History of Waterloo Assembly

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. We're glad to see all who have come this afternoon. I count it a privilege to be asked to tell something of the history of the assembly here in Waterloo area and how God has worked in the state.

I haven't been here for a hundred years but I've been around for nearly 60, 59 to be exact, so we've seen a few changes here. The first one to bring the gospel to this part of Iowa as far as the assemblies are concerned was Mr. John Blair from the north of Ireland. He was Robert Orr's great-uncle.

He was born in Kings Mills, County Tyrone, 1856, and in the north of Ireland he attended gospel meetings held by a two evangelists, Mr. Tom Campbell and a Mr. Matthews, and after a time of soul trouble, God dealing with him, one day reading Romans 5 and 6, the 12th of July 1880, God saved him. He realized that Christ died for the ungodly. He immediately gave himself to the things of God and the gospel, and he became involved with open-air work, and about two years later he was commended to full-time work for the Lord.

He came to the United States in the spring of 1891. He labored for a time in the state of Massachusetts around Fall River and New Bedford. There used to be assemblies there that I remember as a boy, but his big concern was about a sister of his named Mary.

She lived in Dunkerton, and his great exercise was to visit her. That was in his mind before he left the north of Ireland, but he didn't have any money to pay for the train fare, but he was thoroughly convinced it was the of the Lord to go to Dunkerton. So he went down to the train station, and the research I have done, I understand he was third in line at the wicket, where you would buy your ticket.

He didn't have any money, and there was a brother in the Lord that approached him and handed him an envelope, and in that envelope was the exact fare to go to Dunkerton. So he arrived there 30th of November 1891. He held gospel meetings in various homes, in school buildings that were available.

God blessed his labors, and there were souls that were saved, and one of them was his sister, Mary, who was Mrs. William John Orr, the grandfather of our brother Robert Orr. Now some years later, about 1847, 1898 rather, they had moved from the Dunkerton area to a farm near Independence, and that's where others of the Orr family were saved. So when Mr. William Orr originally left the old country, the old land for the United States, he was 16 years of age, and this was in the year 1847.

Well he returned to Dunkerton in 1893, and again in 1895. He held meetings in a country school about a mile south of the Orr farm, and about a mile south of the Nesbitt farm where Russell Sr. lived a few years later. My brother Russell maybe will be able to tell us more about that.

There was a man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Dunkerton, who had been saved among the free Methodists, and they had been greatly helped by the ministry of Mr. Blair. He was impressed with New Testament truth, and it wasn't very long until there were a company of believers met for the first time in their home to remember the Lord, and that was in 1893. That's a long time ago.

There were a number of believers as well that lived in Waterloo at the time who had been saved through various efforts, and they used to drive the 15 miles from Waterloo to Dunkerton with a horse and buggy, but because of the distance, those believers became exercised about an assembly in Waterloo, and so in 1898 they broke bread according to New Testament principles for the first time in the home of Mr. E. G. Matthews. Now we'll have more to say about him in a minute or two. They met not only in his home, but later they rented a funeral home.

After that, they rented an upstairs room on Commercial Street not too far east of the old J.C. Penney building. There were various tent meetings that were held in Waterloo at that time, not only by Mr. Blair, but by Mr. Charles W. Ross, by Mr. Harkus, by Mr. O'Brien, by Mr. Broadfoot, and others who labored in the southwestern part of Iowa. A number of souls were saved and added to that company, and God was working.

Now the first time that Waterloo and Dunkerton met jointly for a conference was in that upstairs room on Commercial Street in the year 1909. The meals were served in Friedel's Cafe just across the street. I understand there were about 75 attended that conference.

I have seen days when the Waterloo conference was five to six hundred believers, and you can see that we don't get that many at our conferences any longer for various reasons. Later on, the conference was held in the West High School. I remember being there.

After that, it was held in the Masonic Lodge for a number of years, and then in 1980, the Assembly in Cedar Falls joined with the Assembly in Waterloo for a conference for the first time. That was 1980. And shortly before that, in Dunkerton, an Assembly began again.

Russ will likely tell us more about that, and my understanding is it was the 15th of February 1976 that they gathered to remember the Lord, and about 20 who were in fellowship at Western Avenue Waterloo went with other believers, and they began an assembly again in Dunkerton. Now I want to change the scene for a little bit. We can't think of Waterloo without thinking of the late Oliver Smith.

His memory is precious to us. In the year 1883, a Mr. and Mrs. Henry Goff left England for the United States with six boys and two girls. They had heard of land that was available out in the Dakotas.

They settled 20 miles northeast of Langdon near Olga, North Dakota. They were a God-fearing couple. They built a little farm home.

They built a little church to meet in, and they also built a cemetery where a number of the Goffs are buried even today. There was a German immigrant that worked for the farm couple, and he used to come in every day and wash at the washstand inside the back door. His name was Charles Herman, or Charles Heeler, and he came in and he would read the text over the washstand, Psalm 9 and 17, the wicked shall be turned into hell, and he thought that's right, that's what they deserve.

But then one day he read the rest of the verse, all nations that forget God, and that convicted him. He was awakened to his need of a Savior, and shortly after he was saved. He saved his wages, and the next summer he took a train, 1895.

He went over to Dubuque, and he spoke to the controller of the school systems, and he was given a school to have gospel meetings in. Now there was a Mr. and Mrs. Herman who were saved with many others at that time, and Mr. and Mrs. Herman moved neighbor to Oliver Smith, a little 10 acre farm adjoining his Prosper's dairy farm. Mr. Herman was a real earnest soul.

