DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same. Now, Ellis County has got more than a few stories buried in its soil, and this one goes back to July 6, 1879. The day elders Josiah Leake and S.C.
Talley gathered sixteen charter members and organized what they called Mt. Nebo Baptist Church. Sixteen people.
Say those names, because they deserve to be said: J.C., Isabel, and Sarah Martin. W.L. Pierce.
J.P. and M.F. Giles. William Hendricks.
William and N.L. John. M.E.
Ratliff. M.K. Yarbrough.
R.F. and M.E. Lattner. M.C.
Steward. Alice Godfrey. And Melvina Kiley.
That right there is a congregation. In the beginning, they didn't have walls around them; they held their worship services in the Muskrat School and out under an arbor, sky for a ceiling, ground for a floor. Now, a lot of churches have started in rougher circumstances than a proper building and faded away before they ever got one.
This one didn't. The years kept coming, the community kept holding, and by 1924 into 1925 they raised up a sanctuary, a real one, brick and beam, a place to plant themselves for good. Sunday school facilities followed, and a parsonage too, added on later as the congregation grew into what it needed to be.
Somewhere along the way the name changed, from Mt. Nebo Baptist Church to Avalon Missionary Baptist Church, taking the name of the town it had served for over a hundred years. Sixteen people on a July afternoon in 1879 started something that outlasted every doubt about whether it would last at all.
That's not a small thing. That's the whole thing.
What the marker says
Originally known as Mt. Nebo Baptist Church, this congregation was organized on July 6, 1879, by elders Josiah Leake and S.C. Talley and 16 charter members: J.C., Isabel, and Sarah Martin; W.L. Pierce; J.P. and M.F. Giles; William Hendricks; William and N.L. John; M.E. Ratliff; M.K. Yarbrough; R.F. and M.E. Lattner; M.C. Steward; Alice Godfrey; and Melvina Kiley. Early worship services were held in the Muscrat School and under an arbor. A sanctuary was built in 1924-25. Sunday school facilities and a parsonage were added later. This church has served Avalon for over 100 years.