Norwegian Free Methodist Connections Uncovered in New Book for a Gift of $1,700 We Will Name an Entire New Levels Won’T Start Until 2020

Celebrating 50 Years 1969-2019 Free Methodist Historical Society

2019 is a year of much excitement here! We are operating budget. We’d like to introduce you to our new celebrating our 50th birthday, wrapping up library shelf membership program structure that is designed to help fundraising, preparing for General Conference, and us cover that gap: introducing a new membership program structure. $250 ...... Roberts Founders One of the ways we are honoring our 50th is by $100 ...... Heritage Partners completing a multi-year redesign with new shelves in $50 ...... Legacy Associates SUMMER 2019 — Volume 18, No. 2 the library! We are half way to our $30,000 goal. At the $25 ...... Senior/Student Affiliates B. T. Roberts Marston Center, we value and cherish the example of Will you partner with us as a yearly giver at the $250 or (1823-93) those who have gone before us. For a gift $100 level? We look forward to whatever level you would of $500 we will name a shelf in honor or like to renew or restart your membership! If memory of a loved one you designate. you have already renewed for 2019, then the Norwegian Free Methodist Connections Uncovered in New Book For a gift of $1,700 we will name an entire new levels won’t start until 2020. If this is shelving unit in honor or memory of your you, thank you for already partnering with BY DAVID BUNDY loved one. Please see details below for how us! to make a contribution. Beginning this year, for those who Free Methodists in Norway during the late nineteenth Many preparations are ongoing for have reached a $1,000 lifetime giving century! Not many would have thought of the possibility. General Conference and we hope to level beginning with 2019 giving, we will Immigrant Silvert V. Ulness (1865-1937) was converted see YOU there! We will have a booth honor by naming you a Marston Fellow to Free Methodism through contact with the Pentecost that features life-size Flat B. T. and and included in this list in a display at the Bands. Lillian May Burt (1869-1955) was a Pentecost Band Ellen, instructions for recording oral Marston Historical Center. evangelist from Michigan. They were married in 1890 histories, demonstrations of glass Please make a check payable to and sought appointment as a Pentecost Band for Norway. lantern slides, a sample of the new Free FMC – USA and indicate MMHC and They were sent there by Vivian Dake as Pentecost Band Methodist History Timeline game, and membership level in the memo and mail #12. When the Bands were forced from the Free Methodist free books! We will also be hosting a to Marston Memorial Historical Center, Church, the Ulness family decided to remain in the church special viewing of the Jake DeShazer movie 770 N High School Rd, Indianapolis, IN as appointed missionaries. They were a crucial conduit from there throughout the Nordic countries and Europe. on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. However, tickets do 46214 or go online and become a member of Free Methodist radical holiness ideals into Northern He clearly demonstrates connections between Ulness and need to be purchased ahead of time. If you haven’t signed at https://give.fmcusa.org/givemarston. Europe during the last decades of the 1800s. future Norwegian Pentecostal leaders T. B. Barratt and up, come see us in the exhibit hall to secure movie tickets! If you are contributing to the shelving project please Author Inge Bjørnevoll Erik Andersen Nordquelle as well as Barratt’s friend in Lastly, many of you may have already heard that we mark your gift “library shelves.” If you are honoring served more than 40 years as a Denmark, Phillip Wittroch, among others. are rolling out a new membership program structure. someone by contributing to an entire shelf or section missionary with the Norwegian Among the many contributions of Bjørnevoll’s volume As a devoted reader of the Marston newsletter, you please include the name in your communication. Published by the Pentecostal Mission. His is the detailed tracing of the personal heritage of Ulness. Marston Memorial research has resulted in a bold The “finds” include ship records for the emigration from know that the amount of funding we generously receive Thank you for partnering with us as we prepare for Historical Center through the Free Methodist Church does not cover our the next 50 years! new interpretation of the Free Norway, detailed information about his family heritage ISSN 1546-4199 Methodist mission in Norway (complicated by the changes of names), documentation Cathy Robling, Director and of Ulness. It is based on from local archives, information about the precise sites Julianne Class, Archivist contextual, private and public of congregations, data about the congregations and the Kyle Moran, Digital Librarian documentation, as well as buildings that housed them. Careful attention was given World Ministries Center on a close reading of the two to the social contexts of the ministry sites. Bjørnevoll also 770 N. High School Road periodicals edited by Ulness: calls attention to the visit of Vivian Dake to Sogndal, Indianapolis, IN 46214 Ild-Tungen (Tongue of Fire) and Norway (1891), perhaps the only visit to Norway of a (800) 342-5531 its successor, Sandhed og Frihed non-Lutheran, non-Methodist Episcopal international Email (Truth and Freedom). At their leader of a religious movement during this period. [email protected] height, these had a circulation Dake’s evangelistic work along the coast of Norway Website of about 6,000 in Scandinavia, a was significant. Importantly, Bjørnevoll traces the legal fmcusa.org/ministries/marston- network and impact far greater difficulties faced by the Free Methodist Church during memorial-historical-center than the two congregations. its first two decades in Norway, as a new “dissenting” Newsletter Bjørnevoll interprets movement from the state Lutheran church. The volume Mindi Grieser Cromwell (Editor) the work of Ulness as the provides well-selected excerpts from Ulness’s writings. Cathy Robling first Pentecostal mission in Bjørnevoll’s “Ild-Tungen” is an important contribution

