100 Years of Grace

On Tuesday, the public can tour an Elkridge church that turned 100 this year.

The congregation of Grace Episcopal Church, which is the third oldest in Howard County, predates the actual buildings, said Judy Peddicord of Elkridge, a parishioner who helped compile the church's history.

“In the beginning, they met in people’s houses on Lawyers Hill Road,” said Peddicord. That was around 1842, she added, presenting the history of Grace at a recent .

The church did not have good luck with buildings, it turned out.

Between 1855 and 1909, Grace Church had three fires, “caused by sparks from passing locomotives,” according to history that Peddicord documented.

The first three churches burned down.

“After the third fire, the vestry decided to build the new church of stone with a slate roof up the hill a safe distance from the railroad…” stated the history, which was bound into a booklet for the of the stone church's consecration on Oct. 9.

For the past 100 years, the church has been standing, unharmed by the locomotives, on a hill along Elkridge's Main Street near Brumbaugh Street.

“One hundred years ago, it cost $19,000 to build, and it’s got wood beams in there like you wouldn’t believe,” said Peddicord’s husband, Norm, at the Elkridge Heritage Society meeting last month.

The stone church still has many original pieces in it, added his wife, like the baptismal font and wooden altar.

“The man who built this building knew what he was doing because the acoustics are perfect,” she said.

Recently, the church purchased a $25,000 pipe organ, she told Patch. “Once that’s hooked up, this is going to be like the best thing happening in Baltimore," she said.

Historically, Grace was in fact the place to be for social gatherings, Peddicord told the heritage society: “Plays, dinners, flea markets…” she said. “They didn’t have them all over the place—they had them at Grace.”

Grace also became the place to go for education.

“We had the first kindergarten in Howard County,” said Peddicord.

The kindergarten, which developed in the 1940s, grew out of necessity, she explained to the heritage society: “The parents had to start going to work, so instead of doing a daycare they decided to do a kindergarten. It was not county-run—it was strictly because [people] wanted to have a kindergarten.”

Today, Grace maintains strong ties to the Elkridge community.

Since 1949, it has sponsored and Boy Scout Troop 432.

“'Stewardship' is not a season of the year," wrote Father Taylor Smith in the church's fall 2011 newsletter to the congregation.

Grace serves populations in need throughout Maryland year-round. It plans to start a food pantry in 2012, and it runs a thrift store called the Mustard Seed that has become a donation hub for the needy.

“They are the recycler for everything,” said Peddicord. “Anything you can think of that needs to go to somebody else, they do it: Route 1 Day Center, Paul’s Place, . Any kind of yarn, they make into hats and scarves. Glasses, printer cartridges—they recycle all that for you.” 

There are boxes for donations in the church's entryway.

The Grace congregation is going through its own cycle of giving and receiving, in a strategic planning process that centers around input as it shapes its vision for the future.

There was a full parish meeting in December to reflect on the history of Grace Church, according to the congregation's most recent newsletter. Wrote Bob Puppa, strategic planning chair for the church: “Our history tells us a great deal about who we are."

The public is invited to  on Main Street at Brumbaugh Street at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 27, when it is still decked out for the holidays.

The event is sponsored by the Elkridge Heritage Society, a local nonprofit dedicated to the past, present and future of Elkridge, which is open to all.

Following the stone church tour, there will be refreshments at the Brumbaugh House—two doors down at 5825 Main Street—which is home to a collection of Elkridge history and the headquarters of the Elkridge Heritage Society.