Thursday, August 14, 2008

WIREGRASS JOURNAL | Documenting the Early Days of Pentecost in Alabama

Re-posted October 7, 2008 | This entry is directed particularly to members of Assemblies of God congregations in Coffee, Dale, Geneva, Houston, and surrounding Alabama counties. I want to share a sampling of what I have learned about the Pentecostal movement in southeast Alabama from about 1906 to about 1916, and to pose questions that I still have about the history. I hope it will reach Pentecostals, and others who are interested in their local history, and get them thinking about what they have heard and remember about the old days “when Pentecost came to Alabama.” I would very much like to hear/read your feedback. Many thanks goes to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (http://ifphc.org/) for permission to quote from their archived documents and to post some of their historic photographs. See their posting about this project at http://ifphc.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/documenting-the-early-days-of-pentecost-in-alabama/ -- Rachel Dobson
Tent meetings, such as this one in Maryland in 1915, were common in Alabama and other places. Photo courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, Springfield, MO. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifphc/sets/72157594309577534/


The Names and the Places

We know the names of many of the founding pastors and members, like Mack Pinson, Dan and Jim Dubose, Wayne Tomlin, J. S. Wooten...
An important part of Assemblies of God history that may slip away more easily than the names of the founders are the locations of the early Pentecostal tent revivals and camp meetings – the temporary places where the Holy Spirit changed people’s lives permanently.


Organizational meeting of the Assemblies of God at Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914. Photo courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, Springfield, MO. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifphc/sets/72157594313001794/

Documenting the Spirit-filled Places
This is part of a project to help locate and document some of the places in the history of the early Assemblies of God movement in southeast Alabama.
We already know some of the story of the early organizing of congregations in the area. Early Pentecostal newspapers, Robert Spence's The First Fifty Years, and other sources, many available in the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center in Springfield, Missouri, and congregational histories like that of El Bethel's in Coffee County by Laurelle Dubose Weatherford, provide a good foundation to which more details may be added as they are uncovered. (See the bibliography at the end of this post.)

Scene beside Wooten Chapel Assembly of God, about four miles south of New Brockton, Alabama, May, 2008. http://www.flickr.com/photos/racheldobson/ 2571143678/in/set-72157605566040085/
EARLY REVIVAL LOCATIONS

El Bethel Assembly, Coffee County
For example, Mrs. Weatherford writes in her history that in August of 1906, Rev. M. M. Pinson came to Coffee County and “erected a tent at New Tabernacle Church,” which was attended by Dan and Jim Dubose. From this revival grew the congregation that became the El Bethel Assembly of God. (Weatherford, p. 1.)





El Bethel Assembly of God
, May, 2008.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racheldobson/ 2570327971/in/set-72157605566040085/





Enon Baptist Church, Coffee County
Enon Baptist, at the junction of Coffee County roads 147 and 148, was the site of a Pentecostal revival in the summer of 1907 when a deacon invited Dan and Jim Dubose, brothers who had received the Gift of the Holy Spirit “to start a revival in his church.” --Robert H. Spence, The First Fifty Years, p. 10.





Highfalls Assembly, Geneva County

In June of 1907, Dan Dubose went to Rev. Pinson’s revival at Highfalls in Geneva County, “where he received the Gift.”
The meeting at High Falls was highly significant in that it provided a base of operations for the Pentecostal message and movement in southeastern Alabama. From this one revival, the nucleus for what is today the High Falls Assembly of God Church was formed and individuals, such as Dan Dubose, received personal experiences that would mean the formation of other Assemblies. --Spence, The First Fifty Years, p. 9.
Was the revival at the same place where the church stands today, or somewhere nearby? Is it possible to discover where other early revivals and camp meetings took place--gatherings that started Assembly of God congregations, and where early members were touched by the Holy Spirit?


Highfalls Assembly of God, May, 2008. http://www.flickr.com/photos/racheldobson/ 2571161630/in/set-72157605566040085/




Holloway Tabernacle, Geneva County

HEALED OF ASTHMA
I have been asked by some in these parts, who know the facts in the case, to write you of the healing of my two little boys, now five and seven years old respectively. The oldest one was born with asthma, and the youngest one took it after he was born. In November 1911, I had Bro. M. M. Pinson and Bro. Wayne Tomlin to pray for them, and the Lord healed them both, and they are still well, praise his name. -- G. W. Grimes, Coffee Springs, Ala.--Word and Witness, March 20, 1914, p. 1, http://ifphc.org.
G. W. Grimes and Wayne Tomlin were both associated with Holloway Tabernacle. Was this church the site of this healing?







