High Top Pentecostal Church - Greene County, Virginia
I had been driving for what seemed like miles and miles on a one lane dirt road when I finally came upon the church and stopped. I got out of the truck and watched the dust I had raised drift over the edge of the mountain. The air was cool at this elevation. The first promises of spring were in the breeze and the sunlight.

Who came here from isolated mountain homes to worship? Who came to this place to visit with neighbors and perhaps share with friends a church dinner on the wooden tables outside? How many couples came to this place to be married? Whose loved ones rest in the small cemetery just down the dusty road?
I am here alone, with no sound but the breeze rising in the mountain hollow behind this empty church, stirring the budding trees.
A reader recently left the following comment on this post. (I am reposting because the comment included a phone number which is probably best not published on the internet)
ReplyDelete"my name is joshua smith. i live on hightop beside the church and would like 2 know if someone will eventually preach there again. the pughs r in there goin bad. my grandfather preached there and lived up there. when i was little my granddad ran off the mountain 2 get help when i burned my leg. there was no phones. now i live up there like the old time people. haha. all of my family r buried up there. its quit up there. the people in the graveyard dont talk much. lol. also some kids tore the church up but im up there now. "
My great grand parents lived there and my grand father moved from there as a young laid to Berkeley co Wv John IRA McDaniel we use to go there til I was about twelve yes old in fall of the year lots of food and people dressed old timely loved it we use to come in truck loads
ReplyDelete