About "How Firm a Foundation" -- First Baptist Church History Book

Recently off the press is the beautiful book recounting the history of First Baptist Church, Blairsville.

Serving on the committee to research, write, design and publish the book were Ed and Doris Durban, Eva Decker, Mary Sue Moon, James Hooper, Tina Hourihan, Carol Rabun and Alan Morgan. They readily acknowledge that many more contributed to the book, making it a compendium of local and area history as well as the story of a faithful group of people who have lived and exercised faith in this place since at least 1875 or earlier.

It is an unusual book. Seldom do you see a church history book that is bound in what I like to call a “coffee table” format, one so comely and physically appealing in a book that you will want to place it in a prominent place in your home. Cover and contents, color and design—all invite the reader to enjoy.

The committee could not find an exact beginning date for First Baptist Church, Blairsville. They learned it was already founded and functioning as early as August 12, 1875, the earliest written records about the church. On that date, three messengers from the church—Isaac Petty, E. Boling and A. Carpenter—were representing Blairsville Baptist Church at the annual meeting of the Notla River Baptist Association and were so recorded in that body’s written minutes.

How long before 1875, or just when or by whom the church was founded has been lost in the mists of time and the absence of recorded information. The committee is to be commended for the sources they consulted to bring as much information as possible to readers about the church’s existence, growth, work and influence in the community and to the ends of the earth.

Old land deeds of August 29, 1883 reveal that a gift of two acres of land on Lot 303 was made to Blairsville Baptist Church Trustees by Jacob Luther Colwell. The Trustees receiving the land on behalf of the church were John A. Christopher, J. W. Meeks and Jessie Y. Walker. Later, in another gift of land from the same Land Lot 303, Mr. Jacob Luther Colwell gave another acre of land on January 8, 1890. On this land a house of worship was erected.

Early pastors, from a list made from memory by J. L. “Uncle Boney” Colwell in 1944, provided insight to first leaders in the absence of recorded minutes of the church’s first decades. Thumbnail biographies of these pastors are given, together with pictures when available.

The title of the book, How Firm a Foundation: A History of the First Baptist Church, Blairsville, Georgia, lends a hint of one of the unique features of the book. “How Firm a Foundation” is the title of a beloved church hymn appearing first in 1787 in London in John Rippon’s “Selection of Hymns.” It was beloved, too, by the first settlers who practiced the “faith first delivered to the saints.” They sang the songs they had learned in the mother country when they gathered to worship. In the seven chapters of the book, the committee used a hymn contemporary to and beloved in that particular historic period. This feature, combined with the history of the period and extensive pictures, many in color, provide a readable, interesting and composite picture of Baptist Church life and the context of events in which the church worked and ministered.

The dust jacket cover has these words about the book: “This is not your average church history book. This is a book about people—Christian men and women who, through dedication and commitment to God and each other, built the First Baptist Church of Blairsville. It is a story, not of a building, but of individual lives bound together within a community of God.” – The Book Committee; Ed Durbin and Doris Durbin, Editors and Writers.

As a researcher and writer, I will return to this book time and again as I seek information about people whose brief biographies and remembrances are included in the book. The excellent index makes the book an easy-to-use reference source. For inspiration, I will read testimonies and remembrances included in the book by various people I have known. In this way I can reconnect with people who made a difference in my own life.

Thanks are certainly in order to the church body itself for calling for and voting to publish what Honorable Zell Miller calls “a golden treasure-trove.” Thanks, a thousand-times over, for the persistence, digging, and hard work of the committee that brought the book to fruition. We think of crowns being a reward of our faithful service and coming after our transition to glory. But with this earthly work, the compilation and publication of How Firm a Foundation, your crown, faithful committee, is in our hands, ready to use, a glowing tribute to your efforts. All who read and appreciate the book will be basking in the glow of your shining crown.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 17, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dr. William Thomas Meeks Sr. Town and country doctor

Continuing the stories of outstanding doctors who practiced medicine in Union County in the past (Dr. Edge and Dr. Rogers), we turn our attention this week to Dr. William Thomas Meeks, Sr. He might be labeled both a "town and country" doctor, having an office in his home just west of town toward Blue Ridge, and also making house calls throughout the county.

William Thomas Meeks was born August 26, 1874. He was twelve years of age when his father, John Wellborn Meeks, moved to Union County in 1886. The family farmed. The elder Mr. Meeks wanted as good an education as possible for his sons, Jesse and William, so after finishing the local school, they went to the Hiawassee Academy founded by the noted Baptist preacher cousins, Dr. George W. Truett and Dr. Fernando Coello McConnell. There the brothers would have "batched,"- that is, found a place to board and provide their own meals as they attended classes.