David Bundy Norway and demonstrates to FM history, European Radical Holiness history, and to Permit No. 8783 No. Permit Howard Snyder

the continuities of ideas, the study of trans-Atlantic networks of the Holiness and (800) 342-5531 (800) Indianapolis, IN Indianapolis, Julianne Class

personnel and networks with Pentecostal Movements. It is also a moving tribute to an P A I D I A P

Indianapolis, IN 46214 IN Indianapolis, Layout & Design

U.S. Postage U.S. the post-1906 Pentecostal intrepid couple who struggled to communicate the FM 770 N High School Road School High N 770 Andrea Anibal

Non-Profit Organization Non-Profit movement in Norway, and version of Christian faith in the context of Norway.

Free Methodist Historical Society Historical Methodist Free Free Methodist Church – USA – Church Methodist Free The Mission of the Free Methodist Historical Society is to preserve Free Methodist heritage and transmit it faithfully to each generation in order to assist the Free Methodist Church in fulfilling its mission. were prepared to reveal the gift of a What did they do with the chance to experience The new glass cage to Minnie. Walt’s crowning achievement firsthand? Did they MysteriousMysterious CaseCase The mid-1930s was a very different decline the offer, knowing that July 17, 1955, was a time, not only in everyday living but Sunday, and that they’d all be busy with services at also in how the Free Methodist Church the local congregation? Did families take advantage of the operated. While today the denomination of the invitation, and were there Free Methodist DisneylandDisneyland InvitationInvitation might find ways to engage the world in children who walked down Main Street, eyes some form of evangelism through the widening at literally being the first to see Sleeping BY JOSH AVERY his waistline while an alarmed colleague, draw of such an oddity, the leaders of Beauty’s castle? Oscar Allred, ran to grab a fruit jar. The duo yesteryear worried that Minnie may Are those very same children still alive, with I’ve always been a huge Disney fan — from was able to transition the mouse accomplish the opposite — moving memories of that magical (yet, as history tells us, visiting the theme parks and taking a peek behind from the shirt to the jar and into a the focus from Christ to a theatrical crowded and not without its flaws) experience still the magic to learning more about the man himself, waiting cage somewhere far from endeavor. intact? I hope so, and I still hold out hope that I will Walt Disney. During one of my most recent studies the kitchen. As January approached, it was speak to one of those individuals. At some point in into Disney history, I stumbled across an interesting For many organizations, this decided that Minnie would need to be the future, any hope of finding a living connection to fact that I couldn’t overlook: When Disneyland would be the end of a mouse-loose- given to another organization to continue Walt’s mysterious invitation will be gone. opened in Anaheim for the first time on July 17, 1955, in-the-orphanage story that you her rise to stardom. As Gensch put it to the The thought may seem morose, but it’s the Walt himself invited a group of Free Methodists. might repeat each year, laughing as media when asked why the denomination circle of life, isn’t it? We live, we die, and then — Unfortunately, that’s as much information as you remembered the look on the was asking them to turn at least for those of us in Christ — the book revealed. Nowhere was the name of the superintendent’s face as the mouse over the care o f we live again. Maybe the reason specific church that received the invite, the names terrorized him. For Allred, though, Minnie: “Our folks don’t w e spend time reading of those involved, or even the reason Walt chose to this was no ordinary mouse. In object to Minnie. In these newsletters and invite them. Among a list of other denominations on fact, he claimed this mouse could fact, all the children studying B. T. Roberts the page, the only clue was that Walt Disney felt it sing. and the supervisors at Were there and poring over old was important to invite a group of Free Methodists While some may have laughed the home have gotten documents from men to the opening day of his dream becoming a reality. Allred’s belief off as the product of an awfully fond of her and