Historical Saint Matthew's Church refurbishment done

Odessa Historical Society members Pat Gies, Scott Heimbigner, Joe Wollman, and Paul Scheller last week completed the landscaping around St. Matthew’s Church, placing decorative rock with the help of Don Strebeck and his skid loader. This action finishes the refurbishment of the church which was repainted and received a new steel roof by Diamond Construction last year. Society members noted that the front sidewalk was laid the same year the church was constructed (1916) and is still in excellent shape.

St. Matthew’s was established when a portion of the Pilgrim German Congregational Church members merged with several rural German Congregational churches. In 1945, St. Matthew’s reunited with Pilgrim to form the United Congregational Church. In 1988, that church merged with English Congregational to become United Church of Christ, which today is the Heritage Church congregation.

For this year’s museum season the Society is holding a raffle. Two oak/ash dressers from the former Palace Hotel have been purchased from Catholic Charities of Spokane. One is on permanent display at the museum, while the other will go to some lucky winner selected on Saturday of Deutsches Fest. The dressers were sold from the Odessa Furniture Store and may have been built by Christian Weber who was a carpenter and in 1903 opened a furniture store along with John Meske.

Both dressers can be seen at the museum which opens for the season on Memorial Day weekend, Sunday and Monday, from 1-3 p.m. The museum will be open every Sunday from 1-3 p.m. up through Fest. Raffle tickets are $5 each and can be purchased at the museum or at Experience Quilts!.