150TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
St. Paul United Church of Christ, Palatine
A Historic Palatine Church
After Celebrating Its 150th Anniversary
As proof of being an historic church, the staff, congregation and friends of St. Paul UCC celebrated its 150th birthday on September 12, 2021. After more than two years of planning for this event, an outdoor celebration service was held under a large white tent on the church’s east lawn. Included in the service were beautiful music (some sung by St. Paul UCC children), historical anecdotes, and meaningful messages from our pastor. A reception afterwards was held featuring a large, decorated cake. Souvenir anniversary booklets were available. Concluding the festivities, there was a dedication of an Anniversary Rock, with a bronze plaque attached honoring the event, installed near the church’s east entrance.
Also, the “surprise” time capsule contents were introduced and on display. Only a coincidental memory from an anniversary committee member’s son, only four months before the big event, had reminded the anniversary committee that the church even had a time capsule. The son, who was 5 years old at the time, remembered the cutting into the corner of the church and removing the 450-pound cornerstone during the church’s 100th anniversary celebration. He had recalled thinking, “If they cut the corner, isn’t the tower going to collapse?” Fifty years later, members now were awed by the 48-star flag, old coins, and various papers in German and English dating from the 1800s to 1971 that had been found inside the old copper box behind the cornerstone.
Now, the old hand-constructed copper box is tucked back in its original spot, behind the St. Paul United Church of Christ cornerstone. It contains not only its original contents (some copies had to be made because of the poor condition of some original papers) but also some added items like 2021 coins, official information about the COVID- 19 pandemic, two face masks, one cloth and one paper, a wooden cross, the last congregational photo from 2016, and the 150th anniversary bulletin.
So St. Paul UCC is marching onward, while carrying its historic past with it.