MORE GOOD NEWS...NEW BROCKTON, ALA.
Wayne Tomlin has just closed a blessed meeting in town, and will open in a new church just completed 7 miles south of Enterprise on August 22.
--Word and Witness, August 20, 1912, p. 3, http://ifphc.org.
Where was this “new church...7 miles south of Enterprise”? Was it Holloway Tabernacle in Coffee Springs, or else in Central City or in another nearby community?
Wooten Chapel Assembly of God, Coffee County
Newspaper notices give clues to the location of revivals or camp meetings.
Did Wooten Chapel grow out of the local camp meeting “held four miles below New Brockton” in 1915?
LOCAL CAMP MEETING – NEW BROCKTON, ALA.
Aug. 7th to 27th. Will be held four miles below New Brockton, Ala. Expecting W. P. Mims from Clanton, Ala. also Rev. W. B. Jessup from Meridian, Miss. For information write J. S. Wooten, Rt. 3 Elba, Ala. All invited. --Word and Witness, August, 1915, p. 8, http://ifphc.org.

Wooten Chapel Assembly of God, May, 2008.

Bethel Assembly, Ariton: original location, Barbour County

Remembering and finding old locales bring back the Spirit-filled events that took place at these meetings, and honors the early Pentecostal organizers who made the spread of the Gospel their life’s work.

The original location of Bethel Assembly
, June, 2008.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racheldobson/ 2690983270/in/set-72157605566040085/

Bethel Assembly, now in Ariton, Dale County, was originally located further up Highway 51, just over the Barbour County line. “The Bethel Assembly of God of Ariton was begun after Rev. Martha Joiner and Rev. Donnie Metcalf held two tent meetings in the summer of 1921. Those who were converted desired to become a part of the relatively new organization, The General Council of the Assemblies of God. The church was set in order and was affiliated with the General Council in Springfield, Missouri, September 28, 1921, with approximately thirty members. A building was erected two miles north of Ariton, just off Hwy. 51 during the winter of 1921-1922. Rev. Dan J. Dubose was the first pastor.”
Source: the history page of Bethel Assembly of God: www.meetmeatbethel.com/History.htm.
Many thanks to Angela Downing for her help, and especially for calling members of Bethel Assembly to get directions for me to this location.
QUESTIONS
Here are a few other revivals and camp meetings that I hope to learn more about in this research...Do any of these names or places ring a bell with you? There are many more churches that grew out of revivals and camp meetings in the area.
Midland City, Dale County, Alabama
Where was the annual camp meeting at Midland City held?
MIDLAND CITY, ALA.
Our first annual camp meeting closed Sunday night. Bro. Wayne Tomlin of Enterprise, was in charge, and did most of the preaching. Other preachers and workers were with us and were blessedly used by the Lord. People came from far and near to hear the word, and the attendance was by far the largest in the history of the work at this place. God was present at every service to save, heal, and fill with the Spirit.-- H. W. Bryant.
--Word and Witness, October, 1913, p. 3, http://ifphc.org.
Dye Rock Church (Dale County?)
Another question is: Where was Dye Rock (or Die Rock) Church?
MIDLAND CITY
We have just had a big revival at Dye Rock Church near Midland City, Ala. Sister Joyner held a three days meeting and the Lord wonderfully blessed. The power of God fell on all one evening and little children from five years up began to praise God and shout and dance. Eight received the baptism as in Acts 2:4 and several were saved. We are looking for greater things from the hand of God. The enemy is stirred but the work goes on just the same. -- J. A. Moss, R. 2. --Word and Witness, August 1915, p. 8, http://ifphc.org.
"Die Rock" was one of “the original line-up of churches that were part of the old Southeast District” noted by Robert H. Spence in The First Fifty Years, p. 21.
"A Holy Place"


The Azusa Street Mission in 1906. Photo courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, Springfield, MO. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifphc/260942939/in/
set-72157594313088839/



These early Pentecostal organizers and participants met the Holy Spirit in revivals and meetings throughout the Wiregrass region and all over Alabama in the early part of the twentieth century.
Although temporary, these locations will always be filled with the Spirit because of the people and the events that took place there. The sites of early revivals and camp meetings, like the mission at Azusa Street and the site of the General Council Meeting at Hot Springs in 1914, are places where holy events took place, places to be identified, and in Darrin Rodgers’ words: “shared...with the next generation.”
Internet Resources
Part of the purpose of this research is to create resources that will be available to anyone who is interested in the early history of the Assemblies of God in south Alabama. Blogs and Flickr.com are just two ways to post information and images on the internet, so that others can view and post comments, even their own reminiscences. At my Flickr set, “Early Pentecost in Alabama,” you can view more photos, and read text from primary and secondary sources on the history of Pentecostalism in Alabama:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racheldobson/sets/72157605566040085/










An Internet Community through Public Libraries
In addition, a world map on Flickr allows the photos to be "geo-tagged" or linked with their location on the map.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racheldobson/map/
And, a basic Flickr.com account is free, so that others who have historical photos are able to post their own, and contribute to a growing body of knowledge on the history of Pentecostalism. Even if you don't have a computer yourself, many public libraries have free computers that allow users to browse the web and view Flickr and other sites.









The Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center - the official archives of the Assemblies of God, USA - also has a Flickr account with wonderful historical images of early revivals, camp meetings, posters, and the founding individuals of the organization:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifphc/sets/

Monday, August 11, 2008

WIREGRASS JOURNAL | Public libraries with internet access

Public Libraries in the Wiregrass and surrounding areas in southeast Alabama that have computer/internet availability are listed below. If your library is not listed here, but it does have internet access, please contact me. For more information on other libraries in Alabama, go to http://www.librarytechnology.org/publiclibraries.pl?State=AL OR http://www.publiclibraries.com/alabama.htm

Coffee County
Elba Public Library 406 Simmons Street, 334-897-6921
http://www.elbaalabama.net/life-in-elba/library “Computers available with internet access.”

Enterprise Public Library 101 East Grubbs Street 334-347-2636
http://www.enterpriselibrary.org/
“Computer Access Four computers available to patrons for research and educational purposes (one hour time limit per day), one computer for e-mailing (fifteen minute limit), one word-processing computer.”

Covington County
Andalusia Public Library, 212 South Three Notch Street, 334-222-6612, ONLY have online catalog http://www.andylibrary.com/default.htm. No description of services.

Opp Public Library (Cross Trails Regional Library), 1604 North Main Street,
334-493-6423 http://www.opplibrary.com/
Yes, they do have computers available for public use.

Crenshaw County
Luverne Public Library, 148 East Third Avenue, 334-335-5326
http://library.luverne.org/
Must have a library card to use computers – some limitations, but basically they are available for research: http://library.luverne.org/computer_usage.asp

Dale County
Ozark-Dale County Public Library, 416 James Street, 334-774-5480, http://www.odcpl.com/
“Free Internet is offered to adults and children. Children under the age of fourteen must be accompanied by an adult seventeen years of age or older.”

Geneva County
Geneva Public Library 312 South Commerce Street 334-684-2459 (Emma Knox Keenan Public Library) http://www.genevapubliclibrary.org/ . See an article about their computers here: http://genevapubliclibrary.org/content/blogcategory/44/50/

Houston County
Houston-Love Memorial Library, 212 West Burdeshaw Street, Dothan, 36303; 334-793-9767.
http://www.houstonlovelibrary.org/
http://www.houstonlovelibrary.org/computerlab.htm
Computer classes listed on a calendar (which may determine when computers are available for general use by patrons?)

WIREGRASS JOURNAL | Select Bibliography

These are sources used in the Wiregrass Journal posting: Documenting the Early Days of Pentecost in Alabama.

Newspapers:

Word and Witness (Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center: www.ifphc.org).
Christian Evangel
(Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center: www.ifphc.org).
Dothan Eagle
(Alabama Department of Archives and History, and www.Ancestry.com).

Books and Internet Resources:

Robert H. Spence, The First Fifty Years – A Brief Review of the Assemblies of God in Alabama (1915-1965), Assemblies of God, 1960s.
Laurelle DuBose Weatherford, “El Bethel Assembly of God History,” self-published, 1992.
Historical Atlas of Alabama
, edited by W. Craig Remington and Thomas J. Kallsen, 1997.
USGS Geonames Database: http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic.

Photographs:

Historical photographs from the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifphc/sets/.
All other photographs by Rachel Dobson. These photos and more, including Shady Grove Assembly and Chancellor Assembly in Geneva County; Wicksburg Assembly, Houston County; Bethel Assembly, Dale County; Haw Hill Assembly and Wise Mill Assembly, Coffee County; and two churches in Brownville, Conecuh County, are posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/racheldobson/sets/72157605566040085/.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

WIREGRASS JOURNAL | Flickr Update

Early this morning I did my usual Flickr check from my work computer, and there was no connection (see below, July 7, 2008). But later in the morning someone on our School of Library and Information Studies list-serve made the general announcement that Flickr was now accessible through University of Alabama computers. Great! Later in the day, I got official notice from the UA College of Arts & Sciences, but no explanation. Am curious to know more, but for now I did learn the lesson not to put all my photos in one basket, so to speak. Thanks to everyone who gave me advice. Below is what all the hullabaloo is about:
http://www.panoramio.com/user/1835188
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27582502@N06/sets/72157605566040085/

