Gresham Meeting Room, OR

Gresham Meeting Room is a TW exclusive assembly in Damascus, Multnomah, Oregon that was technically founded about 1914. Some Baptists in the area reached out to Frank Gill of the Portland Meeting Room, which met from 1901 until about 1977 when it was absorbed into the Gresham meeting room. Frank traveled by streetcar to Gresham and held a series of meetings outlining the ground of gathering for those interested, and eventually a table was setup there. Frank was employed with the Union Pacific railroad and eventually was transferred to Omaha, Nebraska.

There was also a third TW assembly within Multnomah County that started meeting in Troutdale by 1901, comprised of S. Bates, the author C.C. Crowston and Grant Bell. By 1903, William Morgan and William Shelley were serving as additional correspondents there. This assembly alternated several times between Troutdale and Springdale before folding by 1951, its final correspondents in 1949 were George A. Canzler, George Shelley, Dan Bourgeois & Edward Klinski, and presently unknown where they sought fellowship after that, whether Portland, Gresham or both.

Claude was residing in Gresham by 1910 as a teamster, unknown whether he was in fellowship by that point, and in 1918 he was employed as a carpenter for Ed Osborn. From +1910-1914+, Elizabeth Kean Halliday resided in Gresham, in fellowship with the same circles, likely commuting to the Portland meeting, she lived previously +1881-1908+ in Hensel, Pembina, North Dakota and was born at Perth, Ontario in 1846.

Fred Duncan Shelley (1877-1951) had moved presumably from the Troutdale assembly to the Gresham assembly by 1920, and served as a correspondent minimally from 1923-1930 before he transferred elsewhere.

Gottlieb Fudickar arrived by 1923, his son Charles was residing by 1920 with the Shelley family, as did Marian Nash & Charlie Nash, teenage cousins of the Shelleys and children of John Bright Nash (b. 1879 Seward, Lincoln metro, NE - d. 1910 Junction City, Geary, KS) & Ellen Irene Woodford Nash-Fudickar (b. 1881 Hiawatha (near Abilene), Rhinehart or Liberty Twp., Dickinson, KS - d. 1915 Hiawatha, Rhinehart, Dickinson, KS). After John Nash's death in 1910 of a several week illness, his widow Ellen married Gottlieb Fudickar on Nov. 23, 1914 until her death on March 4, 1915. Her obit in the Junction City Sentinel contains a Christ-honoring tribute.

The Sester family arrived by 1930, followed by the Morgan family (from the Troutdale/Springdale assembly) by 1933, the Klinski family by 1937, and John Ruskin Gill (from the Portland assembly) was in fellowship with Gresham from +1944-1955+.

Gill edited the seminal Notes of Interest in the 1910's thru the early 1920's, a rebranding of Letters of Interest in the Lord's Work which circulated among TW-Lowe brethren beginning in the 1890's. Notes of Interest was restarted in 1993 by Gill's granddaughter Carol's husband Paul Stanley Jacobsen (1930-2021) which continued until his promotion to Glory. John Ruskin Gill was also a notable laboring brother.

Arthur Richard Mittelstadt (1910-1994) arrived from Minnesota in Portland in 1936 where he was assigned to work a year for the Wolamet National Forest under the auspices of the CCC, which was a Roosevelt-era program to assist in the Depression for unemployed, young men to learn the value of work, administrated by the Army. Mittelstadt's function for them was as a camp cook. He had been in TW fellowship in Minnesota, and was received into fellowship after marrying in 1937, after commuting occasionally during his work assignment. In the mid-1970's when the Portland assembly folded into the Gresham meeting, Mittelstadt was among those who transferred there, and he became a correspondent which he served until, at least, the late 1980's, he died in 1994.

Many others have served as correspondents over the years with the meeting room in Gresham, and nearly 110 years later, it continues faithfully in the old paths.

Contents

Past Locations

• 709 N. Roberts +1940+

Early Alumni

• Elizabeth Kean Halliday +1910-1914+ (1846-1916)
• Marian Anna Nash Hodges-Coulon +1920+ (1905-1981)
• Charles "Charlie" Benjamin Nash +1920+ (1906-1997)

Correspondents

Current references available upon request.

• Claude Emmit Stockton 1914?/+1920-1927+ (1883-1958)
• Fred Duncan Shelley 1914?/+1920-1930+ (1877-1951)
• Gottlieb Fudickar +1923+ (1876-1943)
• William Hofmann Sester +1930-1951+; +1958-1994+ (1904-1999)
• Fred John Morgan +1933-1951+ (1894-1965)
• Alvin Edward Klinski +1937-1944+ (1897-1977)
• John Ruskin Gill +1944-1955+ (1873-1962)
• Stanley Henry Midford +1949-1974 (1892-1974)
• Hector Morgan +1955-1983 (1899-1983)
• Elmo Francis Richards +1958-1977 (1893-1977)
• Roy Alfred Areta +1977-1981+ (1908-2003)
• Arthur Richard Mittelstadt +1977-1989+ (1910-1994)
• Oscar Theodore Froese +1985-2020 (1921-2020)
• John William Sester 1937/+1994-2013+ (1937-2022)
• William A. Mittelstadt +1994-2005+ (b. 1950)

Also See

• Who's Who at Gresham Meeting Room, OR 1910-present (alumni)

Sources

• TW-EB LoG's 1901-2010
• various interviews including RM.
• GTF's
• Ancestry.com
• FindaGrave.com
• Newspapers.com