Everet Jeffries (St. John Baptist Church) - Part 2

St John Baptist Church was once a vibrant black church in Mason City, Iowa. Today is a historic church building at 715 6th St SW. James Thomas Jeffries,  Everet's father, was instrumental in the building of the church. Construction of the church started in 1937.  As one of the surviving members of the church, Everet is taking us down memory lane on how it all started.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain. This is Iowa Civil Rights History podcast, where we tell stories about the contribution Iowans and the state of Iowa has made to advance the civil rights movement. Past stories are being told, present actions will be highlighted, and preparation for the future will be discussed. Here is your host, Eric and Yge.

Speaker 2 0:36

Welcome to the Iowa Civil Rights History podcast. This is the part two of my conversation with Mr. Jeffries. Last time Mr. Jeffries talked about his upbringing in Madison City, Iowa as a young black man. Today he'll be talking about the historically black church him and his siblings grew up in, and the church his father helped to build Mr. Jeffries, let's get to the church. Okay. Saint John Baptist Church was once a black church, and now's it's historic church building, sitting at 715 sixth Street, Southwest Mason City, Iowa. Now, when did the construction of the church started and uh, how old were you?

Speaker 3 1:10

Let's see, 1937. So I was, I was only one year

Speaker 2 1:13

Old probably. Okay. Right,

Speaker 3 1:14

Right. They finished it, took'em till 1940, took'em three years. All the work they did themselves. And these are p these are, most of'em hadn't got past the eighth grade. Wow.

Speaker 2 1:25

Walk me through the process how this church was

Speaker 3 1:27

Built. They were always trying to get this church project going. So my dad had a lot up on Van Buren. So what he did, he traded a lot on Van Buren with a lot on sixth Street, where the St. John Church is, is right now.

Speaker 2 1:40

Okay.

Speaker 3 1:41

The materials actually came from that for 1894 Grant school, the windows and everything. Yeah. And everything else, they paid$600. The kids used to have to go downtown and the city allowed them to sell tickets for money for the church. You know, St. John bought materials. Okay. And that's how they start building the church on their own. In 1937, the cement work was done by African American Spencer Brothers. They

Speaker 2 2:07

Was a, oh, they were on the company in the Mexican city.

Speaker 3 2:09

Right. They own cement company, St. John, but they also did a lot of the streets in Mason. Wow. The church was dedicated in September 29th, 1940, and they paid off the mortgage. Uh, June 25th, 1944. The mortgage was retired.

Speaker 2 2:24

So where, where did you guys worship before the church was

Speaker 3 2:28

Built? Oh, they washed, they washed, they washed between the homes. So this started at 1918, having services in other people's houses, my dad's house. They then rented the upstairs of the Sam Raises department store for most of their services, waiting for until they could, you know, build a structure. Okay. So that was from 1919 to 1937, had the church meetings in everybody's home, but this was their first chance. So they bought this lot and they started building. They had the basement first, which, you

Speaker 2 2:55

Know, okay. Why you guys did not wanna go to any other churches in the mess, mess city.

Speaker 3 2:59

There's only one other black church in Mason City. Uh,

Speaker 2 3:02

Could you go to the white church

Speaker 3 3:04

For some reason? Uh, we weren't even steered that way.

Speaker 2 3:06

Okay.

Speaker 3 3:07

Yeah. We weren't steered that

Speaker 2 3:08

Way. Was that, uh, the sense of pride between

Speaker 3 3:10

No, I think it was, I think, I think it was mostly pride because Okay. I, I know Dr. Martin and, uh, his wife Belina went to, uh, Methodist Church

Speaker 2 3:20

In, in Mason City. Mason

Speaker 3 3:21

City. Right. Okay. And then of course, union Memorial was a white Methodist church at one time. Then they took blacks into their church.

Speaker 2 3:29

Okay. So it was not like black people were not welcomed to Oh, no,

Speaker 3 3:32

No. You, you could go to church, but everything evolved around St. John was, was like a

Speaker 2 3:36

Cornerstone cornerstones. Right. Something our own.

Speaker 3 3:39

Right,

Speaker 2 3:39

Right. Okay. How many members church at the

Speaker 3 3:42

Time? That's gonna be hard

Speaker 2 3:43

In the beginning,

Speaker 3 3:44

Like I say. Uh, so you figure the church is not that big. I don't know. So maybe a hundred at the Mosts at the time. Huh?