Monday, July 7, 2008

WIREGRASS JOURNAL | Posting in Panoramio

The University of Alabama has blocked access to Flickr.com from all its computers, plus any off-campus computers signed in to on-campus servers. As a result, I can not access my Flickr site to upload, edit, or view photos that I'm using in University of Alabama graduate research. (But you may be able to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27582502@N06/sets/72157605566040085/)

Therefore, I am resorting to Panoramio to post many of the same photos (http://www.panoramio.com/user/1835188O). Panoramio has several of the capabilities Flickr had, with a few organizational weaknesses - but they aren't blocked by my educational institution! I will be recreating the same or similar notes for these photos over the next couple of weeks. AND, I hope to have new ones to add after another research trip soon.

If I sound a little aggravated, it is because I feel that whoever planned this blocking of file-sharing didn't think about all of the ramifications for those of us doing legitimate UA work. Flickr is being used increasingly for educational purposes. Ironically, I just handed in a paper as part of this research on how to develop several Web 2.0 formats, including Flickr and blogs, to create local history research resources, aimed at library and archives users.

These Flickr sites - including one created by the Library of Congress, the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, and others, which I and others might use, also can't be viewed from any UA computer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/; http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifphc/260942907/in/set-72157594313088839/; http://www.flickr.com/photos/textimagepoetry/sets/72157594560457004/; http://www.flickr.com/photos/xxno/map/.
I'm sure there are many others.

Friday, June 27, 2008

WATSON JOURNAL | Robert H. Willis, Jr., World War II Pilot, Watson Farmer & Teacher

[Note: The following is a tribute to her father written by Delta Willis, posted here with her permission.]


Chief pilot of a “Flying Fortress” group praised by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for bombing strategic sites in Germany during World War II, Robert Hamilton Willis, Jr. of Watson AR (Desha County) died June 17 after complications following surgery at Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Pine Bluff.


Willis was a 1942 graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Born December 26, 1920 in Snow Lake, "Bobby" Willis was an avid outdoorsman and sportsman. In 1948, the Watson Baseball Team benefited from 14 innings of pitching by Mr. Willis.


Both Mr. Willis and wife Margaret Willis were Watson High School teachers fondly regarded by three generations of students. After his retirement from teaching agriculture and science, Willis continued to farm, freelanced as a tree spotter for timber companies, and served as an expert witness on the boundaries of the lower Arkansas River, hunting grounds since childhood.


His father, Robert H. Willis, Sr., helped develop Watson, home to a cotton gin partly owned by the senior Mr. Willis, who also built the local branch of the McGehee Bank, the local U.S. post office, apartment buildings and several stores on Watson’s main street. His mother, Mae R Willis, served as Watson postmistress, and was a world traveler. During the 1927 flood, young Willis helped rescue local people, livestock, and his mother's piano.


Enlisting in the Air Corps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Willis learned to fly solo in Oklahoma, then trained at Muroc Air Force Base, located in California's Mojave Desert. Muroc became famous for test pilots profiled in Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff,” including Chuck Yeager and early astronauts. Now Edwards Air Force Base, the 6-by-12 mile expanse of dry lakebed and clear, un-congested skies were ideal for student pilots in B-24s.


Willis was part of the Eighth Air Force based in Eye, near Norwich, England. Flying with Captain Willis was co-pilot Jeff Burnett, formerly of Dumas, and a University friend who enlisted at the same time. Willis and Burnett were part of the 490th Bombardment Group sent to England in April of 1944. They traveled on the converted Queen Elizabeth Cunard liner out of New York harbor.


Their first mission was two days after the invasion of Normandy. Willis recalled “I went in very low over the tree tops, right behind Ken Kavanaugh,” the LSU champion quarterback who flew 30 missions during WWII. When Kavanaugh dropped his bomb, Willis’s plane picked up a piece of concrete. “We were too close,” he said, which had a double meaning. When the planes returned to the U.S. Air Force base in England, the air strip was dark. Mr. Willis believed the mission was so dangerous, they had not expected the planes to return. The 490th Bombing Group continued to hit bridges, rail lines, vehicles, road junctions, and troop concentrations in France. Willis’ tenth mission in the B-24 was over Noball, France. Selected by his commander to deliver maps to General George S. Patton, Willis flew a C-54 “to a designated spot in France where the packaged maps were tossed out the plane door, and later collected by Patton’s men on the ground,” Willis recalled during an interview with his granddaughter, Jennifer Willis, a junior at Wellesley College, who recorded his remarks for a school report.


