The Methodist Church in Terre Haute Illinois
2010
This Methodist church was built in 1892 in the little town of Terre Haute in Henderson County Illinois. There, in the next year, Mary June Reynolds Watrous was remembered upon her death. Her husband Jerome Timothy Watrous also came to this little church in a coffin to be remembered as one of the pioneers of the county. He and his wife both began their lives together in this place in the year of 1844.
It was the end of the day when we walked into the church. We had stopped to meet a local farmer who was also a descendant of Henry and Sarah Painter Reynolds, parents of Mary June Reynolds Watrous. We asked if he knew how we might find someone to let us see the inside of the church where our ancestors had worshiped and had been remembered with eulogies. He laughed and said that the church was always open. We could just walk in.
We drove one block, across the main road out of town towards LaHarpe and there, on the left was a small, white board church. A stone in the corner read 1892. The doors were old and filled with stained glass. The wood benches were beautiful and the simple church had been given much care. Tom sat in the back row and looked around. He said that he could almost imagine his great-great grandparents in this place. He could imagine the caskets of both of them, with members of his family following along as mourners. He wondered if his great grandfather Henry caught a train in Salt Lake City and returned to his childhood home to pay his last respects to his mother and later to his father. We wondered but we don’t know.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of being in the same place as an ancestor. Seeing what they saw. Hearing what they might have heard. As the only descendant of Jerome and Mary’s son Henry to ever know about the town of Terre Haute or to be in the church where their funerals took place. . . it was a very special feeling. Now we know them because we looked for them. We got to know them as we learned about them. They know us. We longed to close our eyes and open them again . . . as unseen visitors in this very room in 1892 and again in 1903. While we finally know the fine face of Jerome Watrous, the face of his wife Mary has not come our way. Maybe tomorrow.