He was a beekeeper. He had one cow that he kept in Mr. Smith's bar, and oftentimes at night when they were milking the cows, they would read the Scriptures under candlelight. And Mr. Smith had professed to be saved.

He had gone forth, forward in Billy Sunday's meetings, and he was baptized in his father's church. Later on he joined the Dunkardons, the Dunkards, where his wife went, the Church of the Brethren, and he was baptized three times forward, once for the Father, once for the Son, once for the Holy Ghost, but he had never any assurance of salvation. Now one day he went to Chicago on a business trip, and the Mr. Matthews that I referred to was on the same train as they were returning home, and Mr. Matthews began to speak to him about eternal things, and Mr. Smith told him that he was saved, and he asked him how he was saved, and he couldn't tell him.

He told him about his baptisms. He told him about going forward in Billy Sunday's meetings, but he couldn't tell him how he would be, how he was saved. So he thought he'd go and see his Uncle Eli, who was a preacher, and he thought if anybody, I've often heard him tell, if anyone knows how you can be sure of humble, Uncle Eli will know.

And Uncle Eli said to him, no one knows that, and what he told him was, you won't know until the great white throne judgment. Now of course he was wrong about that, but that's what he told him. But God continued to deal with Mr. Smith, and he would often talk to Mr. Herman, and when he had a question in his very broken German accent, he would say, well, we'll see what the Bible says, and he would open the scriptures to answer his questions.

But he was burdened about his sin, and about the matter of salvation, and where we would be for eternity. And one night about three o'clock in the morning on the 13th, 1913, the 13th of January, 31st of January, he was reading Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment, that well-known gospel tract, and there's a question answered in that tract, dost thou believe on the Son of God? And he honestly said to himself, no, I don't believe. If I did, I would have everlasting life.

And he saw right then that he was lost and helpless, deserving to be in hell, and he instantly realized that the Lord Jesus had suffered upon the cross to put away all his sins. He ran into the bedroom, and he woke his wife, and he shook her, and he said, Pearl, Pearl, I am saved by Jesus' blood. But she had no interest.

He told me on one occasion when he said something to her, she slapped him right across the face. A little woman about this size, hard to handle. But Mr. Smith thought he could go down the fence line, and every farmer that he knew, they would be interested in this salvation.

But he soon discovered that wasn't what was really going to happen. He injured his arm in the year of 1916 in a corn sheller, and he took a little time off his farming, and he went over to the little town of Clayton, about six miles from Garnevilla, and he had meetings in a little building there, and in two weeks he was called home because of scarlet fever. His home was quarantined, but in 1918, with his hired man, John Delegard, he went back to Clayton, preached in the schoolhouse.

There were five that professed to be saved the first week. Those were good meetings, and many more later on. An assembly began in Clayton in 1918 and continued until 1951 when some moved away, others died, and the few that remained were received into fellowship in Garnevilla.

Mr. Smith held meetings in June of 1919 in an unused church in Garnevilla that is now the museum. After the assembly started in Manchester in May of 1920, on the 24th of July 1921, the assembly started in Garnevilla, and God is blessed. In the year 1922, in the summer, Mr. Smith and a brethren from Waterloo went west to New Hartford for an open-air meeting.

They sang a few hymns. There was nobody interested in listening. One of the brethren said, let's go over to Stout.

I've been there often, canvassing for the courier paper that he worked for. So they went to Stout, they sang some hymns, people started to come out of the homes and out of the pool room, and it was a great year for the gospel. And Mr. Smith thought that would be a good place to pitch the tent.

So they went back, put up the tent, and people came. Souls were saved, the weather turned cool, a brother offered them a church building rent-free, and those meetings went on for 14 months. And Mr. Smith has told me that there were an even 100 professed to be saved in those meetings.

Must have been wonderful days. Now in the month of May 1916, on a foggy morning, Mr. Smith hit the rear end of a road grader, and he wasn't well for a few weeks. He was taken to the hospital, and they operated, and they discovered that he was full of cancer.

They gave him three days, three hours, or three weeks to live. And on the 31st of May 1960, he went home to heaven. I want to say this personally, Mr. Smith had a great, made a great impression on my life.

He always called me Doc. He used to call me up when he was going somewhere on a Sunday, and if someone would profess to be saved on a Sunday night, Glenn Groothuis was one. He said, there you are Doc.

He says anybody can work on spines, but not everybody can preach the gospel. And he was a great encouragement. He was the greatest student of human nature I ever knew.

He could size up someone in about 30 seconds, read them, and if he was talking to a farmer and he wouldn't listen, he'd start to talk about his cattle or his hogs, and soon the farmer was saying, what was it you wanted to tell me? Then he would tell him. I remember going with him one time to a conference in La Crosse. We stopped for a cup of coffee, and when the waitress came, he said, I'm a happy man.

So she said, why? He said, I know I'm going to heaven, I'm saved. And when she went to get the coffee, he said to me, you know, if they don't say why, I say do you want to know why? He never, never missed an opportunity. I went to see him shortly before he died.

I said to him, Mr. Smith, you'll soon be well and home. No, he said, Doc, I'm a goner this time. And I began to try to sympathize with him, and I spoke of the many souls that he had seen, one to Christ.

It's hard for me to say this, but he reached up and he pulled me across his chest, and he began to weep. You know what he said? I've done so little. I've done so little.

After a life of labor, seeing hundreds of souls saved. What a testimony he left. And we need young men in the state of Iowa to carry on this message.

The Lord bless his word. I could say more, but I want to leave time for my brother.