Fatality odds for bomber pilots were exceptionally high, and the B-24s had few of the navigational advantages of modern aircraft. Cockpits were noisy and cold. After September 1944, and 10 successful missions in the B-24, Willis flew 25 missions in Boeing’s B-17. His bomber named “Shiloskilofras” was part of strategic missions during the Battle of the Bulge, and struck enemy oil plants, tank factories, and airfields in such cities as Berlin, Hamburg, Munster, Kassel, Hanover, Cologne, and Merseburg.


It was during an attack on German oil supplies over Merseburg in December of 1944 when his plane became the 57th American plane struck by anti-aircraft. According to news reports, 56 bombers and 30 fighter planes were downed that day in flak so heavy that surviving pilots could not see their formation. With holes all over the plane as well as in the Plexiglas nose and top turret, Captain Willis went into a steep dive to avoid hitting another crippled B-17. After that, “It was just impossible for us to get any altitude.” At 12,000 feet, they were losing 400 feet a minute. With his “Flying Fortress” so badly damaged it could scarcely reach the speed of a fast car, Willis and his co-pilot took turns nursing the aptly-dubbed Heavy plane home using only one engine.


“The trouble began when flak hit the left wing between the Number 1 and Number 2 engines,” Willis told a reporter during the War; “Flak got the Number One engine over the target and we lost Number Two west of the Channel.” They were quickly joined by two Fighter planes, escorting the B-17 to protect her it in its vulnerable state. Willis told the Fighter pilots, “not to get below us or behind us, because we were going to throw stuff out.”


“Then I said [to my crew] ‘Throw everything out, all your guns, the ammunition, anything that weighs a pound. Throw out everything but your parachute.’”


After ballast was tossed, they encountered more problems. Because of damage to the rudder controls, it was impossible to turn the plane to the left. By the time they crossed the so-called Siegfreid line, (the German wall of defense, located on the German/French border;) the plane was making only 90 miles per hour.


The crippled bomber was the last of its group to return, to an airfield so littered with other damaged planes (“Many crash-landed;”) that bull-dozers were needed to clear the strip, illuminated only by flares. Down to 400 feet and still sinking, the bomber came in so low on approach that a high tension wire was sliced, sending up a flash the control tower misread as a fatal crash. Willis circled again and landed successfully. “I didn’t put my landing gear down until the last ten seconds,” Willis said. A Boeing official, told that a B-17 had returned from Germany on one engine, initially dismissed the feat, saying it was impossible.


In addition to citation letters from FDR, Willis was awarded the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters and promoted to Captain. He finished his Air Force service as a flight instructor at Drew Field near Tampa, FL.

Teaching agriculture at Watson High School, Willis also served as a Vocational Agriculture instructor to many veterans of the Korean conflict. In that role he guided Sergeant Shriver on a muddy "buck shot" tour to a remote farmhouse off the levee near Yancopin, to show how young men were learning skills to improve their own homes and farms.


The birth of his first grandchild in Honolulu inspired Mr. Willis to board a plane in 1988 for the first time since his service in the Air Force. For four decades after the War he had refused to fly. Like many surviving pilots, Willis felt his luck aloft was overdrawn.


The longest surviving member of his 8-man flight crew, Robert H. Willis is part of what Tom Brokaw deemed “The Greatest Generation,” because of their service, and sacrifice. “It is a generation of towering achievement,” Brokaw wrote, “... witness to sacrifices of the highest order. They know how many of the best of their generation didn't make it….”


Robert H. Willis is survived by his wife, Margaret Lee Willis; two sons, Robert H. Willis III, of Napa CA and Mickey Willis of Watson; daughter Delta Willis of New York, NY; three grandchildren and one great grandchild.


In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Ducks Unlimited www.ducks.org

Friday, June 13, 2008

WIREGRASS JOURNAL | Flickr Slideshow

As part of this project, I have created a slide show of my first research trip to Coffee and surrounding counties, on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27582502@N06/sets/72157605566040085/

After experimenting in both Panoramio and Flickr, I chose the latter to do this initial work in, because of the variety of other organizing and exhibition choices, NOT because of Flickr's lovely map. Unfortunately for me, Panoramio has the rich, beautiful Google Earth map as its foundation, but little in the way of organizing and exhibiting venues (like slideshows), except for tagging.

Most of the newspaper sources quoted in the slideshow are stored at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (iFPHC.org).