Speaker 2 3:52

That's a pretty good number for City.

Speaker 3 3:54

I can remember when we had the, uh, choir. Okay. They would go around North Iowa singing spiritual songs. Okay. And one of the things that we did, we always had picnics, new Bethel Church in Manley, which was the black

Speaker 2 4:06

Church. Was that Manley Church? Was it the first black church? Only one. Only

Speaker 3 4:11

One. It's still there. Uh, July 25th, 1946, picnic and East Park.

Speaker 2 4:15

East Park in Mason City.

Speaker 3 4:17

East Park in Mason City.

Speaker 2 4:19

Okay. Outside St. Johnny Baptist Church. There, there's this plaque that gives the little background of the construction of the church. There's also names of building committee members. I would like to go down the list of these names and if you could tell me what were the involvement with the construction of the church.

Speaker 3 4:35

Okay.

Speaker 2 4:36

And what do you remember the most about it? Okay. Right. And I'm gonna serve the best one. It last Mrs. Reed Allen

Speaker 3 4:42

Reed Allen. She was, uh, she was a la uh, older lady in the church. Uh, I knew her husband more than I knew. I had contact with him. He was a hard worker. She died first. And then Reed Allen married a friend of mine's mom, Mrs. Macer.

Speaker 2 4:58

Okay. William B. Martin.

Speaker 3 5:00

William b He was the superintendent. St. John I always admired. He always had a must stark white shirt, very professional. And he was a mover and

Speaker 2 5:09

Shaker. Okay. And Overton Edge Brewer,

Speaker 3 5:13

Mr. Burrow, he was my Sunday school

Speaker 2 5:15

Teacher. Okay.

Speaker 3 5:16

He was my And he was always trying to teach you the right thing. He worked hard. He worked at the Decker's meat plant.

Speaker 2 5:23

Okay. Aaron e Messer.

Speaker 3 5:24

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 5:25

Just, you just mentioned the name I

Speaker 3 5:27

Think earlier. Yes. Aaron was Sterling father. Mm-hmm. With the Macer, they were all boys. Mrs. Macer. Aaron died young. So Mrs. Macer was with all them boys. So there was Morse. I always admired Mo because, uh, Morse became one of the first players become Allstate football in Mason City. Mm-hmm. Then there became Richard. Richard is still living. Then there came Sterling. And then Alan, who was my friend, he died young. Oh,

Speaker 2 5:55

Really? Wow. Uh, Benjamin Parker,

Speaker 3 5:58

Mr. Parker. Okay. Lived next to me, became a minister. He was very instrumental in helping me. Uh, when my father passed, he was very intelligent. He used to get plays and he had plays at the high school, black plays.

Speaker 2 6:11

Okay. Wow. Jim's m Eve, he's a Eves.

Speaker 3 6:16

Reverend Eves, that's the preacher. And he was the preacher when, uh, St. John was first dedicated, uh, his pars was up the street. And I can remember Reverend Eese, the ladies used to always make sure that minister on Sundays would, so I remember Reverend Eese coming to our house one Sunday and we couldn't eat until he finished. Yes.

Speaker 2 6:33

Oh, really?<laugh>. Whoa. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? Whoa, what was that? Well, because

Speaker 3 6:39

He,

Speaker 2 6:39

Cause what was the reasoning behind that?

Speaker 3 6:40

Because that was the, that was the man that was closer than the Almighty. And, and, and so they made sure he got, he wanted.

Speaker 2 6:48

Wow. So was, was that common back then? Like the preachers would just, they were always, yeah, they

Speaker 3 6:53

High regard. They, they would take, yeah. They hire guard and they would, they would take turns feeding him. Yeah. Because he was single at the time. He didn't, he lived upstairs in the parsonage, you know, that the church paid for It was at the household upstairs. He lived upstairs, you know.

Speaker 2 7:06

Wow. The last name on my list here. Tell me, what did this guy do? James Thomas Jeffries<laugh>. Who is this guy? Oh,

Speaker 3 7:15

That's my father. Okay. My father, uh, was a trustee and, and treasurer, uh, left home at 14 mm. My dad died in 1951. July. I was 15 years old. Mm. And,

Speaker 2 7:28

Uh, so when, when, when the churches stop operating,

Speaker 3 7:32

Uh, 1996.

