Church Women Backbone of Churches

Doesn't it seem women are the backbone of the churches? I've always noticed that growing up in the South anyway. This is a member of the Presbyterian church from the neighboring small town who was manning the ticket table at the annual Bean Luncheon where she was taking advantage of the influx of guest to tout the women's new cookbook, River of Life.

The photo behind the woman is actually the cover of the book and shows the women of the church picking cotton at a member's farm in 1912 to raise money to rebuild their church which was "destroyed by the Federals during the War between the States."

A smaller church had been rebuilt in 1872, but the congregation had outgrown it, and the idea grew, fueled by several hundreds of dollars granted by the U.S. government as restitution for the original structure, of building a larger church home.

The First Presbyterian Church in Dardanelle was built in 1914 largely by the extraordinary measures taken by the women of the congregation who willed it into existence with bake sales and picking cotton for a prominent member. They devised a song they would sing during those hard times when they worked together out in the fields:

By sewing, milking or churning

We are making the money we are earning

But let us be thankful we are permitted to live

To make the money we are to give

Our duty we should not shirk for with this

Wea re to build a brand new church.