SHELDON JOHNSON
Interviewed by Deborah Cartwright and Jacque Smith
Sheldon Johnson is an Elgin native who grew up as a member of the First United Methodist Church. There he was baptized, confirmed, and elected as a minister. Mr. Johnson served as a pastor in the Rio Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church for over thirty years and currently serves as the Protestant pastor for a senior citizen community in North Austin. In this interview, he describes the church sanctuary, leaders, youth activities, and influence in his life and the life of the community. Mr. Johnson states that he "would like the First United Methodist Church of Elgin to be understood by future generations as a place that had at its very beginnings a people who wanted others to know who Christ was and what the power of God can mean in your life."
The interview was conducted by Deborah Cartwright with audio assistance from Jacque Smith, both members of the board of directors of the Elgin Oral History Project. Ms. Cartwright was raised in Elgin and retired from her work as an attorney in 2021. She is an active community volunteer in non-profit and governmental organizations. Ms. Smith is a talented artist who retired to Elgin about ten years ago. She is interested in preserving the community's history and rural heritage.
Interviewer - Today is Thursday, August 31st, 2023. And we're here at the home of Sheldon Johnson in Elgin, Texas. We're recording an oral history from you as part of the Elgin Oral History Project. It will be used for generations to educate the young and old about life in Elgin, good and bad, through memories and personal reflections. The recording will be preserved in a database for the project and ultimately posted on a website. The Elgin Oral History Project organization is a community based, not-for-profit entity. Do I have your consent to record the interview today?
Sheldon - You do.
Interviewer - Thank you. My name is Debbie Cartwright, and I serve on the board of directors for the Elgin Oral History Project. With me today is Jacque Smith, who is also a member of the board of directors for the Project. The board determined that capturing the history of the Elgin First United Methodist Church, especially about its building and origins, would be valuable during its sesquicentennial year. I'm interviewing several persons who have been part of the Church in the past to provide their perspectives about the Church and share personal stories about their time there. All right. You ready to start?
Sheldon - Whenever you want.
Interviewer - Sheldon, it really is a pleasure to be here with you today. And if you don't mind, give me a little background about your career and your life as a minister.
Sheldon - Okay. It's hard to talk about all that. It was my career, separate from my life and ministry, let’s put it that way. It was the place where it began. I felt a call to ministry as a teenager here in Elgin at the First United Methodist Church, went through the process, which, if you know anything about Methodists, there is a process for everything. And so, it was a long process. I was licensed to preach at the age of 18.
Interviewer - What year was that, Sheldon?
Sheldon - That would have been 1980, and I have served actively in churches until 2018. I served in what was for many years called the Southwest Texas Annual Conference, now called the Rio Texas Annual Conference. And it's primarily West and South Texas. I served all across that area.
Interviewer - What are you doing at this time?
Sheldon - I have retired. I was in an accident and was unable to preach full-time for a number of years. But just this year I have taken on preaching for a facility of active seniors. I am the Protestant pastor for that facility, and I go every week and preach.
Interviewer - And what city is that?
Sheldon - It's in Wells Branch or North Austin.
Interviewer - Very good. And that's a ministry that's very valuable at this time, don't you think?
Sheldon - I think so. These are not people who are in nursing homes or assisted living. They're people that are living independently.
Interviewer - What is your first memory of the First United Methodist Church of Elgin—the sanctuary, the people, the music, the worship experience? What is your first—I know you started young—your first memory as a child?
Sheldon - My first memory as a child, I believe, revolves around my sister's wedding, and somebody turning me in different directions in the service, as I was supposed to stand as the ring bearer at four to do what I needed to do. That's my first real memory of the sanctuary and being in it, doing something. And beyond that, I would say that my earliest memories of the church have very little to do with the facility but have to do with the members.
Interviewer - What do you remember about them?
Sheldon - Well, you understand that the First United Methodist Church of Elgin is the blending of more than one congregation together over the years. There was a group of Swedish Methodists on the prairie at Manda that in 1962 closed that church and came in and joined the First United Methodist Church. At that point, we were the first home outside of the city limits of Elgin. And so, for whatever reason, the people who were still coming into town to go to church from Manda, the majority of them were widowers. And so, these four or five men would come to our house after church in Elgin on Sunday and have lunch with us and then would sit and play 42 with my dad and mother for hours. And so, I grew up hanging off the edge of that 42 table. So perhaps what really the memory is, is that the Methodist Church was always involved for me—fellowship--whether it be the things we did at the church hall, which were monthly at least, or, you know, large events there, and then also then carried on to the home and into the homes of other members. Mrs. Zoe Webb was a Sunday School teacher for many years, and she always hosted Christmas or Sunday school parties at her home, which has lots of interesting stories.
