Hamilton Church's Last Service Celebrated Resurrection on Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was bittersweet for members of Hamilton Christian Church in Creve Coeur. The holiday celebrating Christians' belief in the risen Lord also marked the final day of services at the venerable institution.

Patch news partner FOX2 reported on Sunday that the church has been around since 1895, but rising costs and declining membership spelled doom for the congregation, which was based on Old Olive near Lindbergh on the eastern edge of Creve Coeur.

The news station spoke to retired Rev. John Yonkers, a long-time member of the church.

For retired minister John Yonker, the church is a tradition that’s in his blood. His grandparents became members at the turn of the century.  Years later, he recalls how his parents met at Hamilton, “The story was, in the church there was a parlor and my dad was playing the piano.  My mother heard him playing and went down and chatted with him, and they were married in that church in 1939.”

Hamilton Reverend Katherine Kinnamon told FOX2 that the church shed the physical belongings of the church, sending, for example, the 19th-century organ to Eden Theological Seminary and wood from the pews to help build homes for the needy.