Sunday, June 8, 2008

WIREGRASS JOURNAL | Introduction

This is the first of periodic entries on the more personal side of my research into the early history of the Assemblies of God movement in (mostly) southeast Alabama, for an independent study in the Masters’ program in the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama.

WHAT, WHERE, and HOW : For this research I will identify text references to tent revivals, camp meetings and brush arbor meetings of the Assemblies of God Church and its predecessors in southeast Alabama, focusing on Coffee, Dale, Houston, Geneva, Covington, and Conecuh counties, and into the bordering areas of the Florida Panhandle, from about 1906 to about 1916. Then I plan to travel around and attempt to discover where the actual locations of these early meetings were. By accessing archival materials at the Flower Center and other Pentecostal archives, by reading local histories and genealogy work, by traveling to the areas, visiting present-day Assembly of God churches there, and by interviewing A/G members and old-timers, I hope to document actual locations, photograph them, find corresponding US Geological Survey locations, and map and record my findings, thus adding to the foundation of knowledge about this religious group that was and continues to be very influential in American culture.

WHY : This project is a multi-layered one in which my personal and scholarly interests have converged in the field of Library and Information Studies. Exploring and mapping the woods and lake where I grew up, studying early Irish monastic culture and later medieval devotional practices in art history make up some of the back story for how I became interested in this topic and developed this project.

Underlying it all, however, is family history. My great grandfather, Lafayette Snellgrove, and my great-great uncle, Handy Washington Bryant and their families were born and raised in Coffee, Dale, and surrounding counties. Lafayette and Handy were both ordained ministers in the newly organized Assemblies of God, and my great-great aunt, Daisy Snellgrove Bryant, was licensed to preach. Early in this research I discovered that they also attended the earliest organizational meetings for the Southeastern District of the Assemblies of God. Lafayette Snellgrove in 1915, and the Bryants in 1916, and 1917 (Spence, 18-28).

Maps may be the resource that pulls this information together. One of the most exciting aspects of this research is the web-based map I hope to create and develop over time. Imbedded with much of the data and images I am collecting, I hope it will turn out to be a small treasure trove of south Alabama religious history. A click on the location of an early 20th-century revival, for example, could bring up a window displaying a thumbnail image or explanatory text with URLs for further sources. A prototype in Google Maps and the very beginnings of one in Google’s Panoramio is bringing mixed results. More to come.

ABOUT THE SOURCES : The early history of the Pentecostal movement and the organization of the Assemblies of God has been written about by a few able historians, usually focusing on the better-known pastors and leaders, and defining organizational events. But there are many undiscovered details about the movement’s ordinary participants in places like south Alabama, where a culture of revivals and camp meetings already permeated the rural landscape.

The Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, the Archives of the Assemblies of God (iFPHC.org), has a large collection of archived materials on the Pentecostal movement, including periodicals, photographs, oral histories, audio and video recordings, and ephemera concerning the movement’s early formation and history. Many of these items have been digitized, including newspapers published by early Pentecostals. There are other archives and sources for primary materials, which I will detail in later entries.

Secondary sources focusing on the A/Gs in Alabama are few but concentrated. In the 1960s, Robert H. Spence, now president of Evangel University, wrote The First Fifty Years – A Brief Review of the Assemblies of God in Alabama (1915-1965). A dissertation covering many details and some of the “on-the-ground” evangelizers of the movement in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida was written by Gary McElhany in 1996. Assemblies of God Heritage magazine constitutes a rich source of writing on the history of the Assemblies of God, including early Alabama. Congregational histories by the children of early organizers, such as Laurelle DuBose Weatherford’s “El Bethel Assembly of God History,” ca. 1992, are also vital contributions.

MORE ON WHY : All of these historians are members of the Assemblies of God, often going back a generation, sometimes more. My situation is different. Except for the ancestors I mentioned above and a few cousins, none of my family now is Pentecostal. I was raised in the Episcopal Church, the other end of the Protestant spectrum from Pentecostalism. Growing up, I also attended my grandmother’s big downtown Baptist church every time I visited her. Maybe because one of her parents was Pentecostal while the other was Primitive Baptist, my grandmother has always been interested in other religious persuasions besides her own, particularly Roman Catholic. And she has sometimes taken me along with her. When I was about twelve, we went for a long weekend to a Christian camp (whose affiliation I do not know) at Rock Eagle, Georgia, where I witnessed for the first time healing with laying on of hands, speaking in tongues and interpretations. When she brought back holy oil from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, she prayed over me as she dipped her finger into the tiny vial and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. I imagine this exploration will be a continuation of my family’s somewhat eclectic religious genealogy and would be fascinating to her.

