Class of 1922

Birth: 2 Apr 1902, Cabarrus County, North Carolina, USA
Death: 8 Dec 1998, Mount Pleasant, Cabarrus County, North Carolina, USA

Parents:
William Jennings Moose (1871-1930)
Aurelia Hamilton Rose Moose (1869-1962)

Spouse:
John Allison Watson, Jr. (1909-1937)
Ben McAllister (1891-1960)

Siblings:
Marvin Earl Moose (1893-1966)
Cramer Banks Moose (1898-1953)
William Jennings Moose (1905-1990)
Hazel Fay Rose Moose Watts (1909-1997)
Clarence Alexander Moose (1910-1999)

Burial: Saint James Reformed Cemetery, Mount Pleasant, Cabarrus County, North Carolina, USA
Source: www.findagrave.com, # 22667785.

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One Hundred Years at St. James, 1894-1994: A Collection of History and Memories in Celebration of the Centennial Year, compiled by Elizabeth Swaringer, 1994, p. 18-20. https://divinityarchive.com/.

At 92, Edith Moose McAllister is the oldest native of Mt. Pleasant. More importantly, she’s the oldest member of St. James United Church of Christ. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’ve gone there all my life,” she says. “It’s always meant a lot to me, and I don’t know any different.”

The daughter of a Lutheran mother and a Reformed father “from Bear Creek,” she still remembers the little white church that was St. James before the present brick structure was built in 1923. “My daddy helped build the church. It had a center aisle and a tall, round stove. On the right side were a table and two chairs where they fixed communion. The choir and organ were on the left with a banister around them. And there was the Amen Corner,’ where students from MPCI and Mont Amoena sat. We gathered around a round oil heater in the back of the church for Sunday School.

“Aunt Molly — Hoy Moose’s mother —was my teacher Every Sunday she asked us the same four questions: ‘Who made you, who made the ark, who’s the oldest man, who’s the strongest man?’ We got little cards that had a Biblical picture on the front and a lesson on the back.”

She remembers going to the auditorium over Cook &’ Foil’s Store on West Franklin Street for Sunday School and church while the new church was under construction in 1923. “There was a raised stage and curtains and a little dressing room off to the side. It was convenient and served us well.”

Catechism, or confirmation class as it’s known today, “felt like forever and a day. We had to memorize all sorts of things. And I still had my Heidelberg Catechism until I gave it to the museum a few years ago.” Miss Edith joined St. James on April 1, 1917, when Rev. Lyerly was pastor “I wore a white dress with a ruffled collar that came around and tied in the back. I stood next to Elizabeth ‘Tibs’ Foil, and we knelt at the altar rail.”

As young people, the teen-agers joined the Mission Band. Not really a band at all, it was a youth group that met late Sunday afternoons. “It wasn’t really something we looked forward to, but we went,” she recalls. “Mrs. Otha Barringer led it and she always brought something from China because her sister was a missionary there.”

Before she was 22, Edith Moose became the first post mistress of Mt. Pleasant, a political appointment she held for seven years. During that time, she married John Watson of Wilson, N.C., who died nearly seven years later of pneumonia. Following two years as a young widow, she met Ben McAllister, a bricklayer more than 10 years her senior.

‘We met in the spring and by gosh we married on June 30, but not at St. James,” she recalls. “Rev. Gerhardt, our minister was on vacation, and the Lutheran pastor was too. Rev. Miller married us at St. John’s Lutheran Church parsonage.”

In 1938, Edith and Ben moved to 1232 North College Street where she still lives today. “My house was the first Methodist church in Mt. Pleasant,” she says. “It used to be twice as big, but they sawed it in half before they sold it. The house next door is the other half.”

Being within the belfry’s shadow of St. James made it easy to get involved in church activities. “But even if I had lived further I would have still been active. In a small church like St. James there’s always plenty to do. And when you get a job it’s yours. I was chairman of the social committee for seven or eight years, and I thought I’d never get rid of it.”

And church suppers were as enticing then as they are today. “Suppers, suppers, suppers, we had them. Ethel Moose was always the head knocker, and she drew us younger folks in on it. Eb (Evelyn Dove) kept the books on who brought what. She assigned people things to bring so we always had plenty. I cooked chickens for the noodle suppers, and all the women made the noodles. Georgia (Kluttz) always said an eggshell full of water in with the yolks and flour made the difference.

“We usually held the suppers as fundraisers, like we did with the soup-and-sandwich and chili lunches after church this year to pay for new table linens. Churches don’t do it much any more, but in those days you had to have something going that you’ve got to pay for. We’d sell a bowl of noodles for 45 or 50 cents. We usually sold out and for that time, it was good money. That’s how we got money for the dossal cloth behind the altar”

But after all these years, it’s the Christmas morning traditions for which St. James is famous that really get Miss Edith excited.

“Georgia’s (Kluttz) mother was the one who insisted on those 6 a.m. Christmas morning pageants. There was always a choir and songs and speeches and candles and cards and presents under the tree. But no breakfast.

“Then, in the 1950s Hoy (Moose) started the breakfasts with donuts and coffee, and look what it’s grown to today. I enjoy Christmas morning breakfast at the church more than just about anything. And that The Eyes Of Miss Edith Christmas bag. I don’t care if I have fruit at home or if I live to be 140, I still want it. It’s something special we should never stop doing.”

Bad knees make getting around difficult, but Miss Edith walks to Sunday School and church every Sunday, just as she’s done nearly every Sunday for as long as she can remember.

“I don’t ever remember not coming to Sunday School,” she says, eyes twinkling with the excitement of a first visit to a wonderful place. “And I distinctly remember when I started coming to church. Mother didn’t go because she was home with my sick grandmother. I began slipping home after Sunday School, and finally one Sunday my mother met me at the door and said, ‘Now Edith, you’re old enough to stay for preaching, so turn around and go back.’

“I did, and I’ve been coming back ever since.”

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The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC. 9 Dec 1998

MOUNT PLEASANT – Mrs. Edith Moose McAllister 96, died Dec. 8, 1998. Funeral is 2 p.m. Thursday at Saint James United Church of Christ. Burial in the church cemetery. Visitation is 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Gordon Funeral Home.