Church
Events 1960
-1969
The time period of the 1960s was the setting for tremendous social turmoil and technological advances. The quest for racial equality and the Vietnam Conflict polarized Americans; the assassinations of JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy shattered us. The space program began the decade with "mere minutes long" launchings and ended with placing mankind on the moon. The Beatles were a pop phenomena, 1967 was the Summer Of Love, recreational use of drugs exploded and 1950s innocence turned into apathy, mistrust and disgust.
New inventions in this time
period included hand-held calculators, bar code scanners, permanent press
fabrics, artificial turfs, and a computer network. The first open heart transplant was
performed in 1967 by Christian Barnard.
At Verona First
Presbyterian:
Rev. F. David Pudsell served from
July 1959 until November 1961
Membership reached a modern day high of 200 members in
1964
The Presbyterian Youth Fellowship sponsored an American Indian child in
the mid sixties
Bicentennial
Moment:
Miss Margaret Elizabeth Dodge, a member of a very important family in Verona First's history, was married in the church in 1963 to Richard Donald Hillman. The bride and groom received customary premarital counseling. In this counseling, the pastor, who would also preside at the wedding ceremony, related "Those that I marry, stay married"! True to the words, Peggy's marriage endured - but the pastor's marriage ended in divorce not too long thereafter.