Religious practices in rural communities
Morton briefly describes how the community's minister, Reverend Eli Thomas, would travel to their church in Granville County, North Carolina, from Durham once a month for a church conference. Her comments are indicative of the religious practices of rural communities during these years.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Louise Pointer Morton, December 12, 1994. Interview Q-0067. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- EDDIE McCOY:
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Who was your first minister that you knew of when you was coming up?
- LOUISE POINTER MORTON:
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At Jonathon Creek?
- EDDIE McCOY:
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Uh-huh.
- LOUISE POINTER MORTON:
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My first minister was Reverend Eli B. Thomas from Durham. He baptized me.
We was baptized in the creek.
- EDDIE McCOY:
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How did he get way up there? Come and stay overnight from Durham, or
what?
- LOUISE POINTER MORTON:
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See, they had conference on a fourth Saturday. And Reverend Eli Thomas
would come and he would stay all night and sometime he'd go
home and then he'd come that Sunday. But a lot of times he
would stay. Him and his wife, Mrs. Thomas, they would stay all night a
lot of times.
- EDDIE McCOY:
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Uh-huh. At people's houses up there? One would have him one
night and another—?
- LOUISE POINTER MORTON:
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No, who had picked the preacher was the deacons and their wives. My daddy
was a deacon.