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3 1949, the Misses Barbara and Hilda Sick contacted the Reverend J.N. Brown of the First Presbyterian Church of Gulfport, Mississippi, who enthusiastically agreed to preside at a meeting with the Presbyterians of the Bay. Invitations through the local press and personal contact were extended to all local Presbyterians interested in uniting for worship, and on December 13, 1949 the first official meeting for the establishment of a Presbyterian Mission took place in the home of Mrs. Fred Koeniger at 636 North Beach Boulevard. It was fitting that this gathering should assemble at the very place where the inspiration of uniting the Presbyterians in worship had been born. During this meeting, plans were formulated to have religious services regularly on the second and fourth Sundays of each month at Mrs. Fred Koeniger's home. At the same time, officers for the Mission group were elected as follows: Mr. Christian Reab, Chairman; Miss Barbara Sick, Secretary; and Miss Sybil Koeniger, Treasurer. The ministers present were the Reverends Brown and L. A. Beckman, Jr., the latter from Ellisville, Miss issippi who was the Superintendent of Home Missions for the Meridian Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church. Those attending this first meeting and forming the nucleus of the church were Miss Barbara Sick, Miss Hilda Sick, Mr. and Mrs. Christian Reab, Mr. and Mrs. Camille Schaefer, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Koeniger, Kathleen Schaefer, Richard Schaefer, and Miss Sybil Koeniger. On Sunday, January 8, 1950, the first service was held with the Reverend Brown officiating and with the original eleven members in attendance. As Miss Sybil A. Koeniger, Historian for the Church put it in her unpublished history of the church a year after the event, "There was no organ, no piano, no pulpit to enhance this first worship in the spacious living room of the Koeniger home. But there was little need of these exterior trappings because in the heart of each one present there was a peace, in the knowledge that God?s Will had been fulfilled. His children had been brought together in prayer and love." Thereafter, the Reverend Beckman drove from
First Presbyterian Church History-of-the-First-Presbyterian-Church-07