Friday, August 10, 2007
Remembering The Baptism of Louis Newton & Helen Tinney Miller At Tinney Chapel 79 Years Ago
Most of the historic photos of Louis Newton, above, were provided by Tinney Family historian, Arvinell Newton McClaren. The historic photo of Helen Tinney (later Helen Miller) is from the collection of the late Maude Tinney Cater, who also was baptized at Tinney Chapel on Aug. 10, 1928, as was Louis Newton's late Aunt Dolly Tinney, shown in one of the photo collages, above.
TINNEY TALK:
Observations by Joe Dan Boyd
Among the Living Legends of our 107-year-old quintessential country church, Louis Newton stands first, as suggested below!
Today, on Friday, August 10, 2007, the quintessential country church celebrates the 79th anniversary of the baptism of Louis Newton, our 93-year-old patriarch, who was also born not far from 449 County Road 4620, then a dusty dirt road known primarily as the path to a farming community’s church and nearby country school. Absent the church and the school, this road served mainly to connect two other unpaved country courses: The Stout Road (now FM 312) and the road to Cater Hill (now FM 2869).
Both community institutions, the church and the school, owed their existence to land donations in 1900 and 1911 by Ambrose Tinney, an early settler from Alabama, who farmed a large acreage with his large family, living in an unpainted, sprawling monument to frontier architecture at the intersection of what is now 4620 and 312.
Not far from that intersection, on August 10, 1928, one of Ambrose’s grandsons, Louis Newton, barely 14 years of age, walked a bit less than a mile to a night revival service at Tinney Chapel, then experiencing a rebirth of spiritual growth and enthusiasm. Louis’ young heart was sufficiently Spirit-filled and so strangely warmed that he took his second walk of the evening: Down the aisle, and all the way up to the pulpit, where he was baptized, by Rev. Kerner Isbell, as a Believer in Jesus Christ as Lord.
Louis’ cousin, and Tinney Chapel matriarch, Helen Tinney Miller, was baptized that same night, along with 26 others!
“After I was baptized, I ran all the way home, mostly through plowed ground and pasture,” recalls Louis. Teen-age boys of that area and era understood that travel to any destination was usually accomplished just as it had been when Jesus and His Disciples walked the earth: On foot.
That his memorable conversion experience sent Louis running for home 79 years ago is perhaps best regarded as a metaphor for his Christian journey toward Home! A decade or so after his baptism, Louis moved to South Texas, settling in Port Neches. But Tinney Chapel had won his heart, and after his retirement, Louis returned to the community of his youth, re-joining this church in 2001, running a tad slower after all the years, but still knowing the way Home!
An earlier version of the story of Louis Newton's baptism, with slightly different emphasis, appeared on this weblog in 2004, and may be accessed by clicking HERE
