A
six-year-old boy peers at a 100-year-old time capsule opened Sept. 21
at Lynnville (Tenn.) United Methodist Church. Photo number W03
No Long Caption Available for this Story
A
100-year-old time capsule was opened Sept. 21 at Lynnville (Tenn.)
United Methodist Church. Four generations of people returned to see the
contents of the box that was placed in a cornerstone of the church in
1903. Later this year, the congregation will bury another time capsule
in the same cornerstone to be opened in 2103. A UMNS photo by Reed
Galin. Photo number 03-300, Accompanies story #451, 9/23/03.
No Long Caption Available for this Story
LYNNVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)--An anxious six-year-old circles a table containing a large stone block.
Chiseled into the stone block is the date, "1903." Inside the block is an old tin box.
The boy rubs his hand over the sides of the block as if expecting a genie to pop out.
"What's in the box, mom, what's in the box?"
That is what everyone here wants to know.
Hundreds
of people, four generations, have gathered at the Lynnville United
Methodist Church in this small Tennessee town to see the opening of a
100-year-old time capsule.
No one seems to be in a hurry, for this is no collection of strangers.
The
crowd of smiling people patiently lines up for a homemade smorgasbord
spread across eight long tables. Conversations drift through the air
permeated with the intimacy of people who grew up together, knew each
others' parents and grandparents…and one another's successes, failures
and follies.
Some moved away from this agricultural crossroads
but felt it an important enough milestone in their own lives to come
back for the time-capsule ceremony. Some still live here, and others
have recently moved back after many years in distant places.
Sisters Elaine Adair and Twila Russel reminisced about their weddings here in 1964, two weeks apart. They wore the same dress.
"There
are so many memories around this church, we had to come from Memphis
and Huntsville (Ala.) for this but, when we went into the service this
morning, somebody else was in our pew," Twila laughs, " so we had to sit
elsewhere!"
George Milton remembers how he and a boyhood friend
were recruited for a very dirty kind of fellowship: "We had to dig out
the basement 'cause it wouldn't hold enough coal for the furnace. We
thought that was fun, like digging a cave and we didn't notice it was
hard work. Too young and too dumb."
Milton's memories of the church date from age four.
"My
daddy lost everything in politics in (nearby) Lawrence County. This
church offered him a job leading singing, so they could help out 'cause
Daddy wouldn't accept money. He said, 'If this is how Methodists treat
folks, I'll be a Methodist the rest of my life.'"
Finally
everyone gathers around the capsule. The Rev. Steven VanHooser, the
church's 52nd preacher, pries the lid off the container, which is about
the size of a safe deposit box.
"I'm sure that without any doubt
the former members of this church felt this congregation would be around
in a hundred years." He offers a prayer of thanks and hope for the next
century, then reaches into the past.
There are some
hundred-year-old coins, a handwritten history of the town of Lynnville,
and newspapers from the day. Headlines report an electric train is
proposed for Nashville, 60 miles north.
It is noted that the Giles County Register of 1903 offered annual subscriptions for "one dollar, paid in advance."
Out
come newspaper clippings about Lynnville's new church, a hymnal, Bible,
a Sunday school study guide and other church documents of the time.
None of it is very remarkable.
The
real value in all this, says church historian Carol Ann Worthman, is
that "our forefathers thought enough of us that they wanted to preserve
their history for us. What really excites me is this whole family
aspect… that the same faith is still carried on is the most important
thing, and family comes first after that, just as they wanted us to do.
"This
reminds us everything else is so trivial when it comes down to it, but
if you focus on those aspects of your life, everything else will fall
into place."
Soon, the Lynnville church will seal a second time
capsule to be placed in the same cornerstone. It will invite souls yet
to be born to reflect on the same principles in the year 2103.
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