Interviewer - Was Mrs. Webb your Sunday school teacher, in addition to being the choir director?
Sheldon - Yes. She was the choir director and the organist and all of those things that she did. She and Jack did so many things around the church that it was phenomenal if you really think about what they did.
Interviewer - And what do you remember as a child being in the service itself? What were the services like? I believe the sanctuary was not air conditioned at that time.
Sheldon - And yes, I remember the church—the sanctuary—when it was un-air conditioned. There are still some long poles that are around there today. They use them to hang the greenery around the window at Christmas time. But these polls have special hooks on them that used to be used to raise and lower those 20-foot windows.
Interviewer - I didn't realize that.
Sheldon - And there's a little hook in those that the pole hooks into and it raises and lowers those windows. So, I remember those days. I remember, of course, as a young child, I was semi -bored, having to sit still in a suit in church because in the 1960s, everybody still wore a suit to church, at least a sports jacket, but mostly a suit for the men and dresses for the women, of course. I remember in the 1970s on a very cold winter's Sunday, my mother declaring that she was going to wear pants to church, and I thought the world was going to come to an end. But that's just the way that was. My memories of worship in the sanctuary were being seated on the second pew from the back on the right-hand side of the sanctuary.
Interviewer - I believe that your parents sat there their entire time of going to church.
Sheldon - That’s where they sat their entire time of going to church. And when I attend, that's where I sit. It's just a part of our tradition, right? We sat there, and I would be between my parents. Everything would be well until my father put his arm around me. And then I knew I had been squirming too much, you know, and I had to be still.
Interviewer - Who was the first pastor who you can remember?
Sheldon - I remember a pastor in the mid-sixties, but only because he was controversial. And so, he was only here for a year. Following him was a pastor by the name of Reverend Birdwell. My parents were active members of the church, and my dad was on the board of trustees on the buildings and grounds committee or something like that for the majority of my life.
As long as he was able to get up and get out of the house, he was on some sort of committee. And my mother was the church treasurer for over 20 years. So, we were around the church a lot. We knew all the pastors from the time I can remember pastors being there. I remember Jerry Smith really as a younger one and who was one of the first ones who I remember and the others.
Interviewer - What do you know about the original construction of the church, and after you talk about that a little, what about the installation of the Manda Bell? You kind of alluded to the joining of the churches, and so that would be interesting.
Sheldon - Well, first of all, the building that exists today is not the original sanctuary. The current sanctuary was built after one of the great revivals that hit Elgin in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The first one I can’t remember. The second one, which I know of because it affected members of my own family, was the Hamm-Ramsey revival, which was common in that time period for these large community-wide revivals to have occurred. And I think that out of the Hamm-Ramsey, the Methodist Church got 70 members, you know, and so there was a whole big influx.
Interviewer - Was it a tent revival?
Sheldon - Yes. Or an outdoor revival. In fact, when we were young, there was still a Ramsey reunion held here of people that came from churches through the Hamm-Ramsey revival. And all the people from all the churches in town would get together every summer and have a picnic to remember that time, which I don't know of any place else that did that. That's just at least in modern times. You don't ever hear of that happening now. So, the original sanctuary, of course, was just a clapboard wooden building with a steeple on it and a small bell, which I believe is still the small bell in the bell tower at the current church. A sanctuary was built first and then about ten years later, they added the annex to the back of it--the Sunday school rooms that are attached to the back of the actual sanctuary building. The sanctuary building is the plan that is called the Akron plan, which means it feels like you're in a half circle, although you're not. But it feels that way because the pews are curved to match it. It is set up with the auditorium slanted floor, and this sanctuary is a great preaching facility. It is not meant for worship, but is meant for preaching, which probably comes out of the fact that they started raising the funds to build it after that great revival. And I think as I understand the story at least, people pledged to buy numbers of brick to build the sanctuary building out of. That's how they raised the pledges by how many bricks you could furnish. You know, from each person, which with Elgin being a brick town, that was not as hard maybe as it was for other places.
Interviewer - And you said it was an Akron plan. Was there a standard floor plan that you bought?
Sheldon - Yes. It was a standard floor plan. If you look carefully at this sanctuary, you can see where it easily could have been divided into two portions—one for the worship area—the preaching and worship. And then the other side, which would be the west side of the sanctuary. I don't believe in Elgin that was ever partitioned off, even with sliding doors or anything else. Or not sliding doors, but folding doors. Nobody has ever indicated that that was the case. And I have heard family stories that go way back. So, yes, it was a pat plan. There are churches built with that basic design all across America.