Free Methodist like John Wesley is I immediately wanted to know more, but overactive imagination, it was no joke. hate to give her up. But our children who because we understand that contacting the author of the book, the official Walt As first the orphans and then crowds came church is opposed to theaters.” it’s not really about learning Disney Company Archives, and even the local to hear this singing mouse, one onlooker described As Minnie continued walked down facts or becoming a history Anaheim Free Methodist Church both proved it like this: “It starts with a soft whirling trill, the singing under her new owners, buff. Maybe we understand the dead ends. Meanwhile, I stumbled across a group chirps coming so close together that they provide a the Woodstock Civic Club, she Main Street deeper reality that we learn so on Facebook called “Growing Up Free Methodist,” continuous tone. This grows louder to an intensive managed to land her biggest much about ourselves and our a page for adults interested in documenting the crescendo and then jumps two notes higher for competition yet. It turned out with widening lives when we look at our past. history and sharing their memories of the FMC. another crescendo.” that others across America and eyes? All we can do with the past is tell While the folks at Growing Up Free Methodist The mouse became so well-known that he the world had discovered similar ourselves stories about what once didn’t have any leads about the opening day of needed a name, and it didn’t take long for those “singing mice,” and due to the interest was — we can’t alter or change it — yet Disneyland, they did tell another fascinating story involved to pick one. This would be Mickey, the Free in the phenomena, NBC decided to host a those stories can impact who we are today. involving a famous mouse. Methodist singing mouse. As news spread about radio competition which would determine once and None of us want to spend our lives sitting on It was December 10, 1936 — only eight years what Mickey could do, the calls to the Industrial for all who would hold the title of the “best singing the sidelines, full of regrets when we come to the after Walt had created Mickey Mouse. Preparations Home for Children kept coming — first mouse in the world.” end of it all. We want history to reflect that we were had begun for the Christmas celebration at the from local zoos and then one from the While the winner of that world championship merciful, compassionate, and that we loved God Free Methodist orphanage in Woodstock, nearby radio station. As superintendent of has been lost to history, what press documents do and loved people — that we’ve lived our story well. Illinois, a refuge called the Industrial Home the home, Gensch did his best to field all the tell us is equally interesting. One of the judges tasked For Walt, it always seemed to come back to a for Children. While the children may have media and individuals hoping to get a look with choosing a victor on April 11, 1937 (and thereby dream. A storyteller at heart, he knew the power of been dreaming of sugarplums and holiday at the mouse. crossing paths with Minnie the Free Methodist stories and the reality that we are the characters in the delights, a stressed Superintendent In the midst of the flurry, a veterinarian Mouse) was none other than Walt Disney himself. story told through our own lives. We have the chance Herbert Gensch was running around who came to see Mickey revealed a Is it possible that Walt heard about Minnie’s to tell powerful stories with our actions to the world the kitchen chasing a runaway mouse surprise: This was no Mickey at all, but past with the Free Methodist Church? Did it have around us, and it begins with the willingness to dream. spotted the day before. apparently Minnie — a female mouse! any impact on his idea to invite a group of Free To dream about a Church that learns from its Gensch caught the small animal, Newspapers such as The Chicago Daily Methodists to the very first day at Disneyland 18 history instead of repeating its mistakes. but not in the way he had hoped. The News ran headlines like “Singing Mouse Scores years later? These questions are, at best, theories To dream about the power of this moment — rodent decided to run up his Triumph in Radio Debut,” and Minnie’s popularity that may never be proven or