The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 106

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106

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

lowing week word was sent us that the white people
did not want us back. That was that, apparently.

Lamison is a sawmill town. The mill is its only
reason for existence.
ored help line the road on either side.

The hoyels housing the col-
A few

The First Chapel and School at Lamison, Ala.

stores, a garage, and a section for the whites — that
is Lamison. Two things always strike us when
passing through: the. ever-burning slab pile, which,
I suppose, has consumed enough waste lumber to
keep New York City in kindling for years, and
the ever-burning electric ‘lights, fed from the mill
dynamo, which for some reason are never turned
off during the daytime.

But the mill is not the only
activity in this section, for the
main occupation is farming. The
country for miles and miles back
of the road is dotted, now thickly,
now sparsely, with Negro cabins
housing hundreds upon hundreds,
who wrest a precarious living
from the soil. Some of these
people had attended the afore-
mentioned meeting. They con-
tinyed to long and hope for a
Lutheran “mission.”

In the July, 1927, number
of the PionzER there is a very
interesting article by Pastor
Schmidt entitled “‘Aunt’ Fannie
Steele.” This old lady was the prime mover in
getting a foothold for our Church at Lamison
despite the opposition of the enemies. She is now
living back in the hills, about two miles from the
“hard” road, and it was her incessant testimony for
the Church and the Savior she loves that finally

made it possible for us to send a pastor and a teacher
into that community. To be sure, actual work was
not being done right in the mill town, but what
of it? If its inhabitants would not tolerate our
message, the people in the backwoods would and did.
And so we came to Lamison, and with God’s blessing
a small congregation has been organized there.

“Aunt” Fannie is no make-believe Lutheran.
Eight years ago the writer was her pastor at
Nyland. Also then she was living at Lamison.
She would trudge the eight or ten miles from her
home to the chapel at Nyland to hear of Jesus
and His love for her. And in wet weather, when
the trails and roads were boggy, she would often
get up as early as three o’clock (she had no clock
of her own) to flounder through the mud in the
darkness to the railroad station to get the 6.30 a. a.
train to Kimbrough, the station nearest to Nyland.
And then, after going to all this trouble, she had
a three-mile walk through red mud before her!

The first picture shows the shack in which we
have been having services and teaching in the
day-school for about twenty months. Miserable,
isn’t it? At that, the snapshot flatters the building,
for it is really in worse condition than the picture
shows. On cold or rainy days one might just as
well be outside. And for this house (?!) the strug-
gling congregation paid the owner a rent of two
dollars a month! :

Well, those days are now over. May 13 the new

The Present Chapel and School at Lamison, Ala.

building was dedicated. It is built on the usual
«TJ? plan, the room with the tower serving as chapel
and the other, running crosswise in the rear, as
schoolroom. The walls are: of novelty siding,
painted a pleasing green, and trimmed white. The
roof is of red asphalt-slate shingles, fire-proof. It