Interviewer - And the Manda Bell was installed in 1960, did you say?
Sheldon - It came to the church in, I believe, 1967. The Manda Church closed in 1962. The bell was given to another congregation, an African American congregation, who was never able to get it onto something where they could use it because it is a large bell. So, somehow or another, it ended up in the Hebb junkyard. And then my father found that out, because my father had bought the Manda church building, tore it down, and built a home that I grew up in. So, I literally grew up in the Methodist Church! Then the bell was purchased, or Mr. Hebb donated it to the Methodist Church. They built the platform that it's on and erected it and then put the plaque up there for the pioneering families from Manda.
Interviewer - Your father found the bell in the junkyard?
Sheldon - Yes, my father made sure that it was rescued and used. Now, at the same time that they put the bell in—most people don't realize this, but I believe it was intentional—there was an entrance to the church on that side of the old bell tower that the steps would have come down to basically where the Manda Bell sits today. That entrance was closed, and windows from other portions of the church were put in there. It doesn't look like it's been a patch job, it just is—unless you look very carefully. It also moved the primary entrances of the church away from the carving in the stone: “Methodist Episcopal Church South.”
Interviewer - And what is the significance of that?
Sheldon - In the 1700s, when the Methodist Church started in the United States, it started as the Methodist Episcopal Church. It has nothing to do with the modern Episcopal name. It simply means that we were Methodist who had bishops. In 1844, the Methodist Episcopal Church split two into the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South, which should be fairly explanatory with what that meant. It was over the issue of slavery, so that name in and of itself contains some vestiges of that life. I believe that in Elgin it was intentional that they completely removed the way you got into the church from underneath that name. Now, interestingly enough as well, the Manda Church was a Methodist Episcopal Church because it was not only African Americans that the ME Church South did not allow as members; they didn't allow Germans, Swedes, or anybody of non-English extraction.
Interviewer - That was an interesting statement on the part of the congregation.
Sheldon - It was.
Interviewer - They wanted to change that entry into the church for worship.
Sheldon - And I don't know who all was behind that, but I do know that Jackson and Zoe and Miss Kitty and a few others were probably a part of all that planning.
Interviewer - And when you referred to Jackson and Zoe, that’s Mr. and Mrs. Webb. Kitty is Mrs. Henderson.
Sheldon - Yes.
Interviewer- So there a long history of people in the church involved in that. Very interesting. Tell us about the stained-glass windows if you could.
Sheldon - What I know about stained-glass windows are that they are exceptional, first of all, in their beauty, and they're well-placed in that building where they are located to provide the message. The purpose of stained-glass windows is the same as art in churches all around the world. They're a way of communicating the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, in a way that's not with words. These stained-glass windows, which are superior, depict very little on the lower parts. Of course, there are three large round windows facing south, north, and east that depict basically part of the story of the resurrection.The one in the north is the empty tomb with the angels seated. The ones to the south and to the east depict Jesus ascending into heaven. And then the third one is another depiction of the ascension, in some way. On Easter Sunday morning when the scriptures are read about the empty tomb, the window that depicts the empty tomb with the angels seated at the foot glows with sunlight as the sun rises.
There are memorial windows. Every one of them is a memorial window. There are about three or four families that provided the bulk of them. I happen to be related to all of them. My mother’s father's family came to this area in the 1830s and her mother's family in the 1860s.
So, they've have been around a while. They pre-date Elgin by a day or two. And there were numerous Methodist churches in the area before Elgin came to exist. And so that's why at the same time that they developed the town here of Elgin, the Methodists moved in from the countryside to here. Basically, about two years later, after the city incorporated, the Methodist Church laid out plans and platted all the lots and things, which Elgin is platted differently than most cities because the railroad company did that.
Interviewer- What do you know about the installation of the newest window on the west side of the building?
Sheldon - The one in the doorway?
Interviewer - Yes.
Sheldon - That's about all I know about. There were a group of members who felt they wanted to honor a pastor, and they did that.
Interviewer- I have to add, just on my own, and you can elaborate if you want—the stained glass that's in the area where the door was that was removed and by the Manda Bell has stained glass that is in honor of Nell Mae Owens who died in 1963. As you know, the family home is where my mother lives, in that house.
Sheldon - Which are relatives . . .
Interviewer - Yes, relatives of yours. I've always been really taken with that particular fact—that where the door used to be is a window that is honoring Miss Nell.
