“I say that half your life is spent trying to get out of a small town and the other half trying to get back to one.”
— Kelly Cutrone, American publicist, television personality and author.
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The preacher’s sermon centered last Sunday on a prevalent problem in America today. Shrinking church attendance. Congregations dwindling in some places to the point that small-town churches are closing their doors.
During the sermon, it crossed my mind that houses of worship are not the only ones facing that fate. Many small towns are going away as well.
I love small towns. And I love small churches. Just to clarify, I don’t consider Center, Texas, where I live a small town. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city’s population in 2021 was 5,133, down from a peak of 5,879 souls in 2009. The same source tags Joaquin at 728, Tenaha at 991, Timpson also at 991, and Shelbyville with a population of 221.
Salute! Now we’re talkin’ small towns.
Small Texas towns I frequented before coming to Shelby County included places like Kress, Nazareth, and Happy. And yes … there really is a Happy, Texas. Population 613. I don’t know how happy the community of Happy is. But I had an uncle who was a coach in Happy at one time. We called him the Happy Coach. He was also a coach in Nazareth, population 312.
All of these small-town gems are located in the Panhandle region of Texas. Places where relatives on Mom’s side of the family lived and communities we visited frequently.
Mom’s side of the family all had the “traveling gene.” We grew up believing “family” and “road trip” were synonymous terms. Five minutes notice was sufficient preparation time for a three-day trip. Christmas, summer vacation, sometimes for no reason at all. We were headed to visit somewhere unless they were coming in our direction.
Many of those were trips to Kress. A veritable “wide spot” in the road located in Swisher County between Plainview and Tulia. The current census for the small farming community says it was down to 608 in 2021 after peaking at 817 in 2000. I can testify that it’s a small town where everybody knows everyone. Where, if you need help, half the town is there in five minutes. And a place where if you can’t remember what you did Tuesday three weeks ago, don’t worry. Someone does.
Traveling U.S. 87 in the 60s and 70s took motorists through Kress, passing Lawson’s Cafe and the Phillips 66 full-service station on the way. We joked about missing Kress if you blinked. Until one night, Mom blinked. Despite having been there many times in the dark of night, she drove right through Kress—yep, flat missed it.
Being the eldest child with front-seat “shot gun” privileges, I asked, “Where we going, Mom?” In her trademark delayed reaction style, she replied after a pause, “To Kress … where do you think we’re going?”
I broke the news to her about the one streetlight she passed a ways back. The one directly across the road from the tallest structures for miles, the grain elevators. Where we turned to go two blocks to her sister’s house. After one of Mom’s go-to terms of frustration that she always denied using, she had her ’54 Chevrolet turned around. And were heading back toward Aunt Amy’s house.
Small communities are great for times like the Saturday night I arrived in Kress with an ailing alternator on my car. The next morning, a phone call from my uncle to the local parts store owner who lived nearby … in small towns, everybody lives nearby … was all it took to get a new alternator. On a Sunday morning.
Sunday in Kress, we all went to church. Walking together. The Church of Christ was just a couple of blocks away. In small towns, everything is just a couple of blocks away in one direction or the other. My uncle worked at Taylor Evans Farm Supply, just a block north of their house if you cut through the alley. The church, a couple of blocks south, and the only grocery store in Kress was, you guessed it, a couple of blocks east in “downtown” Kress.
Kress has changed like small towns everywhere. My aunt and uncle, who lived their entire married life in Kress, passed away a few years ago. My cousins graduated from Kress High School – go, Kangaroos! Then scattered to different parts of the state.
I saw on Facebook last week where the unofficial population of Kress is reportedly down to 500 and something. And a cousin told me that the Church of Christ in Kress closed its doors a few years ago, once taking the attendance was accomplished using the fingers on one hand.
So, what did the preacher here offer last Sunday as a solution to declining church attendance? Mainly for those of us attending to do as the Bible instructs. Spend more time inviting others. Sharing our faith with others. Expressing our love for God and the fellowship of kindred hearts.
“Maybe,” I pondered as we turned to page 29 in the hymnal to sing “I Surrender All, “those of us who spent time getting back to small towns should be spending more time preaching the gospel of small-town living.”
Before someone misses our hometown community when they blink.
—Leon Aldridge
(Photo above — A great picture of Kress, Texas entering from the south side driving north including the grain elevators where Mom blinked one night driving through the small Panhandle town. I don’t know the photographer’s name. The photo was was sent to me by a friend and I’m assuming it’s from Facebook. It was obviously taken a few years ago as evidenced by the larger population figure and presumably before the last sermon was preached at the Kress Church of Christ .
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Aldridge columns are published in these newspapers and magazines: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, The Fort Stockton Pioneer, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
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