Epworth United Methodist Church | 5253 N. Kenmore Ave Chicago, IL 60640 | 773-561-6422

History -- George MacAdam

Back to Ministers Listing Page

ROCK RIVER CONFERENCE OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The Reverend George MacAdam was born in Kewanee, Illinois, sixty-two years ago. He grew up in the west, served as a local preacher for a year or two, and at the age of twenty-three joined the West Nebraska Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. After eight years he was prevailed upon to go to the Northwest. He went to Deadwood in the Dakotas.

This was through the influence of Bishop McCabe, who subsequently was responsible for Dr. MacAdam's going to Fort Worth, Texas, where he served the Methodist Episcopal Church for four years. Thence he came to Rock River Conference and was appointed to the Rogers Park Church. His term of service there was brief because he again yielded to the wish of Bishop McCabe, and accepted the presidency of Fort Worth University.

After a term of service, Dr. MacAdam was again transferred to the north. He spent five years as pastor at Madison, Wisconsin, one year in Louisville, Kentucky, three years at Ottawa Street, Joliet, Illinois, three years at Epworth, Chicago, and four years at Hyde Park, Chicago. Since leaving Hyde Park, Dr. MacAdam has had a struggle to maintain a degree of health such as would enable him to carry on his work in the Christian ministry. Appointed to Grace Church, Elgin, he was compelled to ask for release from this post after a brief three months. In his endeavor to return to the pastorate, he was appointed to Olivet Church, Chicago, but he served here only one Sunday, when his physical condition compelled him to ask to be released.

But in the fall of 1923, he felt such a renewal of strength as to warrant his return to the pastorate. This feeling on his part proved to be warranted, and for three years past he has served this North Shore Church in Glencoe, with unabated zeal, and with, for him, fair physical strength. Our friend realized however that the period of his active service was drawing to a close. He felt somewhat the duty of retiring last fall: but he conceived the desire, prompted in part no doubt by his favorable physical condition, to continue one year longer which would round out a forty years' service in the Christian ministry as a member of a Methodist Conference. Counting his service as a local preacher, Brother MacAdam had actually completed his forty years a year or so ago.

To the last moment he persevered in his task which he loved so well. But the demands of the disease were not to be put off. He was obliged to stay at home, as he believed temporarily; he was obliged to have assistance in preaching, also as he believed temporarily, but his sickness came on apace. A body never over strong could do battle no longer, and at last, not without a noble struggle to live-to live for his own sake, for the sake of his dear companion, for they two found existence together increasingly sweet and satisfying-for the sake of the Christian ministry and its tasks which he loved. At last, at last, not without goodbyes, and fond endearments, and sweet unforgettable words and heart yearning, he fell asleep, leaving behind the memory of a pure, a noble soul, who brightened every life he shone upon, and drew to himself loved ones, friends and people.

At the very beginning of his ministerial life, Dr. MacAdam was united in marriage to Miss Florence E. Ornsby of North Platte, Nebraska. The union has been a beautiful one of both mind and heart. Time never weakened but the rather strengthened his love, his tenderness, his chivalrous devotion.

Brother MacAdam leaves, besides his wife, one child, Mrs. Ada Moritz of Effingham, Illinois, and five grandchildren.

Brother MacAdam's life has been given to the Christian ministry. This was the place for which he was so well fitted both by nature and by grace. He early entered into the Christian life. At the age of seventeen was assistant superintendent of the Sunday School. At eighteen was exercising the calling of a local preacher. Through all the years, save his experience as president of Fort Worth University, he has remained steadily in the pastorate. It seems strange that Dr. MacAdam should have spent so much time on the frontiers, for neither his appearance nor his address suggested such a place as Deadwood then was. His nature was gentle, his manner and speech cultivated, his attitude that of one who had ever kept the most refined society. Never on any occasion did he reflect discredit upon us, and not seldom we were proud of his utterances. At an anniversary held at Epworth Church, Chicago, last summer, his was only one of several addresses given by former pastors: but in my judgment the address of Doctor MacAdam, in thoughtfulness, in ranges of thinking and in eloquence of utterance was by far the address of that evening.

Our friend had gifts as a writer, which in spite of his many other duties, he pursued more than occasionally. His publications have been most cordially received: and only recently he had an article in the "Methodist Review," concerning which one of his pastor friends said, "I read it with great interest and profit. I always read whatever George MacAdam writes."

His ministry was a combination of the older and the newer school of our preachers, and as such was singularly interesting. I have known him with an increasing fellowship since he went to Epworth where he succeeded myself in 1914. His ministry was one of gentleness and Christlikeness, to a degree. His utterances were characterized by deep feeling in which you felt the presence of that fine spiritual quality which the Fathers called unction. I could not" think that Doctor MacAdam's preaching offended the most conservative: and yet he was in no sense a reactionary. On the contrary, his good sense, his fine mind, his real progressiveness made his ministry very acceptable in our day. In spite of a frail body, he kept young in spirit, nor could one see any decline in his enthusiasm even to the latest day of his life. His was above all a beautiful soul, and a personality of whom it gave one rare pleasure to see as he moved about among old and young, high and low, in the name and spirit of Jesus.

Our friend's ministry cannot be interpreted without Mrs. MacAdam. She was a frontier woman, to whom her young lover came in the days when Nebraska was a part of our great frontier. She associated as a child with the children of the famous Buffalo Bill, while earliest pastorates of her husband were missionary fields. Reared in a truly Christian home, in which there always was a welcome for preachers, and a loyalty to true religion, she stepped naturally into the new duties of a minister's wife. Doctor MacAdam's work therefore is not his alone, but it is their joint work. The glory of it is not his alone but hers also. Generally speaking, a minister's wife shares her husband's mission, his anxieties, his problems, more keenly than do the wives of men who are engaged in other pursuits. She must do so, if the ministry is to win at all. It is a joint ministry. At no point are the words of Longfellow more true than here:

"As unto the bow the cord is
So unto the man is woman
Though she bends him, she obeys him
Though she draws him, yet she follows
Useless each without the other."

His ministry therefore has been their ministry-the responsibility, the opportunity, also theirs. His crown of life is her crown of life also.

Whereas in his passing first over that far highway whence no one ever returns-for it is a one way road-in his going first, she has failed to realize some of their dreams: yet God has been good to them. Her husband's work was essentially done, their mutual love had been so tried as never to be sundered: and the most that at such a time of life can be hoped for are the thoughts of journeying along a little further hand in hand, in the dream that
"Then though we must grow old, we shall grow old
Together. And he shall not greatly miss
My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes
Too deeply gazed in ever to seem dim:
Nor shall we murmur at nor much regret
The years that gently bend us to the ground,
And gradually incline our face: that we
Leisurely stooping, and with each slow step,
May curiously inspect our lasting home."
                                   - (Morpessa, S. Phillips)

Coronation
Doctor MacAdam often spoke of people who had lived nobly and who had made an honorable exit from this life, as having gone to their coronation. For them, death was victory and crowning, not defeat, not a tragedy. No other spirit is appropriate at this service than this note of victory for our friend. A singularly even, gentle and true life, sound in every respect, blest in all his relationships, George MacAdam has left to us as pastor, preacher, friend, father, husband, a heritage which is not unworthy of our highest traditions, and has illustrated the ideals for which the Christian ministry stands. And now we commit him to God.

J. HASTIE ODGERS

River Rock Conference Journal 192
p 104 - 106

Back to Ministers Listing Page