THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 31, 1995 TAG: 9505270173
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 168 lines
IN ITS 125 YEARS, Piney Grove Baptist Church has had four homes, 13 pastors and enough deacons and deaconesses, Sunday school superintendents and choir directors to fill the telephone directory of a small city.
It has had a Sunday school since 1872, a choir since 1887 and a lot of members who came to the church as children and never left.
Last week the congregation of the church near Kellam High School on Holland Road celebrated its century and a quarter of religious life with services, social events and a lot of nostalgia.
``My earliest memories are of coming here with my grandmother, Mary Field Dozier, when I was 5 years old,'' Barbara Davis, now 47 and a nurse with the Virginia Beach Health Department, said.
``What I remember most are the beautiful hats, the tall stovepipe ones with veils that the ladies wore then. We always sat over near the deaconesses and I couldn't take my eyes off those hats.''
If her eyes were on the hats, her ears were attuned to something else.
``I can still remember Deacon Reid out there ringing the church bell to call us to Sunday school. He'd just keep on ringing and ringing until we all got in.''
The Piney Grove cemetery across the road also holds memories for Davis. ``I have lots of people there,'' she said of the small tree-shaded spot that holds the remains of several generations of church members.
Millard Reid Sr., the deacon whom she remembers summoning children to Sunday school, has memories that go back farther than Davis.'
Much farther.
Now 84, he grew up on the same plot of ground where he still lives, right next door to the church.
``My parents were members and I've been going to church here as long as I can remember,'' the retired waiter said. ``There were nine of us, and we all came to Sunday School.
In those days most people walked to church.
``We even had some who walked all the way from Rosemont (Road) and never thought anything about it,'' he said.
More fortunate members came in carts and wagons; the very fortunate came in buggies, according to Reid.
Musical by nature, he started playing the organ for Sunday school at 14. Seventy years later, he still plays for Sunday school and other church functions when he's needed.
Except for a break when he boarded with a family in Norfolk so that he could attend high school at Booker T. Washington, Reid has missed few Sundays at Piney Grove.
There weren't any high schools for African-Americans when he finished grammar school so he had to go to Norfolk, he said. ``I got on the train right here at the courthouse in September, rode into Norfolk and didn't come home again until Thanksgiving.''
When he finally came home from Norfolk with his diploma in hand, it was to stay. ``I taught school for one year under a special training program that Mr. (Franklin D.) Roosevelt started, but I could make as much in a month waiting on tables at the Cavalier Hotel as I could in a year teaching.
``People used to come back year after year and ask for me,'' he said proudly of the job he held from 1927 until he retired in 1972.
Besides, the management at the hotel understood about his need to be at Piney Grove at 11 a.m. sharp each Sunday.
``I'd serve breakfast in my uniform, leave the hotel at 10:45, jump in my car and be at church in time to play for the service,'' he said. ``All I had to do was change my jacket.''
Ordained a deacon in the early 1950s, Reid remains as active as ever at Piney Grove.
``I just enjoy working in the church. All my life I enjoyed it. I had a gift for music and everybody here encouraged me,'' he said.
The music, the encouragement and spirit, both holy and human, have been and remain important in the life of Piney Grove Baptist Church.
``We're an emotional congregation,'' said the Rev. Charles A. Vinson, the church's pastor for the past 19 years. ``Our strength is the preaching of the word, the love of the people and the friendship we have here.''
All three are rooted in the tradition started by the small group of former slaves, who in 1870, left the land surrounding Ebeneezer Baptist Church in the northern reaches of Princess Anne County and moved their families southward toward the courthouse.
They found the area of thick woods and fertile ground to their liking and decided to start their community there.
One of the first orders of business was to establish a church. The settlers purchased an acre of ground, built a log cabin, daubed it with clay, covered it with slabs and named it for the surrounding area, Piney Grove.
The original church, valued at $35, served the congregation until a more traditional building was built by church members a few years later.
So sturdy was the second building, built at a cost of $800, that it served as a school for youngsters in the courthouse area long after it had been replaced as a worship center by the little white 1901 church in which both Reid and Davis grew up.
By 1915, under the Rev. Willis Brown, the membership of Piney Grove church had grown to 250, making it one of the leading churches in the county's African-American community.
Brown, according to a church history compiled in 1989, was well rewarded for his leadership.
The church gave him a set of books costing $80 for his home study and treated him to a year of study at Union University in Richmond. He pastored the church from 1904 until his death in 1915.
Rules of conduct for church members were strict in his day. Such transgressions as drunkenness, laxation of duty and gross and immoral conduct almost certainly led to expulsion from the church.
Dr. J.A. Brinkley, a man who grew up in Princess Anne County and received his early schooling at Piney Grove, had the longest tenure as pastor, serving from 1928 until 1953.
A Union University graduate, he returned to his alma mater to teach New Testament Greek but made the trip from Richmond two weekends out of each month to tend to the needs of his local flock.
Faced with an active congregation housed in a decaying half-century-old church building, Brinkley launched a major fund-raising drive early in 1953 but died only a month later. It would be another three years before the much-needed renovations were completed.
The hard decision to build a new church fell to Vinson, who has been the pastor at Piney Grove since 1976.
The fourth Piney Grove church, which stands on the same piece of land as its predecessors, was dedicated in 1989. It is now the church home for some 600 members.
``We're growing all the time,'' Vinson said of the congregation that includes many newcomers to the area along with long-time Piney Grove families.
For a full week, starting with a walk-a-thon from the church to Princess Anne Park for a picnic a week ago, Piney Grove celebrated its 125th anniversary and reveled in its history in a way that would have pleased the spirited people who built the first log cabin worship center.
Sunday's service was followed by a large reception with food prepared by church members.
In addition to the weekend activities, special services were provided at the church each evening last week by the clergy and members of other area Baptist churches.
On Saturday, Piney Grove concluded its week of celebration with an anniversary banquet at Grand Affairs. Entertainment was provided by the Not Just for February Players, Honey-in-the-Rock inspirational creative dancers, Rev. Paschall and the Paschall Brothers and Piney Grove's own Angelic Gospel Choir.
For once, the hard-working church members did not have to prepare or serve the meal, set up the hall or do the dishes.
After 125 years of providing for their community, it was finally their turn to sit down and be waited on. ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
CHURCH FULL OF MEMORIES
[Color Photo]
Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
A line-drawing of the third structure that the church occupied hangs
in the current church. The little white worship center was built in
1901 and replaced in 1989.
This turn-of-the century bell sits in the parking lot at the church.
In years past, it was used to summon the members' children to Sunday
School.
Barbara Davis, a member of Piney Grove Baptist, visits the cemetery
located on Holland Road across from the church. ``I have lots of
people there,'' Davis said of the small tree-shaded spot that holds
the remains of several generations of church members.
ABOVE: ``Our strength is the preaching of the word, the love of the
people and the friendship we have here,'' says the Rev. Charles A.
Vinson, pastor for the past 19 years.
LEFT: Millard F. Reid, a deacon for more than 40 years, stands
before a portrait of Dr. James A. Brinkley, who served as pastor
from 1928-1953.
by CNB