The new Collierville Museum had an open house last night. All the town dignitaries were there of course but the most important to me was my mother, Betty JoAnne Rustemeyer Vaughn, daughter of one of the actual ministers at the church when it was a church. Mom told me about all the little details of the building where what was where, this was there, etc. choir loft was here (when there was a choir), the pews were here and they were crescent shaped with an aisle down the center. The program says th
e bells loft has/had an 800# bell-- the largest bell in Shelby county.
Granddaddy Rustemeyer was the Preacher in Collierville from 1937-1944. During that time he lived in the parsonage next to this building but he had services at 4churches-rotating meetings - Pleasants, Kirks, Bethany and Collierville. None of the four congregations were able to support a full time minister so they shared him- like a circuit rider preacher of sort. During this time he was also finishing his Masters Degree @ Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Mom remembers they would take him to and from the bus (he was only home on the weekend for church work and see the family). Granddaddy kept a little (2x3) notebook that survived all these years where he recorded congregation,date,sermon as well as other little books of his weddings and funerals. He was preaching Sunday morning when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor but they wouldn't know about it for some time later. Next Sunday his message was on the attack. Soon after that his plans were laid out to join some of his soldier boys of Bethany, Kirk and Collierville and Join the Army forces as a Chaplain in WWII and serve in Germany.
In 1937 ish when Mom moved to Collierville with the family she was 4-5 ish and remembers the parsonage as HUGE. The Old parsonage is no longer standing but the lot where it was is the SMALL parking lot area......So the old pictures we have added here are of the church in Granddady's day- 1935-40ish , mom playing in the side yard of the church lot and Graddaddy Rusty "Rusty" as Nanee called him and what she has written on the back near his time to go into the Army as Chaplain.