Sheldon - Interestingly enough as well, the double doors that go out of the sanctuary into the annex, there was a stained-glass window there that was in storage for many years until right after 1973, and after the fire that burned the sanctuary and the education building or the annex, they found it in storage. And so that's the stained-glass window that's now in the choir room or parlor or whatever you want to call it, behind the sanctuary.
Interviewer - Yes, I always wondered about that glass.
Sheldon - That's where that came from. It was in the wall where the double doors are going out.
Interviewer - Tell us briefly about your parents and your involvement with the restoration after the fire. The fire, the fire in 1973.
Sheldon - My memory of that is that I was in confirmation at that time, which is the process for becoming a member of the church. A group of us had been meeting on a regular basis or about to be in confirmation at that point. On Sunday, April the first, my grandmother calls that morning and says to my mother on the telephone: “Baby, your church is on fire.” And my mother's reply was: “Mother, that's a horrible April Fool’s joke!” And my grandmother said: “No, go, step into your yard.” We lived two miles out in the country. We did. And you could see the flames coming out of the steeple from our house. My father put on work clothes immediately and headed to town. And my mother and I would come an hour or so later. My dad had been there, worked with other men of the church to remove all . . . The fire had started in the annex area. There was some remodeling going on; some lightweight molding had been laid over a heater grate. The original building was heated with a coal furnace. Of course, it had been switched to a gas furnace by that time, but apparently the metal of the grate heated up enough to ignite the fire that then gutted the annex. In the process of fighting the fire, of course, smoke and everything came into the sanctuary part. The men went in and removed the pews, the pulpit, the rails, the modesty rail, the altar rail, and all the loose equipment they could. They got it out of there and carried it out of the building. One gentleman—my memory is foggy on which one it was—but one gentleman fell through the floor. The vents were in the floor for the heating system. And he stepped through one of those trying to carry one of those long pews out of there. And somebody else grabbed him under the arms and jerked of up out of there. And off they went with the pew. I mean, it was that kind of a hurried clock work. Of course, everybody thought the windows were probably lost, but they weren't.
As a young boy, what else are you going to do when the fire is out, but there's still all the stuff? They put us children to work under the supervision of some significantly strong-willed women, I am sure, with rags and vinegar water. And we washed all the furniture and as we washed it, we would help get it moved to another place. They took it and put it in storage. I was there, you know, and I remember in the fellowship hall, they had coffee and we're trying to do some things, you know, to keep people hydrated. And people were going there. A point that powerfully changed my understanding of who we were as the church occurred after all of that had kind of gotten settled. The pastor at that time called us all together, and there was a large cottonwood tree to the side of the fellowship hall approximately where the courtyard is at the current fellowship hall. And we had worship, which . . .
Interviewer - That was a very significant thing to happen at that time for the whole congregation. And I remember that cottonwood tree.
Sheldon - Yeah, yeah, it was a big one. I mean, there were several big ones around the church with that one in the back was extremely large and made a lot of wonderful shade. But yeah, and I remember gathering behind it and singing the hymns of faith and hearing the word of God, read and as best as he could that day, proclaiming some message of hope. Yeah, that was not an easy thing to do.
Interviewer - During that time, the pastor was living in a parsonage there on the grounds. Do you remember anything about when that was built, or do you do you know any history about the parsonage?
Sheldon - The parsonage was built in the 1950s. As I understand it, after World War II, there was another large influx of people joining churches and things. In the 1950s, that parsonage was built at that point, and it was a three bedroom, two bath home with a kitchen, living room, dining room or a combination of rooms. I was in and out of it a number of times in my life. I spent a lot of time there when I was in college because the pastor’s two daughters and I were in college together. So, we would have card parties there on Sunday afternoons and things like that. But yes, the pastors lived there up until the 1990s—late 1990s. Yeah. And there's a whole line of stuff that goes with that.
Interviewer - It's now used as the office, is that correct?
Sheldon - Yes, as church offices at this point.
Interviewer - And tell us a little bit about the old fellowship hall. I know there's a new building there that was also built in the late 1990s, but there had been a fairly nice fellowship hall previously.
Sheldon - Yes—a nice fellowship hall that had a large gathering space and a kitchen in it that was, you know, a good-sized kitchen probably. It was by no means a commercial kitchen, but it did have a couple of stoves in it and you know, worked well for cooking and serving. The fellowship hall was probably roughly about the same size as the one that exists today. There was a hallway there off of it that had the restrooms and some storage facilities. And then to the left in the front of the fellowship hall was the pastor's office. And the secretary's office—the church secretary. Miss Eva Jacobson was the secretary when I was a child. Miss Eva was the kind of person who ruled that area with her own authority.
