Fairhaven’s twenty-fifth pastor was Reverend Arch Elwood Fleming. Fleming was born March 25, 1926 in South Charleston, West Virginia. At the time of the 1930 Census, he lived at 116Ninth Avenue with his mother, Arta, who worked as a stenographer in a chemical plant and his maternal grandparents, Willis and Ida Wall, in South Charleston. Reverend Fleming’s father, Arch Kenneth Fleming, cannot be found in the 1930 or 1940 census records, but Fleming’s parents apparently divorced shortly after 1930. Fleming continued to live with his mother and grandparents at the time of the 1940 census. Reverend Fleming graduated in 1944 from the South Charleston High School where he was president of the student body, played basketball, and was class Valedictorian. He served in the United States Marine Corp and served in the Pacific during World War II on the USS Intrepid. Fleming graduated Cum Laude from Morris Harvey College and received his Divinity Degree from Vanderbilt University. He married Juanita June Naumann in South Charleston in 1946 and they had their first child, Arch Elwood Fleming Jr., in 1949. The couple eventually had three additional children: Mark, Tim, and Diana. In 1950, Reverend Fleming was admitted on trial to the West Virginia Methodist Conference. The 1950 census found the family living in Malden, West Virginia on Second Avenue where Fleming served as a pastor at the Rand Methodist Church. His next appointment was to the Rayon City Methodist Church in Tennessee from 1952-1953, the Mayberry Methodist Church from 1953-1955, and then the Morris Memorial Methodist Church in Charleston from 1955-1958.Fleming transferred to the Western Pennsylvania Conference in1958 where he was assigned to Fairhaven Church while he attended the University of Pittsburgh. He stayed at our church until 1961 when he transferred back to the West Virginia Methodist Conference. Upon his return to that Conference, he was appointed to the Calvary Methodist Church in Moundsville until 1966. He then served as the West Virginia Conference Director of the United Alcohol Action Program from 1966-1969.He returned to church work when he was appointed to Trinity Methodist Church in Parkersburg, West Virginia from 1969-1972. He next served as Communications Director for the West Virginia, Nebraska, and Louisiana Conferences. He transferred to United Methodist Nebraska Conference where he worked as District Superintendent for the Nebraska Southeast District until his retirement in 1994. After retirement he worked fortwo years as Associate Pastor at the Washington United Methodist Church in Washington, West Virginia. One of Reverend Fleming’s loves was teaching. He taught summer classes at the St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri from 1991-1995 and at West Virginia University at Parkersburg from 1996 until his death on December 6, 2009in Parkersburg at the age of 83. He was buried at Sunset Memorial Park in the town where he was born, South Charleston, West Virginia.
