Baptist Church in Pilot Grove, Texas
After many years gone by of Mother and Daddy attending services at this church with their children, our mother and Ione is shown here approaching the steps of the old church.
This photo was taken around 1987.
It is still there today and Esther is giving a little history here about the church.
There are many things I want to write about of how it was a few generations ago. Believe me things have changed. As JoAnn said in the introduction, there is so much we don't know about our extended families.
This website has reached a lot of people outside our families. JoAnn has invited anyone to view it and we have been pleasantly surprised to see that people all over the world read it and several are repeat visitors. Other folks beside our families may be interested to know how things were in Texas.
First I want to say that I was born about one mile near the small community of Pilot Grove,Tx. We lived on the farm there and one of the things I want to write about later is what farm life was like.
This first article I wanted to do is about the church I first attended. Pilot Grove had three chruches a Methodist, I believe a Church of Christ and the First Baptist. We are Baptist. I don't know how long mother and daddy had gone there before I was born along with my older sister and brother Ione and Charles. JoAnn came along later after we left the farm.
In 1935 I was about five years old when I have my first memories of church, school etc.
The church is actually still there and has been well maintained and still has church services on Sunday mornings. It is a large one room with the same pews in the same place they were 79 years ago. A few changes have been made, there is now electricity in the sanctuary, a family room added on the back of the church where reunions and wedding receptions can be held. One really nice change is there is a restroom now.
We had Sunday School before church services and each little room was separated by a curtian according to age. I remember sitting along with other children my age and learning about Jesus. The men and women had separate classes much like is done today in many churches. One thing that I remember is seeing the men sit in a designated part of the church and not with the women. Why in the world this was done is beyond me. That may have just been a custom in that church and not practiced other places but I never remember daddy sitting with us.
I don't know how often we did it but I remember having dinner on the ground at church.Ladies would bring dishes, set up long tables and put all the food together and enjoy. Children would play games together often we didn't see each other until the next Sunday. If we weren't having dinner on the ground many times we would either have someone come home with us or we were invited to someones home for dinner. I believe you usually invited the preacher too. Since we rarely saw anyone except on Sundays or the Wednesday evening service..no telephones to call ahead of time, then the invitation was extended at the Sunday morning service.I well remember when we had company after church that mother would make a dash to the storm celler and get jars of canned food that she had put up earlier and probably kill a chicken to fry. She and the lady or ladies, depending on how many people came,would all pitch in and a meal was on the table in no time. I remember always being happy when people came because there would be other children and we would play in the yard.
What were the men doing while the ladies cooked and children played?? They of course, sat on the front porch and talked ..then they enjoyed the food and back to the porch while the women cleaned up the dishes. I don't believe the women were bothered by that because they had an opportunity to visit.
I hope anyone reading these articles and all the other post on the website will enjoy them as much as we do posting them. Please feel free to leave any comment..we would love hearing from you.
I plan for the next article to be on School Days. School is very different today than it was then.
We must remember to "let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" Eph 4:29
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