solidified. right now — and what you can do with it. pant leg and continued to grow as the days passed. What we do know is that an unknown number To dream a better tomorrow, accomplished was doing All of this happened within only a few days, and of Free Methodists in the Anaheim area were offered through Christ. And as Walt once said, “If you can laps around by the time Christmas of 1936 arrived, the orphans the opportunity of a lifetime more than 60 years ago. dream it, you can do it.” were prepared to reveal the gift of a What did they do with the chance to experience The new glass cage to Minnie. Walt’s crowning achievement firsthand? Did they MysteriousMysterious CaseCase The mid-1930s was a very different decline the offer, knowing that July 17, 1955, was a time, not only in everyday living but Sunday, and that they’d all be busy with services at also in how the Free Methodist Church the local congregation? Did families take advantage of the operated. While today the denomination of the invitation, and were there Free Methodist DisneylandDisneyland InvitationInvitation might find ways to engage the world in children who walked down Main Street, eyes some form of evangelism through the widening at literally being the first to see Sleeping BY JOSH AVERY his waistline while an alarmed colleague, draw of such an oddity, the leaders of Beauty’s castle? Oscar Allred, ran to grab a fruit jar. The duo yesteryear worried that Minnie may Are those very same children still alive, with I’ve always been a huge Disney fan — from was able to transition the mouse accomplish the opposite — moving memories of that magical (yet, as history tells us, visiting the theme parks and taking a peek behind from the shirt to the jar and into a the focus from Christ to a theatrical crowded and not without its flaws) experience still the magic to learning more about the man himself, waiting cage somewhere far from endeavor. intact? I hope so, and I still hold out hope that I will Walt Disney. During one of my most recent studies the kitchen. As January approached, it was speak to one of those individuals. At some point in into Disney history, I stumbled across an interesting For many organizations, this decided that Minnie would need to be the future, any hope of finding a living connection to fact that I couldn’t overlook: When Disneyland would be the end of a mouse-loose- given to another organization to continue Walt’s mysterious invitation will be gone. opened in Anaheim for the first time on July 17, 1955, in-the-orphanage story that you her rise to stardom. As Gensch put it to the The thought may seem morose, but it’s the Walt himself invited a group of Free Methodists. might repeat each year, laughing as media when asked why the denomination circle of life, isn’t it? We live, we die, and then — Unfortunately, that’s as much information as you remembered the look on the was asking them to turn at least for those of us in Christ — the book revealed. Nowhere was the name of the superintendent’s face as the mouse over the care o f we live again. Maybe the reason specific church that received the invite, the names terrorized him. For Allred, though, Minnie: “Our folks don’t w e spend time reading of those involved, or even the reason Walt chose to this was no ordinary mouse. In object to Minnie. In these newsletters and invite them. Among a list of other denominations on fact, he claimed this mouse could fact, all the children studying B. T. Roberts the page, the only clue was that Walt Disney felt it sing. and the supervisors at Were there and poring over old was important to invite a group of Free Methodists While some may have laughed the home have gotten documents from men to the opening day of his dream becoming a reality. Allred’s belief off as the product of an awfully fond of her and Free Methodist like John Wesley is I immediately wanted to know more, but overactive imagination, it was no joke. hate to give her up. But our children who because we understand that contacting the author of the book, the official Walt As first the orphans and then crowds came church is opposed to theaters.” it’s not really about learning Disney Company Archives, and even the local to hear this singing mouse, one onlooker described As Minnie continued walked down facts or becoming a history Anaheim Free Methodist Church both proved it like this: “It starts with a soft whirling trill, the singing under her new owners, buff. Maybe we understand the dead ends. Meanwhile, I stumbled across a group chirps coming so close together that they provide a the Woodstock Civic Club, she Main Street deeper reality that we learn so on Facebook called “Growing Up Free Methodist,” continuous tone. This grows louder to an intensive managed to land her biggest much about ourselves and our a page for adults interested in documenting the crescendo and then jumps two notes higher for competition yet. It turned out with widening lives when we look at our past. history and sharing their memories of the FMC. another crescendo.” that others across America and eyes? All we can do with the past is tell While the folks at Growing Up Free Methodist The mouse became so well-known that he the world had discovered similar ourselves stories about what once didn’t have any leads about the opening day of needed a name, and it didn’t take long for those “singing mice,” and due to the interest was — we can’t alter or change it — yet Disneyland, they did tell another fascinating story involved to pick one. This would be Mickey, the Free in the phenomena, NBC decided to host a those stories can impact who we are today. involving a famous mouse. Methodist singing mouse. As news spread about radio competition which would determine once and None of us want to spend our lives sitting on It was December 10, 1936 — only eight years what Mickey could do, the calls to the Industrial for all who would hold the title of the “best singing the sidelines, full of regrets when we come to the after Walt had created Mickey Mouse. Preparations Home for Children kept coming — first mouse in the world.” end of it all. We want history to reflect that we were had begun for the Christmas celebration at the from local zoos and then one from the While the winner of that world championship merciful, compassionate, and that we loved God Free Methodist orphanage in Woodstock, nearby radio station. As superintendent of has been lost to history, what press documents do and loved people — that we’ve lived our story well. Illinois, a refuge called the Industrial Home the home, Gensch did his best to field all the tell us is equally interesting. One of the judges tasked For Walt, it always seemed to come back to a for Children. While the children may have media and individuals hoping to get a look with choosing a victor on April 11, 1937 (and thereby dream. A storyteller at heart, he knew the power of been dreaming of sugarplums and holiday at the mouse. crossing paths with Minnie the Free Methodist stories and the reality that we are the characters in the delights, a stressed Superintendent In the midst of the flurry, a veterinarian Mouse) was none other than Walt Disney himself. story told through our own lives. We have the chance Herbert Gensch was running around who came to see Mickey revealed a Is it possible that Walt heard about Minnie’s to tell powerful stories with our actions to the world the kitchen chasing a runaway mouse surprise: This was no Mickey at all, but past with the Free Methodist Church? Did it have around us, and it begins with the willingness to dream. spotted the day before. apparently Minnie — a female mouse! any impact on his idea to invite a group of Free To dream about a Church that learns from its Gensch caught the small animal, Newspapers such as The Chicago Daily Methodists to the very first day at Disneyland 18 history instead of repeating its mistakes. but not in the way he had hoped. The News ran headlines like “Singing Mouse Scores years later? These questions are, at best, theories To dream about the power of this moment — rodent decided to run up his Triumph in Radio Debut,” and Minnie’s popularity that may never be proven or solidified. right now — and what you can do with it. pant leg and continued to grow as the days passed. What we do know is that an unknown number To dream a better tomorrow, accomplished was doing All of this happened within only a few days, and of Free Methodists in the Anaheim area were offered through Christ. And as Walt once said, “If you can laps around by the time Christmas of 1936 arrived, the orphans the opportunity of a lifetime more than 60 years ago. dream it, you can do it.” Celebrating 50 Years 1969-2019 Free Methodist Historical Society