at 600 State St., has had numerous renovations, remodelings, and additions, the original church building of 1876 remains intact.
Founded early in the heyday of Pekin’s German “Bean Town,” the church was born from the great influx of German immigrants who arrived in Pekin about the third quarter of the 19th century. While most Germans are Lutheran or Catholic, the Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) religion gained a foothold along the North Sea coasts of Germany – the area known as Ostfriesland, “land of the East Frisians.” The Dutch people are akin to the neighboring Ostfriesland Germans, and many of Second Reformed’s families, such as the Dirksens, have been descendants of immigrants from Ostfriesland.
Second Reformed Church was founded early enough in Pekin’s history that it merited a paragraph in Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” pages 592-593. This is how Chapman summarized the church’s first few years:
“Second Dutch Reformed Church was organized July 26, 1876 (sic – 1874), by Revs. K. B. Wieland, John Miller, and E. P. Livingston, with fifteen members. The building was erected the same year. It is a good frame, 35 by 55 feet in size, and cost $2,500. It was dedicated the first Sunday in October, 1876, and since has made great advances, and the pastorate of Rev. P. F. Schuelke, the present pastor, has been especially blessed, and the membership increased to 80. Rev. K. B. Wieland preceded Rev. Schuelke, who came in May, 1876, and was the first pastor. The Elders are U. B. Johnson, and W. Dickman. Deacons; D. Greon, and D. Klok. The Sunday-school was organized with two teachers and twelve scholars. It now numbers 125 to 150 scholars in attendance, Henry Ploepot, Superintendent. Contribution, $75 per year. Salary of pastor, $700.”
Chapman’s account misstates the year of the church’s organization, probably mistaking the year of Schuelke’s arrival and the construction of the church building for the year of organization. The church’s official website also states that Second Reformed Church began with 56 charter members, not 15. In the two years prior to the construction of the church, the members under Rev. Klaus Wieland’s pastoral care met in various homes and buildings.
Ben C. Allensworth’s updated 1905 “History of Tazewell County,” page 921, adds the comment that Rev. Schuelke “filled the pastorate for eighteen years, being succeeded in 1903 by Rev. John De Beer, the present pastor. The church is in a highly prosperous condition. The church membership consists of fifty families and the Sunday school has 140 members.”
The 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume, pages 16-17, offered this account of the church:
“This year marks the 100th anniversary of Pekin’s Second Reformed Church, organized July 26, 1874, by a group of German immigrants. The first and only building for this congregation was constructed on the corner of State and Sixth Streets in 1876. Faced with the decision of whether to remodel or construct a new building, the congregation has recently undertaken a major renovation of the old church, thus preserving one of Pekin’s oldest landmarks.
“To many Pekin residents, Second Reformed is known as the Dirksen Church, because the late Senator Everett M. Dirksen attended its services during his youth. His twin brother Tom recalls that when he and Everett were about 16, it was their responsibility to pump up the air for the organ and also stoke the two coal stoves that stood on either side of the sanctuary. The stoves are gone now, and the organ has been replaced, but the congregation of 230, led by Reverend Ralph Cordes, still meets in the same building.”
The Sesquicentennial also includes this caption under a recent photograph of the church: “The Second Reformed Church celebrated its 100th anniversary this year with a major renovation of the building which was constructed in 1876.”
Finally, “Pekin: A Pictorial History” (1998, 2004), page 183, provides these details:
“Conceptualized by a committee of three, organized for low and high German immigrants, Second Reformed Church of Pekin built its first building in 1876 after two years of meeting in homes and small buildings.
“Initial early improvements consisted of oil stoves replaced by a gas heating plant and kerosene lights replaced by electric ones.
“More current improvements include the Hinners’ pipe organ replaced by a new organ, augmented with an electronic keyboard and updating of the building interior and exterior.
“The church facility has modernized with additions of an annex and educational wing. The first parsonage was sold in 1973 and replaced with a newly constructed four-bedroom home to the west of the church.
“Things have been changed, but the message is the same: Jesus Christ is Lord and this is His House.
“The church building has been remodeled several times, most recently in 1978, but the original bell with its German inscription, ‘THE LORD IS SUN AND SHIELD’ still peals from the new bell tower regularly.”