Interviewer - And I believe there's still an Eva Jacobson Circle at the Church.
Sheldon - Yes. When she passed away, they named one of the United Methodist Women's circles after her. And it's the only one that still exists today, as I understand. But Miss Eva was an interesting little lady. She was very concerned and cared for her church.
Interviewer - I'm trying to remember, Sheldon, when the—and I don't know what you call it—an advertising board or the little brick sign in the front. Do you remember when that was installed?
Sheldon - I think that was installed along with the fellowship hall when they did that in the 1950s. They put that up with the little hanging metal letters for many years.
Interviewer - It doesn't exist like that anymore. They used to change out the message, right?
Sheldon - Yes, they did that. And Miss Jacobson did all that. And when there were the lay witness missions, which were part of a spiritual renewal movement that happened in the Methodist Church, or primarily in the Methodist Church, there were three of those that occurred here in Elgin. During one of those or after one of those, they put a cross up behind that brick sign. And so, for many years, the cross was over there. Now the cross is over by the Manda Bell, instead of at the sign.
Interviewer - Is there a special story that you would like to share about the church?
Sheldon - Having spent what I could say would be the bulk of my life in and out of that sanctuary, there are many, many, many stories. I will share a couple of them. One, in fact, I have often shared. When I was probably eight years old, seven, eight, six, seven, eight, nine years old, somewhere in that ballpark, and my parents always made sure I got to church on time, if not early. And so, they would take me to Sunday school early and I would be roaming around the building by myself, or maybe one of my buddies would show up and we would be roaming around. And because my father was a trustee and on the building committee, I knew all the hidden secrets. We could not get in the little basement room that existed because it was always kept locked. That was where the original furnace was. But the doors to the air chamber behind the pipe organ were accessible. And so many times our Sunday school teacher would be late or not coming that Sunday, we would go crawl through those small doors into that air chamber behind the pipe organ and peek through the pipes—the false pipes—at Jack Webb as he taught his Webb Class—his Sunday school class. And I would try not to snicker as we looked through those pipes at these adults being so very intense. That's one of them. I remember when we had the open windows. It was not unusual at this time in the summertime, at least, for yellow jackets and wasps to be flying around in the sanctuary and then landing. It was almost as though you took wagers on whose bald head it was going to land. I have lots of memories of cantatas that the choir did and of Christmas pageants and other activities there in the sanctuary. It is at that altar that I was baptized, that I was confirmed and that my election for candidacy for ministry took place. So, it's significant in my life.
Interviewer - Did any one pastor have a large influence on your decision to become a minister?
Sheldon - Probably the pastor who influenced me more is one that the majority of people have no great recollection of. Reverend Ross Welch who was a large, older man—tall, very tall—took me under his wing. He taught us confirmation, and then he was the one who decided that I did a good job at reading Scripture and leading prayers in the church. And so, I became one of his assistants—the liturgist as we call them nowadays, I think, was a novel thing. And to be having a child do it—a 12-year-old—was kind of a little odd. When he retired, I helped him and his wife move to San Antonio and stayed in touch with him, and I still have a set of books of his that his wife gave me after his death.
There were many pastors then that affected me. During my high school years, there was a pastor here who was a great leader of youth and developed great youth ministry out of that church. And so, we had oodles of people. We took bus trips all across the United States and with charter busses and things. And we flew to Colorado, you know, did lots of youth things. Of course, there are some sad moments that go with the building, not only the fire, of course, which was earth-shattering for a young person. I was nine years old when that happened. But, you know, there have been a lot of family funerals, a lot of funerals of friends and people who I respected, which I have come to understand not as sad times, but it's kind of hard when you're young to look at it in a different way.
Interviewer - How do you want the First United Methodist Church of Elgin to be understood by future generations?
Sheldon - I would like the First United Methodist Church of Elgin to be understood by future generations as a place that had at its very beginnings a people who wanted others to know who Christ was and what the power of God can mean in your life. It doesn’t mean that everybody has it right. It doesn't mean that only one way works. But the people who started that congregation from the very beginning when, you know, really if you look at the list of pastors, it doesn't talk about the fact that William Rivers as a lay pastor really was one of the first people to start Methodism in this whole area. It really goes to the root of that church. It has always been a place that wanted people to know the peace, love, and grace of God. And I hope that's what it continues to be remembered as.
Interviewer - As do I. And I think that the First United Methodist Church of Elgin produced an incredible person, being you, not only as an individual, but as a pastor. Thank you so much for your time today, Sheldon. It's just really been an honor that I was able to interview you.
Sheldon - Thank you.