On May 1, 1925, the Cherry Street Baptist Church elected Mrs. Louise Arnold as assistant pastor. She was ordained in the church on Sunday, May 3. Mrs. Arnold did not have the ability to perform marriages but could run the Sunday School, work with church members, and serve as the visiting representative of the church. Reverend S.D. McKenny, pastor of Cherry Street Baptist, said that Mrs. Arnold had been a very active worker in the church for a long time and was a member of a board of twenty deaconesses elected to assist in carrying on church work. "For that reason when the need for an assistant to the pastor arose she was picked by the church to fill the position, her ability in the work being recognized by the church members.”
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Mrs. Arnold may not have been able to officiate at actual weddings, but she directed at least one Tom Thumb wedding in 1933 that featured the Cherry Street Baptist Church Sunday School playing the bridal party.
Louise was incorrectly identified as Louisa Arnold in the original May 5, 1925, Alton Evening Telegraph article. Her full name was Mary Louise Seiferth Arnold Stutz, but she went by Louise, and her gravestone lists her as Louise M. Arnold. Her first husband, William Arnold, died in 1951. She married widower Henry Stutz on Easter Sunday, 1953. He died in 1974. Henry is buried with his first wife, Elizabeth Jade Gray Stutz, at the Upper Alton Cemetery. Louise’s obituary in 1986 mentions that she was a 50-year member of Cherry Street Baptist Church and previously served as assistant pastor there. She is buried with William at the Alton Cemetery. As I have mentioned in previous articles, women often get lost in history because of name changes after marriage and because they are frequently listed under their husband’s first name (e.g., Mrs. William Arnold and later Mrs. Henry Stutz). One of the things we pride ourselves on at the Hayner Genealogy & Local History Library is finding and connecting all of those names so that the women themselves can be found in historical records and we can see a fuller picture of their lives.
Sources
“Mary Louise Stutz.” Alton Telegraph (Alton, IL), July 29, 1986.
“Woman Picked as Assistant Pastor of Alton Church.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), May 5, 1925
“Tom Thumb Wedding.” Alton Telegraph (Alton, IL), August 16, 1933.
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