When William Thomas Meeks was in his early twenties, he went out to Arizona to find a job so that he could earn enough money to pay off the mortgage on the family farm. It is assumed that he reached this goal, for he returned to Blairsville and worked for awhile as a carpenter, helping to build the "old" court house on the square.

William Meeks and Dollie Adeline Colwell (1885-1987) began their courtship which culminated in their marriage in 1908. Meeks had long harbored a dream to become a doctor. In 1912, with his wife and young son, John Jacob (who was born prematurely October 23, 1908 weighing 2 pounds, 8 ounces, and was kept "incubated" in a shoe box, watched carefully and warmed by a wood stove), the family moved to Atlanta and he began studies at the old Atlanta School of Physicians and Surgeons.

Life was hard as they lived on Highland Avenue in Atlanta. Mrs. Meeks kept a cow and sold milk to neighbors. The cow also provided milk for the Meeks family, which had increased by another son, William Thomas, Jr., born October 1, 1914.

While not in classes at the medical college (which became Emory University School of Medicine the year Dr. Meeks graduated in 1915), he cut trees for the Coca Cola Company, and the couple sold Bibles for a publishing company.

Dr. Meeks had a desire to serve among his own people in Union County, so they returned to set up his practice. He made house calls, riding a black horse in all sorts of weather to see his patients over a wide area of the county. The story is told that at times the weather was so cold Mrs. Meeks had to use hot water or a hammer to melt or break up the ice formed on the stirrups so that Dr. Meeks could dismount from his horse upon his return from calls.

The third Meeks son was born in Blairsville March 23, 1918 and named Jack Littleton.

A major flu epidemic struck in 1918. It was just prior to this period that the Meeks family moved from Union County to Hall County and set up his practice in the mill village of New Holland. Several people from Union County had already moved there seeking employment in the cotton mills. He delivered babies and tended the sick. On his house calls, especially during the flu epidemic, he went from house to house up and down the streets trying to help the desperately ill people. It was reported that he delivered more babies than any doctor in Hall County, Georgia between the years of 1918 and 1935 when he practiced there.

As she did while they were in Atlanta, Dollie Meeks made sure her family had what they needed to eat. She had a chicken lot and kept fryers and hens that provided meat and eggs for her family.

The fourth Meeks son, Charles Edward, was born October 2, 1921 while the family lived in Hall County.

In 1935, Dr. Meeks moved his family back to Union County. He maintained an office in his home where he saw patients. He continued house calls, using a Model A Ford for transportation on the poor roads. Only one paved road went through the county at that time, what is now Highway 129 from Neel Gap to the North Carolina line (opened in 1925). Other roads were dirt, and often impassable in winter weather. Many a time, Dr. Meeks had to get a farmer with his team to pull his Model A through the mud. He often parked it and walked a distance to the house where he went to deliver a baby or to attend the sick.

The good doctor suffered a stroke in 1944. He did not recover, and died July 10, 1944. He was interred at the new Blairsville Cemetery. Mrs. Dollie Adeline Colwell Meeks lived until January 23, 1987.

The sons had distinguished careers but none of them followed their father into medical practice. John lived in Charleston, SC where he owned a furniture and moving business. He died in 1988. William T. Meeks, Jr., better known as Bill, graduated from the University of Georgia and returned to Union County where he became a farmer, merchant and legislator. Jack Littleton graduated from Georgia School of Technology with a chemical engineering degree. After a stint with the US Navy in which he reached the rank of Commander, he got a job with the Clorox Company and worked as chemist, plant manager, and regional manager. Charles Edward graduated from Georgia Tech in chemical engineering and held positions with various chemical manufacturing companies, the latest being in Lock Haven, PA with Quantum Chemicals until his retirement in 1988.

Today, Meeks Park in Union County stands as a monument to this family who were honorable and productive citizens.

[The major resource for this article was the "Dr. William Thomas Meeks, Sr." story in The Heritage of Union County, 1994, page 236.]

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 8, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Union County Poor House or Almshouse

Once an entity of Union County government, the County Farm or Almshouse, also called the Pauper’s House or the Poor House, operated for approximately 30 years from the 1920s to the early1950s.

I have the following to thank for information on the County Farm. Mr. Leon Davenport submitted an article to The Heritage of Union County, 1832-1994 entitled “The County Home,” (p. 40-41) and in Sketches of Union County History, Volume 2 by Jan H. Devereaux and Bryan Webb (pages 150-152), the 1934 report of W. L. Benson from the Georgia Department of Agriculture and R. B. England was given on “The County Poor Farm.”

A certain stigma was attached to those who had no recourse but to take up residence at the county poor farm. They either had no relatives who would take them in and care for them, or else they were rejected by family and consigned to work on the Poor Farm because they had to be supervised. Some evidently were lacking in mental or physical capacities and could not manage on their own as adults.

