by Cecile Baker, Chair of the Committee for Preservation of Church History

Oh, the treasures you will see when you visit the Linda & Bob Yates Heritage Center!

Located in Trinity Hall on the 3rd floor, Room 309 was renovated and furnished to become a museum-like room for properly displaying the church’s historical records, artifacts, donations and other materials, and to make Trinity’s history more accessible to the congregants. Linda Yates, Chair of the Committee for Historical Preservation and Church History, and her architect husband Bob spearheaded the establishment and design of the room, which was completed and opened during the 185th anniversary of Trinity’s founding (2009). In the fall of 2020, this heritage room was dedicated to and named for its founders.

This bicentennial year, in honor of Mary Margaret Rogers, a dedicated member of the Committee for Historical Preservation and Church History for many years, the Yates Heritage Center was updated with new ceiling tiles and special lighting, made possible by a generous donation from the Rogers family. Also, an additional glass display case, several new historical books and other artifacts and memorials that have been donated by family members of deceased parishioners have been added. 

In the Center, you can get a very good understanding of Trinity over the past 200 years by viewing the Timeline on display on the south wall of the room. You will learn about the pastors, the buildings, the missions and programs of Trinity. Supplementing the timeline are various pictures, scrapbooks, memorial plaques, and artifacts of each era to visit. Around the room are a lighted display case of books, which are part of Trinity’s history (old hymnals, Methodist Book of Discipline, and other historical publications), a display case highlighting accomplished women of Trinity, and two cases of memorabilia and donations. The center of the room features a glass-topped display case, formerly used to display fine jewelry at Moon’s Jewelers and donated by the Moon and Thompson families. It now holds various articles about “Trinity in the News.” There are complete copies of Monthly Tidings and Crossroads to peruse, letters to and from service members of WWII, scrapbooks of Sunday School classes and other organizations, the hitching post from the parsonage built in 1860, part of a column from the 1840 church, two stained-glass windows, two pews, the cornerstone from the 1893 church, a collection of communion cups used in the 1893 church, a scrapbook of our former church buildings showing the beautiful stained-glass windows from the 1893 church, images of past choirs and other musical groups, and many more intriguing objects from Trinity’s past.