Seeding: A Follow Up

What I said about our parents allowing us to go to the church we chose to was true. My memories of this period are from when I was about five years old, and while we lived in the small town of Leadwood. Before five, I have just a few scraps of memory. A couple of years or so later, we moved a few miles west of Leadwood to a rural community. There were only two churches available: A Baptist Church and a Pentecostal Church. The Baptist Church did not yet have a building. That came later, and Dad was instrumental in getting it built. I’m not sure if the Pentecostal Church was there already, or built not long after we moved to the area.

At that time, we children mostly attended the Baptist service, but occasionally went to the Pentecostal Church also. After my parents became Christians, they united with the Baptist Church. My mother’s parents [mother and stepfather] were Baptist, as was Dad’s mother. Mother told me that Dad’s parents attended the Baptist Church when she knew them. Years later, Dad told me that his mother was a Baptist, but “Pa” was a Methodist. I found out in my genealogy searching that both Grandpa Bowen’s grandfathers were circuit-riding Methodist preachers. When my parents became members of the Baptist Church, we attended that church as a family. However, we were free to go to services at the other church if there was no service at the ‘home’ church. A revival might find us at either church.

I have no memories of my Grandmother Bowen because she was buried the day I was born. Grandpa Bowen left us when I had just turned seven. I have a few good memories of him, but he left us much too soon. He and Dad were at Grandma Bowen’s funeral when I was born, and they came home to find that I had arrived while they were gone. As a result, Grandpa Bowen and I had a very special bond. As a small child, I missed him terribly, when he died.

Mother’s stepfather was as exemplary a Christian as I have ever known, and he was a wonderful grandfather. He and Grandma were active in the small rural church they attended near St. James. I was told in later years, by some of the people I met in my genealogy research, that Grandpa Stricker was a lay preacher at the church, when no ordained minister was available. He was a man who lived his faith. If all we Christians put our faith into practice as he did, what would the world be like? Pardon me, if I sound like I'm preaching. I blame it on the genes passed down by those old Methodist preachers.