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Anonymous
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<img src="http://jb-ms.com/images/Pics2/tabernacle.jpg" align="left" vspace="5" hspace="7"/>The drawing is a reasonable facsimile of what everyone in the community called The Tabernacle, an old church building two miles west of where we lived when I was growing up. It was built around 1880 and used regularly until the depression hit but for some reason I haven't been able to discover, people stopped using it and by World War II it was abandoned and in disrepair. Bud Turman bought it and several acres of land surrounding it right after the war and started an ill fated weekly livestock auction in the old building. He took the benches and floor out, put sawdust down and built chutes for the livestock to be driven through but left the stage and pulpit for the auctioneers to use.
His livestock auction failed in less than three months and he let a group of Pentacostals use it, most folks around here called them Holy Rollies, and while they didn't have Sunday services there they had a revival one week out of every month from April until cold weather arrived. There was no electricity and what little lighting there was came from coal oil lamps sitting on little shelves they built about 10 feet apart down each side. It was smokey, smelly, loud and in June, July and August it was almost unbearably hot, but that didn't stop it from being filled to overflowing every night during the revival weeks.
The community where we lived was called Pine Grove community and was very poor. Most were sharecroppers and there was little money for unnecessary things like entertainment. TVA didn't run power lines off the main highway until 1951 so only one out of about 20 families had electricity and those that did only had a couple of light bulbs hanging on a cord from the ceiling. There was no TV and very few even had a radio so the revivals not only provided spiritual uplifting for most that attended, it also provided entertainment. There was always a crowd well before the services started, with the men gathered outside in groups on one side of the old Tabernacle entrance and the women in groups on the other side. The men would talk about their crops, livestock, the weather and other subjects that were relevant to everyday life in a farming community. One or more of them would generally have a jug of homebrew, or moonshine whiskey, and most of them saw nothing wrong with having a nip before the revival started. The women talked about women things and everyone had a good time. Every revival night was, in the words of a younger generation, a happening.
My earliest memories of going to the revivals begin in 1948, when I was five years old. The revivals ran for eight days, starting on Sunday night and ending the next Sunday night, and while we didn't go every night when they were going on we always made at least three nights and often four or five. The revivals continued through the summer of 1953 and only stopped because the owner tore the old building down in early 1954 and built a drag strip over where the Tabernacle stood.
This is getting a little long, and I'm trying to watch a Charles Bronson movie while I'm typing this, so I'll end it, but when I get time to write them I have a few stories about the Tabernacle revivals I'll post if anyone is interested. The events I remember are distant childhood memories so the stories probably won't be very accurate but maybe they'll be acceptable.
JB
His livestock auction failed in less than three months and he let a group of Pentacostals use it, most folks around here called them Holy Rollies, and while they didn't have Sunday services there they had a revival one week out of every month from April until cold weather arrived. There was no electricity and what little lighting there was came from coal oil lamps sitting on little shelves they built about 10 feet apart down each side. It was smokey, smelly, loud and in June, July and August it was almost unbearably hot, but that didn't stop it from being filled to overflowing every night during the revival weeks.
The community where we lived was called Pine Grove community and was very poor. Most were sharecroppers and there was little money for unnecessary things like entertainment. TVA didn't run power lines off the main highway until 1951 so only one out of about 20 families had electricity and those that did only had a couple of light bulbs hanging on a cord from the ceiling. There was no TV and very few even had a radio so the revivals not only provided spiritual uplifting for most that attended, it also provided entertainment. There was always a crowd well before the services started, with the men gathered outside in groups on one side of the old Tabernacle entrance and the women in groups on the other side. The men would talk about their crops, livestock, the weather and other subjects that were relevant to everyday life in a farming community. One or more of them would generally have a jug of homebrew, or moonshine whiskey, and most of them saw nothing wrong with having a nip before the revival started. The women talked about women things and everyone had a good time. Every revival night was, in the words of a younger generation, a happening.
My earliest memories of going to the revivals begin in 1948, when I was five years old. The revivals ran for eight days, starting on Sunday night and ending the next Sunday night, and while we didn't go every night when they were going on we always made at least three nights and often four or five. The revivals continued through the summer of 1953 and only stopped because the owner tore the old building down in early 1954 and built a drag strip over where the Tabernacle stood.
This is getting a little long, and I'm trying to watch a Charles Bronson movie while I'm typing this, so I'll end it, but when I get time to write them I have a few stories about the Tabernacle revivals I'll post if anyone is interested. The events I remember are distant childhood memories so the stories probably won't be very accurate but maybe they'll be acceptable.
JB
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