Human memory is amazing, the ability to instantly recall information at will and the equally wonderful ability to be reminded of a thought, emotion or event based on some form of outside stimulus, like a smell or an object or a sound. For me, hearing hymns like “Power in the Blood” or “The Old Rugged Cross” without fail take me back 26 years to when I was a boy sitting beside my mother in a pew at Sugar Creek Baptist Church. I can clearly see my great-grandmother Pearl Patterson playing the piano and my great-aunt Sandra Stogdill leading the singing in the little white church about five miles north of Pea Ridge in the Jacket community.

Until the congregation disbanded and ended services for good in the waning months of 1985, when I was 9, nearly every Sunday morning and Sunday evening and Wednesday evening of my life had been spent in the little church, with my parents and three older brothers and the around 18 or 19 other regular attendees, including more than a few extended family members. And, regardless of the time that has passed, I continue to feel a close bond to the church and the community it created at that early stage of my life. But, I suppose that makes sense for me, since I have always been of the nostalgic sort with a strong interest in family history and Sugar Creek BaptistChurch overflows with both of those for me.

The original one-room portion of the church was built in 1897 on land donated by Moses and Lucinda Schell Pendergraft. Lucinda was the daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Schell, who were among the earliest settlers of the area and at one time owned nearly all of the land in the Jacket area. As was custom at the time, it was the men of the community who came together to raise the building and those original builders included Moses Pendergraft, Jess Schell, Kimsey Hall and my great-greatgreat-grandfather Rueben Burnett. The building in its original form was a rectangle, wood-frame building, with clapboard siding on the exterior and simple beadboard interior walls. There were two separate single doors and a wide set of steps stretching across the front of the building, three windows on each side and a single window in the middle of the back wall, right behind the pulpit. It was painted white inside and out, had no electricity and used a woodstove for heat.

In the early years, it was actually used by two congregations, the Missionary Baptists and the Primitive Baptists, who had a one-quarter share in the building. The Missionary Baptists would use the building on the first and third Sunday of the month and the Primitives on either one or both of the additional Sundays. Those who attended the church came by buggy, on horseback or by foot. Bro.

Ben Crawford was among the earliest of the preachers at the church, coming down to preach by buggy all the way from Purdy for six to eight years somewhere between 1900 and 1911. The grounds of the church, known as the Baptist grounds, were also used for community picnics and celebrations, such as those at the Fourth of July, and brush arbors would be put up for shade outdoors.

It was around 1940 when my great-grandparents Cecil and Pearl Patterson and their children first started regularly attending the church.

Soon after, Pearl, whose grandfather Ruben Burnett had been one of builders, became the church’s pianist, a role she would continue until its closing, some 45 years later. In the late 1940s or early 1950s, when electricity was extended into the rural areas, that church got its first electric lights.

The church was part of the Barry County, Mo., Baptist Association until around the end of 1952 or early 1953, when it joined the Benton County, Ark., Baptist Association. On Feb. 14, 1962, the church voted to disband as an independent congregation, with the action being officially recognized as Feb. 12, 1962, and to become a mission of the First Baptist Church of Pea Ridge, during which timevolunteers from First Baptist came out to work at Sugar Creek Baptist Church, including Mr. and Mrs. Homer Patterson, Mr. and Mrs.

Nolan Oswald and Tony and Stella Fletcher, the last two of which remained members of the church until their respective deaths many years later.

On Oct. 31, 1965, the church reemerged as an independent congregation with the dedication of the single story educational classrooms that had been built onto the back of the building and with JoeLayman serving as its first pastor. Shortly after that, a front porch was added and the two single doors were replaced with a set of double doors. In the years following, the interior was modernized and a steeple was also added, with the bell being a gift to the church from Tony Fletcher. Around 1975 and 1976 a second story was added to the educational wing, with the only entrance being from an exterior staircase, then around 1981 a small addition added an interior staircase.

And, it is here, around this time, that my memories of the church were made. I don’t remember beadboard walls, but light-colored gray paneling and a dropped ceiling with florescent lights.

I do remember before the air conditioner was added, when during the hot months the windows would be open to let the breeze come in off of Big Sugar Creek and thewaving of paper fans with a print of the Leonardo de Vinci’s Lord’s Supper on one side and an advertisement for Sisco Funeral Home on the other.

Even in the nine short years I was a member ofthe church, the attendance would greatly vary between a healthy, full congregation to just the core members.

In those closing years of the church, Marvin Stephens was perhaps the most influential pastor, staying with the church from 1975 to 1979 before going to Sunnyside Baptist Church in Rogers for a couple of decades. Even today, decades since he gave his last sermon at Sugar Creek Baptist Church, he is occasionally called upon to deliver the final services for a member of his former flock, including for my great-grandmother Pearl Patterson in April of 2008.

To be continued.

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Editor’s note: Jeff Billington grew up on the family farm in the Jacket, Mo., community north of Pea Ridge. He currently lives in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Rockville, Md., and works for the National Parks Conservation Association. He is the son of David Billington of Jacket and Vickie Christman of Seneca, Mo. His late great-grandparents were lifetime Jacket and Pea Ridge area residents Cecil and Pearl Patterson.

Community, Pages 6 on 09/21/2011