Union County acquired land for the Poor Farm from the estate of Captain John W. Meeks. In the Benson-England report of January 1934, the deeds of the property were not up-to-date, and a strip of pastureland and bottomland had been exchanged for a section of woodland so that firewood could be provided for the living quarters. Therefore, the adjoining landowners had to give permission before a survey of the County Farm properties could be made. Coosa Creek ran through the property, and a road edged the eastern section of the land, evidently not intended in 1934 as a public road, but used by the public, nonetheless.

The “inmates” as they were called by the Benson-England report had no apparent afflictions, chronic diseases, or communicable diseases. The worst infirmity was “age,” with three being over seventy in 1934. In the report published in the county history book, a schedule of expenditures from the years 1929-1936 stated that there were eight to ten residents at any one time, and that expenditures were for salaries of the superintendents, pauper burials, clothing, provisions, medical or dental attention, transportation for the Civilian Conservation Corps “boys” who evidently were assigned to work on the farm and/or buildings (in 1935), allowance to paupers, medical aide, lunacy transportation and board, and one small item of $7.96 in 1934 for “miscellaneous.”

Known superintendents serving at the County Farm were Cicero Wilson, Henley Potts and Vic King. During the term of each superintendent, living on the farm and managing the buildings, care and work was a requirement. Their annual salaries, given for only three years in the statistical table, were $259.25 (1934), $496.00 (1935), and $971.50 (1936). Bear in mind that these were years of the Great Depression, and even though the superintendents’ salaries seem low by modern standards, the County Farm provided them rent and board as part of their annual “package.”

Noting “Paupers’ Burials,” the lowest was in 1932 for $1.00. The highest year in those covered was 1934 when burial expenses were $118.21, and the second highest in 1933 of $107.53. The average for the eight years of statistics for burials was $62.89. No particulars were given, but the burial expenses probably covered a home-made casket, the clothes for the corpse to be buried in, transportation to a designated cemetery, and perhaps a small stipend for the minister or eulogist who presided at the funeral.

The Benson-England report posed a series of questions about the County Poor Farm to call attention to challenges that needed attention. First was to survey the land and establish authentic land lines. Neither electricity nor telephone lines were available to the farm in 1934. The main agricultural product raised on the farm was corn, used as a “money crop.” A vegetable garden near the residence gave food for the table and some to sell as truck crops. Some rye and winter wheat were grown on portions of the farm.

The land received no improvement to fertility. The examiners recommended rotation of crops and fertilization to make the land more productive. Fencing the farm was highly recommended. Raising cattle and hogs for the residents’ meat supply would be to a good use of farm facilities and labor. A small industry (not named) was recommended.

The buildings were old and in very poor repair except for a corn crib built in 1932, which was not sufficient in size to take care of the corn crop, because half of the building was used for the wagon shed.

The dwelling house was in a T-shape, with four rooms, one the kitchen. It was in poor condition, needing new shingles and a new floor, and a means of heating the individual rooms. The proposal was made for the addition of six rooms “in the near future,” with the CWA (Civil Works Administration?) assisting with the building.

The water supply was from a bold spring that had a flow of 1/2 gallon per minute. The spring house was used for refrigeration of milk and other perishables.

However, a grave threat to the spring was nearby. An outside privy was the only sewage disposal unit, only fifty feet away from the spring. The report stated: “This constitutes a health menace since the volume of water and the fall is not sufficient to preclude the possibility of flow-back to the spring that is used for drinking (water).” (Sketches of Union County History, p. 152 )

An interesting item in the Schedule from the Probate Judge’s office for the years 1929 through 1936 showed expenditures for “Lunacy Transport(ation) and Board.” The average annual expenditure over the eight-year period for this item was $79.80, with the largest amount spent in 1930 ($156.60).

The County Poor Farm existed and met a need for poor and indigent citizens before the day of federal programs such as Medicaid and the resources of the Department of Family and Children’s Services. I noted that the amount listed for clothing for the residents was only $31.00 for an eight-year period. Probably the people housed at The Almshouse wore hand-me-down clothing gathered from citizens.

We can imagine the plight of these less-fortunate citizens, while at the same time we must applaud county government for making efforts to provide for them. I am an avid “quotations” person. Many quotations I found were appropriate to the Union County Poor House and its mission. Jesus had this to say about the poor: “You always have the poor with you” (Matthew 26:11). Moses said: “The poor will never cease out of the land” (Deuteronomy 15:11). The American writer, Will Carleton (1845-1912) wrote: “Over the hill to the poorhouse I’m trudgin’ my weary way.” In his annual message to Congress on January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated: “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty.” And that war, declared by our 36th U. S. president, continues today and into the future. For, surely, the poor are still with us.

c2006 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 12, 2006 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.