(Transcript continues)
INTERVIEWER: Did you all go to church?
JOHN: Oh, yes.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, where was the church?
JOHN: The church was right down by the school.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, right down. Okay, by the school.
JOHN: It was there now but before it was on the curve right up by Mr. Hark Townsend. You know Tom Sturgis?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
JOHN: Well his wife’s homestead was right up just before you get to the church, right where the cemetery was. They I don’t know. The church, I think whilst we was away. I think they did away with the church. I don’t know whether it burnt down or whether they tore it down or what, but I think they moved it. And they moved it up to Newark across the railroad.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of church was it, a Methodist church?
JOHN: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Was it an all-day affair on Sundays? I know a lot of people I’ve talked to, Baptists especially. I think they went in the morning, they stayed all day and then they stayed at night some too on Sundays.
JOHN: No. They went Sunday morning and then they would come home about 11:30, 12:00 and then. But they had class meeting, experience meeting. Every Tuesday night was prayer meeting and then they had class meeting, experience meeting. You’d get up and testify tell them how (inaudible speech) your soul was doing and all that and then they had prayer meeting and my father and all I used to go. But you see I was, I mean we was. We wasn’t. We wasn’t not even what you called a wealthy, that wealthy. I didn’t even have shoes to wear. I used to have to wear my sister’s, my half-sister’s shoes. But I would go. I would go and Mr. Harry Bowen he had a store. And so one day he says, alright everybody called colored old people. So he says bring the kids out, he says I want to clear the attic out with some shoes. So we took us all out there, we went up the stairs and just about everybody picked out what they wanted to wear and I picked out above everything else a pair of women’s sharp-toed (inaudible speech) shoes. But they fitted (laughter) and he said no (inaudible speech). So he says if he wants them let him have them. So I wore em, I took em and carried em home. I was the oldest one out of the family that would go to church with my father. Every time he went to church I would go and I used to sit there and watch them in prayer meeting. I don’t know whether you don’t know what an old-time prayer meeting is?
INTERVIEWER: No I really don’t. I may have read about one but …
JOHN: Well it’s, you see, they sing and they clap their hands and they motion and they throw their heads and I used to say they’re gonna bust their heads you know (laughter) like that but they never did. They never did hit their heads. Then after a while one would pray. They would pray then somebody would start another hymn and they’d sing about three pieces like that and pray and then they’d go around and shake hands with everybody and then they’d have a group time with the Lord. If they took up a collection, I can’t remember because that was very poor collection. It wasn’t a thing of money at the churches in them days. It wasn’t a matter of a whole lot of money. It was matter of spiritual and friendship you know there wasn’t.
INTERVIEWER: Okay was there a minister?
JOHN: Yes, they had a minister.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember who it was?
JOHN: Well I can remember. I can remember Reverend Stuart. We had a preacher named Reverend Stuart. Had one name Reverend Jolley and I can’t remember.
INTERVIEWER: And as far as did they, did they live in Newark or did they travel around to different churches?
JOHN: No they only tended to …
INTERVIEWER: To Newark.
JOHN: They only the church. You see (inaudible speech) one Cedar Chapel and one would be Williams Chapel. I don’t know the difference yet. I never figured it out. I never tried to really. But they didn’t. They didn’t visit or they didn’t preach, each one preached.
INTERVIEWER: To their own place?
JOHN: To their own place mostly.
INTERVIEWER: Now as far as ministers today get all sorts of salaries. Would they be helped out by their congregation by given things to eat and things from the garden and things like that or did they make their own way?
JOHN: No. They got a salary but the salary that they got it was probably about … I don’t know, it was probably very small.
INTERVIEWER: They had a very strong spiritual commitment then?
JOHN: Yes. Yes, and there were a lot of em. Reverend Jolley he was one preacher that (inaudible words) He would go right in the fields with the rest of the people and scratch potatoes.
INTERVIEWER: Okay so he worked in addition to preaching?
JOHN: Yes. Yes, and then Sunday morning he’d be up in the pulpit you could see mud on his shoes uh dirt where his shoes was dirty.
INTERVIEWER: That’s good too. He wasn’t setting himself above?
JOHN: No. No.
(Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.)
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