Rev. William E. McBride and Maude Hemple

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Husband Rev. William E. McBride ¹

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           Born: 25 Nov 1868 - Grove City, Mercer Co, PA 1
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         Father: Robert S. McBride (      -      ) 1
         Mother: 

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       Marriage: 5 Jun 1894 - Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA 1

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Wife Maude Hemple ¹

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Children

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1 F Elizabeth Marie McBride ²

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General Notes: Husband - Rev. William E. McBride

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He passed his early years on the home farm, and from boyhood was thoroughly conversant with the hard work demanded in its conduct and the operation of the sawmill. He had the best educational facilities that the locality offered, later attending Grove City College and Westminster College, at New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, from which latter institution he was graduated in 1890 with the degree of A. B. When sixteen years old, however, he had begun to teach, and he followed that profession while pursuing his higher studies, supporting himself and paying for his tuition in advanced lines. Having decided to enter the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church, he took the prescribed course at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and while a student there availed himself of every opportunity to become familiar with the practical work of his chosen calling, taking charge of a city mission and conducting a large Sunday school, with from four hundred to five hundred attendants.
His first regular charge was that at Oil City, where he was ordained in September, 1894, and where his energies long after were centered. The congregation grew steadily during his long pastorate, and the a handsome church building was erected in that period. When the necessity for a new building became pressing he worked tirelessly to help secure it, and though it was no sinecure to undertake the erection of a modern structure, which with its furnishings cost thirty-five thousand dollars, he witnessed its successful accomplishment and did his full share in bringing it about. The former house of worship occupied what became the site of the parsonage, the new church having a very desirable corner at a central location in the city. The village of Plumer was one of the early oil boom towns which formerly supported a church of its own, but in later years the organization was maintained as a mission, attended by Mr. McBride in connection with his Oil City work.
The wider work of his denomination has also received its share of his attention, and as a member of the governing board of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary he was alive to all the general movements affecting it, as well as the progress of Christianity as a whole. In Oil City he gave his support to Y. M. C. A. work, athletics, and other interests especially intended to benefit the young people, whose welfare was close to his heart.
As a pastor he was wholly devoted to the needs of his congregation or any of the townspeople whom he could serve, keeping in close touch with their interests and using his influence judiciously in behalf of all worthy objects. He was a forceful, earnest, logical speaker, who made an honest endeavor to deliver his message with the direct personal appeal which would bring spiritual satisfaction, and his broadmindedness enabled him to get the viewpoints of his hearers in all their variety and to give them the sympathy of understanding. [HVC 1919, 686]

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General Notes: Wife - Maude Hemple

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She was a graduate of a city high school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later engaged in the office of her father, who was manager of the United States Glass Company at Pittsburgh.

1 Charles A. Babcock, Venango County, Pennsylvania, Her Pioneers and People (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1919), Pg 686.

2 Charles A. Babcock, Venango County, Pennsylvania, Her Pioneers and People (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1919), Pg 687.