Oakwood Presbyterian Church

Literature and poems

IN MEMORY AND HONOR OF ROBIN WHEELER

Beloved Friend of Oakwood

A woman who assigns a positive spin to the world and enlarges her perceptions to embrace those around her in a spirit of loving kindness. Someone as special as you are, is never really gone.

I LOVE MY CHURCH

I love my church; It is so dear;
So many friends I find right here;
We sing and pray and talk to God;
Until we know him by His Word.
The Word that is my church I hear –
And THEN I feel God very near,
Within my church so dear.

-- Florence Armitage

IN MEMORY OF SOME OF OAKWOOD’S FINEST

Let us pause for a moment to remember our dearly departed
Let’s remember them with joy, they would not have us broken-hearted
Let’s remember the smiles and the warmth they each conveyed
Let’s remember that they would have us face this world being faithful and unafraid

Oakwood Presbyterian Church was blessed to have them, each
Man and Woman a special being
With faith in God and love for mankind
That we could never tire of seeing

Oh, yes, we’ll miss them, and love them for evermore
But we know that they are smiling down
And praying for our safe passage to that shore

That shore that’s a glorious resting place
Where they can see the good Lord every day
That place to which our loved ones have just gone away
That place the Lord named “heaven” where we will meet, someday

So don’t cry now, Oakwood
Sing praises to each one
Who have lit the path to our salvation
In the arms of the “holy one”

Dedicated to my mother and all the beloved, late members of the Oakwood Presbyterian Church, Troy, New York

-- James H. Lockhart

Oakwood Poem

Oakwood! What memories round thee cling,
Nor fade they with the passing years,
More forcefully time serves to bring
Sweet memories that my soul reveres.
Within thy walls, Oh memory dear,
First came the light, thou bless day
That brought me nearer and more near
My Saviour and the better way.
Oakwood! my life I owe to thee,
Under the Saviour’s guiding hand;
A benediction full and free –
Thou’st kept me from the shifting sand.
Thy saving influence has gone
On to the far Pacific Coast
Where flows the stately Oregon,
A child of thine is at his post.
Sowing the seed in virgin soil,
Seed of the seed that thou hast sown,
Nurtured in faith and saintly toil,
Fruitage of faith, born of our own.
From nearer South and nearer West,
Come messages of faith and love,
As well, fond greeting from the East,
The wisdom of they work to prove.
Faint not, nor falter; labor on,
Nor fear they labor is in vain;
The work of fity years now gone
Will oft repeat itself again.

-- A.W. Loudon