SUPPORT: Travel for this project was supported in part by the Jewel Sandoval Fund of the University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies, and in part by the UA Graduate Student Research and Travel Support Fund.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE RISE AND FALL OF PUBLIC ART

TUSCALOOSA -- Two sculptures stolen from the NorthRiver Yacht Club in December and the recent news of the demolition of Holy Spirit Catholic Church remind us that public art is not always permanent.











[This essay appears in a slightly different version on the back page of the Spring 2008 issue of The University of Alabama Department of Art's Image Resource Center newsletter titled “The Loupe.” I have made a few changes for clarity and included links (in the right column) to the newspaper stories and other sources cited.]
Above: Craig Wedderspoon,
untitled (Soft II), aluminum, 94 x 92 x 165", detail, Woods Quad installation, Jan. 2007; photo by Rachel Dobson.
Frank Engle –- professor of ceramics and sculpture in the UA art department from 1949 until his retirement in 1981 –- was commissioned by Holy Spirit in the early '60s to create sculptures for the (then) new church building dedicated in 1965. A Tuscaloosa News article (Jan. 2, 2008) said that the current building would be destroyed soon to make way for a new one. In preparation, “volunteers began salvaging anything they could from the sanctuary.” According to church member Lucy Kubiszyn, the church commissioned Engle to create a crucifix, statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, a medallion at the altar, and panels depicting the fourteen stations of the cross and the apostles, along with a mosaic altarpiece. Bethany Windham Engle has said that the towering blood-red mosaic reredos behind the altar will probably be destroyed because of the difficulty in dismantling it.
Robert Mellown, UA professor of art history and a colleague of the Engles, noted that in the early 1960s The University of Alabama commissioned Engle to create a sculptural fountain in front of Bryant Hall. The work created controversy mostly because of its depiction of male genitalia. Mellown recalled that vandals would regularly add Tide detergent to the fountain before football games, which gunked up the plumbing. The sculpture was destroyed by the university in the 1980s.
Today you can find examples of public art around the UA campus. Craig Wedderspoon and his students have worked on several public art projects in Tuscaloosa. Besides the Workers’ Memorial on the Riverwalk, Wedderspoon’s students are designing a Peace Garden with UA’s Community Crossroads, for the north side of Woods Hall. And his own monumental aluminum work now in the center of Woods Quad will eventually become surrounded by a landscaped garden, and be the first of a series of periodically changing sculptures there.
THE ALABAMA BIENNIAL
Wedderspoon, who joined the department in 1999, said that before he ever thought of coming here, he had heard of the art department because of its Alabama Biennial, which occurred in the years 1991, 1993, and 1995. Five pieces remain on campus as part of what former A&S Dean James Yarbrough designated “The University of Alabama’s permanent outdoor collection.”
These venerable pieces have not been immune to vandalism. In late 2003 and early 2004, Peter Flanary’s Walt Whitman Cult Wagon was tumped over three times in two months. UA graduate Paul Outlaw’s 3-piece installation outside the Rec Center was regularly vandalized from 2004 until it was finally dismantled in 2007. The recent theft of Jack Warner’s [NorthRiver Yacht Club] sculptures, the defacing of the Confederate Memorial in Montgomery, along with the demise of some of Engle’s works and the salvaging of others, illustrates the fragility of exposed art, no matter its size, weight, or meaning. When sculpture–-or any work of art–-leaves its maker’s hands, it becomes vulnerable. Artists have always had to deal with this fact of life, but the finality of destruction continues to amaze us.









Above: Peter Flanary, Walt Whitman Cult Wagon, 1995, cast iron, steel and stone, 42 x 27 x 134", located on the south lawn of Garland Hall, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Photo by Rachel Dobson.
Essay and photos reproduced courtesy of the Department of Art, College of Arts & Sciences, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

WATSON JOURNAL|ca.1918–19

This photograph (a reproduction my father had made in 1968) shows his grandmother Minnie Laura Wood Dobson (1864–1946) with several other women from Watson, Arkansas. His handwriting on the back identifies the women and dates the photo ca. 1918-19.

"Left to right: Edna Rice holds her daughter [but after research I think this is her son]; the young girl is Olive Griffith; behind Olive is Minnie Laura Dobson [with glasses]; then Mrs. Elva Rayder; little girl in front of her is Tootsie Rayder [this is actually Vivian Rayder]; older little girl is Audry Wilson; older lady is Mrs. Ezell."

