ARKADELPHIA, Texas (AP) - Members of the Arkadelphia Baptist Church are celebrating 152 years of having a community church in their neighborhood.
And it’s not just the buildings receiving all the attention.
It’s the people of the community, people who were born and raised here, people who are descendants of some of the original settlers of this area, people who still live here today.
“All of the senior citizens that I know in this community that we grew up with, we’ve all been a part of their lives and they have touched all of our lives in some way,” Mary Lewis said.
“For me, it goes back to all of them. All of our parents. I feel like I’m who I am today because of them.”
Recently a group of women from the church met to reminisce about the old days and tell tales of growing up in the same church they still attend, the Texarkana Gazette (https://bit.ly/2dUTrLQ ) reports.
Their ancestors built the church buildings, donated the land for the church and school, sang the old-time hymns and raised them all in the same country church.
Arkadelphia, Texas, is southeast of New Boston. It’s an old settlement that has been there at least since the Civil War.
It was during this time that Ras (pronounced Razz) Alexander, a successful land owner for his time, donated the land to build the first church. Years later, his son, Charlie, donated adjoining land to build the school.
“My sister and I talk about it all the time,” Nettie Alexander said. “We wish we had been able to know our granddaddy. He died when my dad was a boy. My grandmother, Pinkie, died when my daddy was a baby. He didn’t even know her.
“In some way or another, from slavery time, my granddaddy did well. He did real well. And he had to have help to do that back in those days. He had to have worked to accumulate what he had. He had to have had enough education at that time to invest in more land.”
The first church building was a small clapboard wooden building that saw construction begin in June 1864. It had a bell tower that was used as a warning and notification system for the community. It signaled the beginning of Sunday school, and it let people know when someone had died. When the bell was rung, people from all over the countryside would venture in to get the latest information. The old bell is preserved in storage in the new church building.
“I read somewhere that it cost $1,000 to build that church,” Ruthie Jennings said. “And I know it took at least two years, if not longer, to build it.”
For it was the church elders and community members who built the church. They had no electricity, gas heaters or air conditioning. It is believed they used a wood stove to use for heat in the cold winters.
Veraene Moore, now 85, remembers riding in a horse-drawn wagon to church as a young girl.
“I remember coming to church and I didn’t have shoes to wear,” Moore said. “I used to come to church barefooted. I was about seven or eight years old. I had no shoes, but I had to come on to church no matter what.”
One custom the congregation kept throughout the years was called “dinner on the ground.”
Church members would meet outside after services. Families would arrive with food and drinks, enough to feed everyone who came. They would all sit out on the church grounds while visiting and enjoying their meals.
“If someone killed a hog, everybody got a piece of it. Those who had gardens (and most did) shared their crops with everyone else,” GayNell Anderson said.
“If you had a garden, everybody had some,” Ammie Alexander said.
Today’s community members have learned many lessons from their ancestors. They look out for one another, take care of one another.
“The women had a mission,” Lewis said. “If there was someone sick in the community, they would go. They would take food. They’d clean your house. They looked after your kids. It was all about them helping each other. They would sit and piece quilts and they canned food.”
“And if you went to someone’s house, you did not leave empty handed,” Evelyn Dillard said. “You took something with you, if it was nothing but a flower.”
“They knew how to show love,” Anderson said. “Love is an action verb. You can say I love you, but your actions are going to show it. And they showed love. It shows the spirit of cooperation.”
“And,” Lewis added,” when they came to church, you could hear when they sang those old hymns that they meant something. Because you could feel it.”
“Makes me think of Uncle Buddy,” Ammie Alexander said. “Buddy Williams. They didn’t have microphones and they’d have the windows up and he’d bust out a song and you could hear him way over yonder, you could sure hear him sing.”
The second church building, built in the 1960s and also wooden, was larger. And throughout the years the congregation was able to add to it, making it even more accommodating for the growing membership.
Eventually it had a small kitchen, inside bathrooms, Sunday school rooms, a balcony for extra seating and even its own baptismal.
For until then, baptisms were performed at the pools, now called ponds, of some church members. Some people remember being baptized in the creek.
People who built the churches were members of the community. “Which means everybody,” Nettie said. “All of them, they all built the churches.”
“Arthur Johnson was out here every day, he was moral support,” Dillard said. “And Mr. Jack, from what I can remember, he drove the school bus for the New Boston Independent School District, and after he’d do his run in the morning he would come out here all day.”
Dillard recalled that as a young girl, her mother would send her with buckets of water to where the men were building the church. She would stroll through the trails, sloshing water and dodging snakes. She remembers the men being appreciative of the extra water.
“It was little things like that, people were thinking ahead, trying to help get the church built, help in their own way, any way they could,” she said.
“I remember they would make ice cream in a bucket after church and put ice in a dish pan and turn it to make ice cream,” Lewis said. “It was a Mrs. Tucker bucket that lard came in.”
The third and newest church building, built in the 1990s, sits in the same spot the school was originally built on all those years ago. This one in brick, has central heat and air, a fully stocked kitchen, offices, storage rooms and a meeting hall area.
What hasn’t changed is the congregation.
“(The older church members) gave us the foundation for us to be where we are today,” Lewis said. “These same people are still here today to help us carry on even now. With them and their guidance, it’s still with us. They worked hard. They saw a need and had the blueprints in here (pointing to her head).”
Over the years, the church has been blessed with beloved pastors who have led the congregation through good times and hard times. Among those are the Revs. George Sheppard, Lewis Edwards, Thomas Blevins, Billy Ford, Harold Massey, S.T. Stuckey, Henry Green, C.K. Shelton and the current pastor Michael D. Henry II.
Henry and his wife Amanda have two young sons, Micah is 5 and Caleb is almost 2. Henry has led the church for the last three years and the church members are thrilled to have him.
The deacons, who successfully supported the congregation during their time of not having a pastor, include Chairman Terry Barber, L.D. Noel (the oldest and one who was a deacon in the old church), Jimmy Lewis, Richard Conkelton, Michael Henderson, Roy Anderson, Coye Barber, Minister Jimmie Houston Sr., Anthony Gant and Jessie Jefferson, who is an honorary deacon.
John Stinson, who died about 16 years ago, was instrumental in his work with the church and is still respected and remembered fondly.
The church elders are Henry Conkelton, Jack Reed, Jimmy Moss, Charlie Conkelton and Arthur Johnson. These men were involved almost daily in the construction of the new church.
Lewis takes pride in caring for her older women whom she visits regularly and cares for deeply. They are called the Golden Saints or the Hat Ladies and are considered the Mothers of the Church.
“In order for the church to keep going, it has to start there (with the older members),” Lewis said. “As it grows, you gotta be doing something halfway right. We aren’t nearly where we need to be yet. But I believe God’s going to take us there. We’ve got a good foundation that has kept us going. And that’s in our older people.”
Dillard said she still runs into people who remember the old church.
“That’s where, when they came to Arkadelphia, that’s what they remember most, is the old church. There was so much life in that building. It was just a really good church.”
___
Information from: Texarkana Gazette, https://www.texarkanagazette.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.