did indeed.”
“Chapel Hill is a small place,” Aunt Nora smiled. “Did you go to seminary after UNC?”
“Yes, I went to Yale Divinity School.”
“That’s impressive. And Mama said you got a doctorate there too?”
“Yes, in Christian ethics.”
“But the church folk here call you ‘Brother Bob’ instead of ‘Dr. Sechrest’?” Aunt Nora asked.
“Oh I know why that is,” Ham volunteered. “In one of his sermons, Brother Bob told the story of a man who used to travel once a year to hunt coons. From a local hunter, he borrowed a dog called ‘Preacher’ who was the best huntin’ dog in the county. One year he returned and asked for Preacher and the owner said that they didn’t have a dog by that name anymore. ‘Did he die?’ the man asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘he’s still here, but you don’t want him.’ ‘Why not?’ the man said. ‘Well, a city slicker came through the year before and started callin’ the dog “Doctor” instead of Preacher, and the dog hadn’t been worth a darn ever since.’ So we took it from that story that Brother Bob preferred to be called ‘brother’ rather than ‘doctor.’”
“And you took it the right way, Ham!” Bob said and smiled.
Grandma Cornelia picked up the conversation. “Brother Bob studied with a very famous theologian. What was his name Brother Bob?”
“Richard Niebuhr. Yes, he was very influential, though most folk in the churches haven’t heard of him.”
Cornelia laughed and said. “I remember what Mabel Sturgill asked you when you met with the pulpit committee.”
“Were you on the pulpit committee, Grandma?” Ham asked. He didn’t know that or had forgotten it.
“Well, yes I was. Anyhow, Mabel said to Brother Bob, ‘Who did you study with at Yale?’ As if she would have recognized anybody’s name. When Brother Bob said ‘Richard,’ what was it?”
“Niebuhr,” Bob supplied.
“Oh right. ‘Niebuhr.’ Mabel looked at him straight in the eye and asked, ‘Is Neighbor one of them theologians what loves God, or one of ‘em what don’t?’ Brother Bob assured her that he was one what loved God!” Everybody laughed.
“And then remember when Sally Perkins asked you if you smoked, Brother Bob?”
“I do, indeed. I admitted that I did, and she asked me how much, and I told her I had cut down to three cigarettes a day,” Bob said.
“And then, Sally said, ‘Well, every little bit helps, Preacher!” Cornelia recounted. “You know Sally and her husband Steve raise fifty acres of tobacco, don’t you, Nora?”
Aunt Nora continued her line of questioning. “So how in the world did you get from New Haven to North Wilkesboro?”
“I took a detour in Raleigh at University Baptist. Actually, they fired me. J. B. heard about it and offered his family’s guest house. That was ten years ago. I’m a terrible mooch!”
“So what did you do to get fired?” Aunt Nora asked, rather impetuously.
Cornelia intervened. “Let me tell this story, Brother Bob, from a layman’s perspective.” Brother Bob nodded, amused.
“Well, Nora, you know that Brother Glenn dropped dead in the pulpit in 1965? That was just after Brother Bob moved back here. J. B. convinced Brother Bob to preach for us while we was searchin’ for a preacher. We all loved his preachin’ so much that the pulpit committee decided we had the preacher we wanted. So after a couple of months, that’s when we met with Brother Bob and told him we wanted him to be our pastor.”
“What did he say Grandma?” Ham hadn’t heard this story before.
“Well, he was very reluctant. He had a bad experience in Raleigh. Got involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and the monied folk at the church warn’t altogether happy about it. They liked havin’ a preacher with a fancy degree, but they warn’t so happy when he turned activist.”
“Can’t really blame them, can you?” Thom Jeff interjected.
Cornelia ignored Thom Jeff’s remarks.
“Well, we told Brother Bob we didn’t have a whole lot Civil Rights stuff goin’ on in North Wilkesboro. Then he says, if I agree to be your pastor, I have a couple of conditions. Course that didn’t settle too well with Charlie Snow, chairman of the committee. ‘What kind of conditions, Brother Bob?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘first off, I won’t take any salary. I just took a teaching job over at the college and don’t need any more income than that. So my compensation could be living in the parsonage and having my utilities paid.’ Charlie looked around at us and winked and said, ‘I reckon we can live with that. What else?’ Brother Bob continued, ‘I’d like for us to have joint worship services once a month with Second Baptist Church in Wilkesboro.’ ‘Do you mean on a Sunday evening?’ Charlie asked. ‘No, I mean on a Sunday morning,’ Brother Bob said. ‘Where would we meet?’ somebody asked. ‘There one month and here the next.’ ‘What would we do about the offerin’ on those days?’ ‘Split it, I reckon. Remember I’m not taking a salary,’ Bob said. Mabel asked, ‘What if one of those “co—, I mean black folk want to join our church?’ Bob said, ‘What if they do? That wouldn’t be the purpose of the joint services. The purpose would be to get to know each other better. If a black wanted to join the church we’d cross that bridge when we come to it, just like they’d have to do the same if one of our members wanted to join their church.’ Somebody said, ‘Not sure we’re ready to have coloreds join our church, Brother Bob.’ So, the committee looked around at each other, but this time we warn’t smiling. After a little while, Charlie said. ‘We probably ought to take that up at the next business meetin’ if it’s okay with you.’ ‘Sure. I expect that’d be the right thing to do,’ Bob said and stood up. The meeting was over. Well, what do you know, two weeks later, we met in business session, and voted to call Brother Bob as pastor. He began on the first Sunday in January, 1966.” Cornelia paused.
“You have a wonderful memory, Mama,” Aunt Nora said. She turned to Brother Bob and said, “When did the two churches merge?”
“Well,” Brother Bob began, “that sorta evolved over time. The two congregations enjoyed worshipping together from the beginning. After a year we went to two services a month and after a couple of years, the two congregations simply decided to merge. It just seemed to make sense. Brother Willie and I served as co-pastors, and we took turns in the pulpit and alternated locations.”
“Brother Willie was a little too long-winded for my tastes,” Grandpa Dubya remarked.
“And Brother Bob was a little too liberal for mine,” Thom Jeff chimed in.
Nina shot him a dirty look, but Brother Bob said, “I’m sure you weren’t the only one in that category, Thom Jeff!”
“I was a little surprised that the most difficult transitions in the merger came in the area of food, though I guess in hindsight I shouldn’t have been. Blacks and whites weren’t accustomed to eating together, so dinner on the grounds was a challenging event in those first couple of years. Coaxing members to mingle with each other and share food was difficult. It helped, Nora, that both whites and blacks were marvelous cooks, like your Mama and sister-in-law.” Cornelia and Nina simultaneously blushed and looked down. “So that anxiety soon melted away like butter on Cornelia’s hot biscuits.
“We met more resistance when we asked the congregation to share the holy food of communion. From the beginning, Brother Willie and I agreed that the church should observe communion every Sunday. Perhaps it would have been less of a big deal if we had used unleavened chiclets and individual plastic cups for the grape juice, but we used real wine and served communion by intinction.”
“Oh that’s where you dip the bread into the wine?” Aunt Nora asked. “We do that at Pullen, too.”