Speaker 2 7:34

Okay. Yeah, it's not too long ago. And why, why was that?

Speaker 3 7:39

It's lack of membership because at one time, and so they used to have a breakfast program there. You know, the breakfast program stopped in 1985. Oh, okay. Yeah. Uh, St. John was the good church because we, every now and then, we'd have black history. The alters would teach us, because I was baptized in St. John in

Speaker 2 7:57

The church. What year was that? Uh,

Speaker 3 7:59

Probably 12 or 13 years. All my siblings were baptized

Speaker 2 8:02

There. Yeah. Man. Wow. Is is there anybody else that was involved in the church beside you and nephew that are still living today?

Speaker 3 8:09

Loma Rim? No, she's in Mason City. She's graduated high school in 1943. Okay. So she's gotta be close to a hundred. Wow. Last time I saw with her daughter somewhere in Mason City.

Speaker 2 8:21

So she been in Mason City

Speaker 3 8:22

All this time. She came back. She, she went to Michigan, then she came back and, uh, Willis Haddocks, they live on Carolina. That's the only one that, uh, actually, uh, there's nobody else in Mason. You know, I don't know if the burs or anybody's living, because at one point there weren't that many more people left.

Speaker 2 8:40

So when did the church become a historic site, and how did you guys do that?

Speaker 3 8:45

Okay. On October 12th, 2001, with the help of Molly Newman from Ottumwa, she was the architectural historian, we did the paperwork and presented it at the state building in Des Moines. And we were approved to be a national registered site. Hmm. It's James Bur, James Burrow, James Bowman, Everett Jeffries, Greta Jeffries, Lorraine Jeffries, Mary A. Lewis, Janice Ridley Dort Wade during Macer, Denise Jones and Donna Florence. And so, uh, we were unanimously approved to be a national register site. It took a while, but we came back in 2002 and May 13th, Lieutenant governor at the time, gave us a

Speaker 2 9:23

Plaque. Okay.

Speaker 3 9:24

So then it became a national historical site, which means that the city is not much he could

Speaker 2 9:28

Do. Okay. Dr. King, say these famous words, 11 o'clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hour in a Christian American. Did you feel like that in Madison City?

Speaker 3 9:40

Not really. I, I, in all honesty, you could probably go to the white church, but the way that we were set up in Mason City, that never entered us because our, you know, we had so much that St. John that we, we, we didn't, we didn't think about going to another church.

Speaker 2 9:56

What did the church mean to you then, and what does the church mean to you today?

Speaker 3 10:01

Well, in all honestly, when I was growing up, uh, it didn't mean that much to me. Yeah. Uh, my thing, I thought, I gotta get out of Mason City. What happened is that once I got out of there and then come back, uh, my friends St. Stirling us said, well, we, we gotta do something and church was gonna fall in. So, so then that, we started the project on our own. We didn't know what we were doing. So then we hired Molly Newman from Ottumwa. She did the work and she did the presentation at the State House down

Speaker 2 10:28

Here. Okay.

Speaker 3 10:29

And so the church was there, but it wasn't instrumental because I thought, you know, the bigger and better things growing up, uh, it was there, but it wasn't there. I wa I had, you know, I had other things. I know the world. I wanna do other things. But then,

Speaker 2 10:42

And you were young at then,

Speaker 3 10:43

Right? Right. And then now it's like, at this age, I figured, well, this, like I said, it's my last rah. You know? And so

Speaker 2 10:49

How do you want the legacy of the church and how do you want the church? I

Speaker 3 10:52

Would like to church to be there, uh, standing and still, I just would like it to be preserved or something. You know, it's a beautiful building and that it's still standing and built by people that didn't have no, uh, you know, built with love. Really. You know, hopefully, uh, something will happen to it. I think something positive, the lady that ha has it now, I don't know if she's still interested, but if, if she doesn't continue, then it'll, it's at the point now, if you don't do it now, it's just going to fall in, you know, you know, at this point we'll see what happens. You know, it's become like a labor of love now for me at this point. Yeah. And so, uh, I dunno how many city's doing, but I would like them to know that at one point there was a viable black community.

Speaker 2 11:34

Well, thank you very much for your time today. Okay. I appreciate it. Okay. Yeah, that's all we have. Thank you for listening. Iowa Civil Rights History podcast. I'm your host. My name is Eric[inaudible]. Until next time, one love.