Bell dedication set for Sunday

Staff report

austintown

West Austintown First United Methodist Church, 6749 Mahoning Ave., will dedicate a church bell during an All Saints service at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. The service will include reading of the memorial names roll. Special guest will be the Rev. Dr. David Lynn, former pastor.

The bell is from the former Methodist Church on Russell Avenue and it originally came from an old church in Atwater, Ohio. The bell has been fully restored.

The bell commemorates the merging of the congregations of West Austintown Methodist Church and West Austintown Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church.

Nationally, the two denominations voted in 1966 in Chicago to become the United Methodist Church.

Warren “Gene” Boyer was the only lay delegate from the Youngstown District to the General Conference and voted for the merger. He believes the churches were the first to merge in the East Ohio Conference; the merger was in December 1967. It is believed that the merger of the churches of the two denominations also was the first in the United States.

The memorial was constructed with funds given in memory of Boyer’s wife, Bernice Fee Boyer, who died this year.