Historic Pews & Pulpits Ramble: My upcoming excursion

The Warren County Chamber of Commerce is hosting a historic church tour in eastern rural Georgia. I signed up with a friend and I'm so excited! Here is what it involves:

Georgia's Classic South Region is hosting a historic church tour called the Historic Pews and Pulpits Ramble on June 16, 2017. The bus will depart from the Greensboro Home Depot at 9 a.m. and go through rural east Georgia. There will be seven stops along the way to tour historic churches tucked away but not forgotten. Not only will you get to go inside the churches and hear about their humble beginnings, you'll be inspired by songs and words from some of the chancels and pulpits.

At each stop there will be a 30-minute presentation of the history of the church, the area, and some hymns. The Sacred Harp Singers of Atlanta will be part of the presentation at Wrightsboro Methodist Church!

Here are the 7 churches we will be visiting on the Heritage Tour:

Mount Zion Presbyterian Church, Sparta
Powelton Methodist Church Sparta
Antioch Baptist Church, Crawfordville
Wrightsboro Methodist Church, Thomson
Barnett Methodist Church, Norwood
Locust Grove Catholic Church, Crawfordville
Penfield Baptist Church, Union Point

Some of the churches are two hundred years old...the one with the towers was built by freed slaves...some are still in use, others in disrepair...it's exciting and interesting. I've never been to this part of Georgia so it all will be new.

The tour goes from 9-3 on a Friday in mid-June. There will be lots and lots of photo opportunities the write-up says and I can see that this is true. I will need to bring lots of batteries for my camera!

I haven't gone on a tour or excursion in almost ten years, so I'm very excited for this. Pray for good weather on June 16!

Information about Harp Singing, AKA Shape Note Singing, this historic form of singing hymns unique to the south (though it flowered briefly in New England prior to the Revolutionary War, it died out and was revived down south). Here are a few photos I took of a Harp Singing in Athens at the Botanical Gardens from 2007,

Yippee!

Elders reminiscing at Thanksgiving

We were sitting around the living room after a great Pre-Thanksgiving meal on Wednesday night. Two guests were ladies were in their mid and upper 80s. They were remembering how poor they were here in rural GA in the 1930s. They had one pair of shoes for the year. Around now was the time of year they would get the new pair, in time for the cold weather and Christmas.

The elder of the two told us one of her jobs way back along when she lived in Atlanta during the week (and came home on weekends). She used to work at Sears & Roebuck in Atlanta. People used to get the catalog, pick out their shoes, and trace their feet and send that in with their order. Her job was to match the selected shoe to the tracing and pick out the right size.

The second of the two ladies said that it used to be so cold she remembers Thanksgiving weekend was always the weekend they killed the hog and boiled the lard down and processed the meat...and it was cold enough to keep it frozen in the ice house with no electricity.
(Note: above link is a reminiscence from an unknown man describing his memories in Arkansas).

And Thanksgiving week has been so warm we sleep with the windows open and hear the birdsong all night...it's warmer these days.