The Palmyra Methodist Church was established in 1865 and was a cornerstone for the community for almost 160 years.
Members say the church closed in October 2023 due to lack of attendees.
“We just couldn't get people to come. And none of us, our children, came back,” said Wilma Halvorsen, who grew up in Palmyra, a community of more than 500 people southeast of Lincoln. “They just never came back to Palmyra, so there’s none of our families come back. I felt very badly about it.”
Halvorsen was a senior church member who worshipped almost every Sunday since she was confirmed in 1948.
“I hated to see the church close,” she said.
Halvorsen said that for people her age, it is challenging not to have a church close to home.
“I mean, that was one of the things that, you know when you get to be as old as I am ... I knew it was going to be hard. Because it's just when I walked in, a lot of memories came back,” she said.
Former church president Jill Ehlers said she was disappointed, too. As a mother, she said the loss of fellowship cuts even deeper.
She said she feels like her kids will miss out on a location with so many memories.
"(It was) definitely sad at first, when we started talking about closing, I felt a little lost. I definitely can tell that my children feel a little lost because Max is now 9,” she said. “I get still emotional sometimes about it, but he did say the other day he's like, mom, when are we going to go back to church?”
For Ehlers and others, their disappointment wasn’t just about the loss of the church but also about the loss of a sense of community.
“And I know that, you know, we always say it's not the physical things in the church that make a church, it's the people,” Ehlers said.
Moving forward, land where the church sits will remain a cornerstone of the community, just with a different function.
“So, the church was disbanding, and we heard that they were looking to reuse it for a community service area,” said Lucinda Faunce, director of a 110-year-old library in town. “And we said the library is community service area that needs to grow. So it worked out that we were able to get the property right across the street,” Faunce said.
Palmyra Memorial Library sits just across Illinois Place from the church, a street that runs southeast from the center of town.
Unfortunately, the 160-year-old church building won’t accommodate what the library needs for its expansion. That means it could be torn down.
The library is still searching for someone to move the church off its foundation to keep the community’s memories intact, Faunce said, but whether that will be possible remains to be seen.
If the library can’t find someone to move the building, it will tear it down once it raises enough money and build a modern and ADA-accessible facility.
Faunce said one of the main reasons the library bought the church is to provide a larger space for families and kids.
A bigger building could come in handy for the library’s activities, including summer reading, a Bluey party for little kids and a yarn weaving class. Faunce said she believes the new library space would help kids in Palmyra to have a place to learn, while improving services available for all ages.
The board is working on fundraising and has raised nearly $38,000 so far. But the library also is working on securing grant money for the project.
Though they lost something dear to their faith and hearts, the congregation has rejoiced in the fact that a local entity will care for the land.
Halvorsen said she didn’t want the beloved but aging church to fall into disrepair.
“I did not want it to stand here and fall down; that was one thing and that bothered me, but like I said when the library got it, I was delighted, because now it'll still stay in the community. It'll be a part of the community forever,” she said.
Thomas Tipton and his wife, Carolyn, had been church members since the 1970s.
“We didn't have the resources to actually take it down, but we wanted it to be meaningful, remain a meaningful part of the community, but not necessarily just the building, and so as long as the property was put to good use for a community purpose,” Tipton said.
He said he and his fellow church members understand the need for a new building in the church’s place.
“The library not only will use the property, but they will honor the previous residents of this building,” said Tipton, who along with his wife and Halvorsen are now members of the Douglas United Methodist Church in Douglas.