Growing together

COSTA MESA — In the summer of 1928, Chisholm Brown attended the first service at the First United Methodist Church of Costa Mesa. The newly founded church was a landmark in an area with precious few of them — Harbor Boulevard and the surrounding streets were still being paved — and since it was the only house of worship in town, Catholics and other denominations crowded the pews.

Eighty years later, the church is still standing at 420 W. 19th St. For that matter, so is Brown. The 94-year-old is the last surviving member of First United’s original congregation, and except for a few years in college and World War II, he’s barely missed a Sunday there.

“We all recognize each other,” said Brown, who moved to Costa Mesa when he was 9. “It isn’t just me. It’s a very friendly church. Everyone’s been a member for a while. We all greet each other Sunday morning.”

This year, the church plans to celebrate its 80th birthday — and while Brown doesn’t have a speech prepared, he expects someone to ask him to say a few words. The Los Angeles native has watched Costa Mesa grow from its days as an unincorporated small town through the arrival of the freeways, the founding of South Coast Plaza and the rise of the performing arts venues uptown.

Not much has stayed the same, except for the chapel.

Brown, who founded an appliance store in 1947 and ran it for four decades, still attends his childhood house of worship every week with his two children and their spouses. He also keeps active in another way: Every Friday, Brown and his daughter deliver meals to seniors, many of them younger than he, through a program sponsored by the Costa Mesa Senior Center.

Before he settled in Costa Mesa for good, Brown did a fair amount of traveling. He spent his early childhood years in China, where his parents worked as missionaries, and came to Costa Mesa in 1922 when his father, a reverend, was invited to lead a church there. The church lasted only a few years before First United took its place and the Browns joined the congregation.

In those days, with movies and radio just coming to town, the church played a social function as well.

“In many ways, it was the center of community life,” Brown said. “There was hardly anything else at that time.”

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected].