A Story Within A Story...

   This is a story, well, really a story within a story. It is the story of a church visit from just the other day.

   Here is a photograph of the Burnt Fort Chapel, originally from the 1890s, rebuilt in 1977 using the same plan, and materials from the site.

   But, before I get to this new story, background is needed:

   Way back, when Mayre and I were doing our courthouse tour of GA county seats (all 156 of them), we were in a hurry to get all of them recorded before we died. We would get 5 or more courthouses photographed in a day's time, but did not spend a lot of time at any one.

   After we accomplished this journey and looked back at the photographs, we tried to remember the details of the visits to each, but it was hard. A lot of the time, we just pulled into the town, found the courthouse, took a few shots and went on our way to the next one. If we spoke to anyone, it was probably to ask where the restrooms were.

   A lot of the time, we visited these towns on a weekend when there was no one around.

   Like the Talbot County courthouse on a Sunday.

   Sometimes a courthouse person would ask us what we were up to and, after we explained our visit, they might volunteer information or give us a quick tour.

   Like we received from the Probate Judge in Schley County in Ellaville.

   After we finished the courthouses and thought about what we had done, it was obvious that we needed to have spent more time in each location, talked to people and gotten the feel of the place. But our emphasis was on the completion of the project. If we had tried to really get into each of the histories and happenings and spent a day in each place, we would still be out there. Again, I mention that 156 counties, spread over a large state, might take a pretty long time.

   But, we realized that the ones that meant the most to us were the ones where we had a personal contact and conversation with people in the courthouse or town.

   Fast forward to recent times:

   Now we like to visit old churches, especially those in rural settings. Many times these are deserted places, churches that used to be. They are situated out of the mainstream of current life. They are great to photograph, but we always wonder what the people were like who worshiped there.

   Like Oak Grove Baptist in Camden County

   Or Providence Methodist, likewise in Camden County

   The story for today is our visit to the Burnt Fort Chapel, again located in Camden county. It was a congregation that had existed from 1890, and folks met and worshiped there until the church was disbanded in 1947. The building was allowed to decay so as to be unusable, but some locals decided to re-erect the building to the original specifications using wood from the trees on the site or pulled from the nearby Satilla River.

   They had also moved an old one-room schoolhouse onto the property, and there was a cemetery on the grounds with graves of people born in the 1700s.

   Here is where we get into the story within a story:

   While I was moving around the church building taking different shots from a variety of angles, a car drove through and made its way on down the lane to the cemetery. I could see a man moving among the gravestones.

   As I was finishing up, the man ended his work and came back toward me. I thought, "good, now I can ask a few questions", my personal wishes could be satisfied.

   I did not have to flag him down, he pulled to a stop and asked what I was doing.

   In my answer, I began to ask him about the church, the schoolhouse and the cemetery. I wanted to get the flavor of the whole enterprise to put a more personal face on the history and dreams of the people.

   I did get a lot of that, but I got more. I got his personal history, his wife's family history, his work history, his military history, the details of his involvement with Pershing missiles in Europe, His work on the rebuilding of the church, and more.

   As the gnats ate me up, I realized that maybe I had gotten more than I wished for. As I tried to work my way back toward the car, he continued to tell stories, until I had to break into the middle of his sentence to plead my wife's condition in the hot car (although at least she did not have the gnats).

   It is a photographic journey to an old church that no doubt we will remember.

   And we will keep our wishes closer to ourselves.