These past few months, it seems we have all grown to know change like it’s a well-worn pair of blue jeans. Everything seems to be different. One of the many comforts some Pierce County residents look to are the United Methodist Church dinners. The church traces its’ local roots back over 150 years.

Janice Saueressig was married in 1949 and joined the ONO Methodist Church soon after. Since the ONO Methodist Church June dinner was cancelled due to COVID, Janice compiled a quick history of the United Methodist Women and how they came to be in the Pierce County area.

In the year of 1860, there were eight families living in the vicinity now called ONO. If you check out Nehemiah, Chapter 6, verse 2 says: 'Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the 'Plains of ONO' (that was about 20 miles northwest of Jerusalem). Our ONO United Methodist Church is still on the same property at the crossroads of Hwy. 10 & County Rd. C.C. In those days, there was also a Post Office and the Government gave the area the name ONO. There was no church building at that time, so the eight original families met in different places. In 1888, under the leadership of John Haw, the church building was started. The worship group was referred to as the 'Meeting' and they worshipped in the old Union School House and peoples' homes. The bricks for the church were hauled by teams of horses from the Warrentown area. One of the camp-meetings, when John Haw was the leader, resulted in one of the biggest 'revivals' in their history and a large number of members were added to ONO. In 1889, the church was used for the first time, but no furniture or pews were made until 1894 and then the ONO Church was formally dedicated.

The first 'Ladies Aide' began in 1907. At that time, it was mostly a Bible Study group. They studied and discussed scripture, visited and of course had lunch!! In 1968, the Ladies Aide became the W.S.C.S. Since 1972, we have been the 'United Methodist Women'. We had already been serving small lunches for 25cents. Then in the 40's, we decided to have our first chicken dinner for the public. In the past, we had a dinner each of the 12 months. Then, only six a year and recently, because of smaller membership, we served only four dinners but always had the best reputation for homemade pies, beef, ham and turkey dinners with many salads and veggies, too. For 140 years, the ONO women have faithfully supported our church and community with monetary gifts. We would serve about 130 guests and sometimes more with a committee of four each of the four months. Of course, several other ladies helped each committee with extra food, pies and clean up duty. I pray that we don't have to cancel all our dinners this year of 2020. We thank you all who have given and keep giving to this little Methodist Church on the corner that we call ONO.

As of the year 2000, the United Methodist Women across the United States had given over $622 million to different missions and charitable causes.