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Historical pictures of Perche Baptist Church ca. 1915
These old pictures of great importance to Perche's history are
from the Barbara Sue (Edwards) Coffman collection of old family photographs. She
resides in Lakeland, Florida and is the daughter of Joseph Creed Edwards. She gave
a copy to Don Roberts who forwarded them to me.
To be ethical and legal one must have permission to copy or otherwise use
pictures owned by someone else. Therefore I asked Don for permission to put them
on our site. He in turn contacted Mrs. Coffman who gave her permission to put them
here. This does not give you permission to copy or download them for any purpose.
We are indebted to the two of them for adding to our growing website.
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The second is of the present church which is very near completion in this photo. Notice the two columns in front of the main entry doors, you can still see the foundation of these today. Also of note, these columns appear to be much nearer the Church then they really were. This sometimes happens in photography. Mom told me there was at one time a wrought iron fence at the church, the gate was between these columns. In this photo you can also see building debris still lying about.
Picture three is what I believe is the demolition of the old building. There are men standing among the rafters atop the building. Several people are also on the ground including at least one child. During this demolition a wind blew most of the rafters down, injuring William Oscar White who died September 6, 1915, and is buried in the adjoining cemetery. He was 32 years old. The old church building was 35 years old having been built in 1880.
Picture four appears to be after the wind blew the rafters down. A woman is sitting there looking at the building. One can imagine grief. Was she a relative of Oscar White? A smallish white dog, who seems unconcerned about the whole thing is in the lower left of the photo.
These pictures must have been taken about September, 1915, photographer unknown to me. You can get a larger picture by clicking on the thumbnails above.
Thanks again to Mrs. Coffman and Mr Roberts.
I hope you enjoy this small but important pictorial history of Perche Baptist Church
Jerry