Union Chapel

Mary Pitt Davis of Dayton, a biology teacher at Glenelg High School, was named Secondary Science Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Association of Science Teachers.At their Friday convention in Westminster, association president Al DeGenero presented Mrs. Davis with a plaque and a cash award in honor of her excellence in teaching science.The science teachers at Glenelg nominated Mrs. Davis for this award, said science department chairman Ivan Sutton. Her colleagues say that Ms. Davis has an outstanding educational background, in part because of her participation in many summer programs for teachers.

Community service has been cropping up in conversations ever since service became a requirement for Maryland high school students to graduate. In Howard County, we take community involvement for granted. Folks around here always manage to find time and energy to help someone in need.Recently our community has rallied around the Primrose family, and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, worshiping at Union Chapel, has taken a leading role.After Cheryl Primrose returned home from the hospital after recuperation from a paralyzing accident, she wanted to remain at home with her husband, Mickey, and their two young children.

Members of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church worshiping at Union Chapel in Glenwood often say they have a "really different church."This is a spirited place to worship. A steady growth in weekly attendance over the last year is due in large part to the at-home and welcome feeling of the church. The third Sunday of each month, worship service is for the family.Older parishioners are supportive of younger families, encouraging toddlers and youngsters to enjoy coming to church. St. Andrew's vibrant Sunday school, which serves 35 children, has met for the past year at the Children's Center of Glenwood.

Have you noticed the new addition rising from Union Chapel?Altering a building as old as this brings unique challenges. Trustees of Union Chapel wanted to guard the integrity of this place of worship while making the building more useful.The addition includes a vestibule, storage rooms, a meeting room, an office and bathrooms. Windows will provide an open view and lots of sun to the new spaces. Workers will install a heating and cooling system to serve the new structure and the old one.Members of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, who worship at Union Chapel, are excited about the addition.

St. Andrew's Church of Glenwood celebrated the start of a construction project yesterday that will provide some basic 20th century amenities as the congregation builds for the 21st century.The Episcopal parish in western Howard County commemorated an "ending and a beginning," breaking ground on an addition to the 160-year-old Union Chapel, a one-room meeting house that lacks indoor plumbing, central heat and meeting space for religious classes and church leaders."It's the ending of a long period of wait and anticipation for something better for the future," Allen Douglas, chairman of the church's mission board, told about 60 parishioners after services.

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." Those words of Dorothy Canfield Fisher express what our mothers did for us, and what we try to do for our children. It will be fun to honor Mom on Sunday and recall the ways she helped us.*Union Chapel is changing. For the first time, the 160-year old chapel will get an addition. It will provide space for Christian education, meeting rooms and bathrooms.The trustees of Union Chapel and the congregation of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, which worships there, will celebrate groundbreaking May 23, after the 9:30 a.m. service.

Saturday marks the arrival of spring. After last weekend's record-breaking weather, we need to see winter defrosting. I hope you suffered the storm well. Now we're all ready for the crocuses and daffodils to brighten our days.*With the advent of spring come thoughts of summer. If you're a parent looking for worthwhile summer programs for your child, Glenelg Country School probably can end your search.The 1993 Summer in the Country program includes day camp, with optional extended care, summer school for basic learning or enrichment, and day and evening sports camps.

Back when Howard County's leading industry was agriculture, and Columbia was a sleepy little crossroads, there wasn't much happening at the corner of Union Chapel and Roxbury Mills Road on Sunday mornings.There was a run-down, plain-looking building next to the Oak Grove Cemetery, with plaster and paint chips lying about its floor.It had been a church, but by the early 1960s, termites were its only communicants.Nowadays one might be able to hear organ music and hymns coming from the 160-year-old Union Chapel, see cars filling its parking lot and perhaps even candlelight shining through the ancient poured-glass windows.

When the Rev. Roderick J. Miller says the Union Chapel United Methodist Church congregation built the parsonage where he and his family live near Bel Air, he means it -- literally.The craftsmanship and care church members put into construction of the house, built in 1987, illustrates why the Union Chapel parish has survived for 170 years,he says."The contractor, plumber, electrician, painter, carpenters, wallpaper hangers -- even the people who sold them supplies -- were all church members or connected to church members," says Miller.