Jan 15, 2021
Dear Editor Cruzan:
We in Salem, WV, enjoyed seeing the story of the 1947 fire in our church. Other readers might be interested in a couple of the fire memories that our older members have passed down. Those volunteers who helped remove the heavy oak pews, pulpit, communion table etc. before the falling sanctuary ceiling ruined them? They were members of the Salem Methodist and Baptist Churches down the street. It was Sunday morning. They were in worship when the young SDB custodian, cleaning up after our Sabbath worship, discovered the fire and ran down the street to interrupt their services and enlist their help. That custodian was high-school-age Richard Brissey. Meanwhile five-year-old Stephen Rogers (currently chairman of the diaconate and a Memorial Board member) was discovered to be missing from home but was soon discovered marching the mile down Main Street with his sand bucket full of water to help put out the fire. (He’s since marked fifty years as a volunteer on his town’s fire department.) Other members mainly remember the hours of hard labor to remove the singed dark varnish off the pews and pulpit furniture so they could be refinished to the lovely light oak that they are today.
Gratefully from Salem
And Speaking of History…
Most of our oldest SDB churches still thrive in towns originally settled by SDBs. That can provide new opportunities for visibility. Last December the town of Salem, West Virginia, made the occasion of its 225th anniversary the theme of a Christmas parade (two years after the SDB church had marked its 225 years there). The young people created a float with a replica of the church buildings: first log meeting house on the 1794 end and current brick church on the 2019 end—complete with lights in the windows and adorned by waving young people who were the newest church members. In the bed of the slow-moving pickup truck that pulled the float were a dozen or more young people and children singing carols and tossing candy to those who braved the cold night air to watch. Destination: hot apple cider and cookies at the City Building where a member of the sponsoring Chamber of Commerce (who happens to be an SDB deacon) donned a coonskin hat and related a brief history of the City’s beginnings, noting, of course, that those founding fathers and mothers were SDBs who came in a wagon train from New Jersey, bringing their church record book with them.