They are all dressed up and without coats, so my guess is that the occasion for the group photograph is Easter Sunday. There seems to have been no shortage of cameras in either of my father’s parents’ families in rural southeast Arkansas, but it was still mostly special occasions that pictures were taken. Another guess is that my great grandfather, David Erastus Dobson (1862–1949), Minnie Laura’s husband, took this. But Granddaddy (Eugene Dobson Sr.) was about 14 and my Uncle Harry was about 17, both living at home, so one of them could have.

I found everybody in this picture on two pages of the 1920 Census of Watson, Redfork Township, Desha Co., taken on 10 Feb. 1920 by John Oakes, Enumerator.

On page 1:

Front Street:

Line 22: Edna Rice, age 19, is with her husband T. J. Rice and their son Thomas Rice, age 13 months. The census lists Mr. Rice working as a merchant in a grocery store. Edna's parents were from Indiana; Minnie Laura Dobson and David Erastus Dobson had come almost thirty years before from Mauckport, Harrison County, Indiana. Did the Dobsons know Edna’s family in Indiana?

Clay Street:

Line 33: Olive Griffith is nine years old, living with her family. Her father, H. D. Griffith Sr., from Mississippi, worked as a carpenter.

Line 35: Elva Rayder and her husband B. W. Rayder live with their four children, Samuel 17, Fern 16, Raymond 9 and Vivian [the census taker wrote 'Virginia'], age 5. Mrs. Elva Rayder and Benjamin W. Rayder are buried in the Watson Cemetery, according to the book, Desha County, Arkansas Cemetery Records, and posted online. Minnie Laura is buried next to her husband David Erastus Dobson there also. Thanks very much to Raylene Rayder Taylor, the granddaughter of Elva A. Haynes Rayder, for correcting the identification of her aunt Vivian.

On page 3 of the same census...

Front Street, living next door to D. E. and Minnie L. Dobson (and their sons Harry E., 18, and Eugene, 15, my grandfather) are (line 36) Margarett A. Ezzell, a widow, and her son Jerry [?] L. Ezzell, age 32, who works at a logging camp, and her granddaughter Audy [?] Wilson, age 12.

Bit of background

Watson, Arkansas, in Desha County, is a tiny little town out on the flat fertile lands by the Mississippi River where my grandfather grew up, the youngest of five children; his father owned a General Store. Later, Granddaddy married Lois Elizabeth Peacock of Tillar, built a house on Front Street near the railroad tracks, and they had a son, Eugene Dobson, Jr., my father. The family moved to Pine Bluff around the time Daddy was in high school. After Granny died in 1972, Granddaddy moved back to Watson, and lived there until his death at age 96. He is buried in the Tillar Cemetery (Drew County), next to his wife and son.

Sources:

Ancestry.com or Heritage Quest sometimes you can access these through your public library.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ardesha/watsoncem.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ardesha/newtncem.htm

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Two Graveyard Poems

In keeping with the omnipresent themes of death and graveyards here (and because I like them), I post these poems by a friend. They were written by Jennifer Horne and published in her collection, “Miss Betty’s School of Dance,” produced by Amy Stecher in a limited edition of 50 at the University of Alabama’s Book Arts program in 1997. “Est. 1846” first appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review.
---

EST. 1846

Rain last night,
cool and steady,
washed our headstones free of guile.
Wet dawn, first–graders stand,
mothers in tow, at the bus stop.
The stones expose our plainness
to each other, reveal our names:
Young, Stark, Fair, Hart.
The children are immune to plainness.

If the crabapple trees drip
in awkward disarray,
only the mother in curlers
who observes these things
will mark it.
One pale child
watches the sun arrive,
yellow, expansive,
his memory of the beach.

The bus pulls away
and the mothers let it go.
We scatter across the graveyard
and wait for 3 p.m.

If a body is buried today,
and it is, machinery creaking,
the ground will be solid again
before the bus chuffs heavily
into view.
The line of cars,
a string of lights,
will break apart, like nothing.
No one will linger––they have work to do.

The day puts on playclothes,
takes up its jumprope.
We want to tell the children
about centuries, and our favorite pets.
But they know so little.
We cannot tell them
what they face.
Though we are face to face
each morning, we cannot tell them.

---

Running Laps Around the Cemetery

The funny thing is,
death isn’t what you think about,
running your laps
around the graveyard’s perfect mile.
Instead, it’s a mockingbird,
rich smell of earth,
yellow flowers strewn
across the green expanse like stars.

The dead are good sports.
You’ve beat them once again.
You haven’t tripped once
or caught your head in a branch.
You wonder: does a crowd
await you at the finish?
Is anybody cheering you on
in your solitary run?

––––
Jennifer Horne is the editor of Working the Dirt: An Anthology of Southern Poets (2003) and co-editor, with Wendy Reed, of All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality (2006).