Dreamin’

Compare this picture to the church pictured in my recent Hilda Q. Walton blog. (That pik is 1992.) (iPhone photo in 2018 by BobbaLew.)

—Erlton Community Baptist Church is no more.
That was in my dream three mornings ago before awakening. I went to that location in my dream and Erlton Community Baptist Church was completely gone.
That’s an extrapolation of my contact last Thanksgiving when I found it was no longer a church. It became a school.
The actual church-building was still there, but stripped of its steeple (see picture above). And my neighbor’s Sunday-School addition was still there, the large flat-roofed two-story brick edifice behind the church.
Which was probably why it became a school. Except it has a church-building attached, replete with sanctuary and baptismal font. My guess is the school is probably a Christian academy. But what, pray tell, do they do with a baptismal font?
In my dream the church building was entirely gone, along with the earthen fill that allowed a basement. All that remained was my neighbor’s Sunday-School addition.
My hyper-religious father and that neighbor, the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, the Sunday-School Superintendent, who I’ve blogged many times, brought Erlton Community Baptist Church into being. It was an attempt to bring religious fervor to our Philadelphia suburb in south Jersey.
They got an abandoned chapel and rehabbed it into a church.
Our suburb exploded in population after WWII. Our new church was quickly overwhelmed. It needed expansion, plus additional land on which to expand. Land was given, but our church needed to be moved to it. That involved temporarily closing a major highway. That was 1948 or ’49.
In its new location the old chapel was raised up on blocking so a basement could be built underneath. The building was lengthened so what had been three windows per side became five.
The front was extended to include stairs to the basement. I don’t remember if our first church had a baptismal font, but if not one was added. An old side-wing remained, but my neighbor advocated a huge Sunday-School addition. That was her gigantic two-story brick edifice added in 1954 or ’55. It totally mismatched the old wooden church-building.
That addition is probably why our church became a school. Why Erlton Community Baptist Church tanked I have no idea. It probably ran out of zealots. Plus that church was kinda small. There was talk of widening the sanctuary, but that was never done. That woulda required a complete rebuild.
What’s pictured above is how it’s been since 1949; minus its steeple, of course. Part of my neighbor’s Sunday-School addition is also visible.
Finding my old church defunct was depressing, but it was also the vehicle for making me feel inferior as a child. I could say my parents were always calling me “Of-the-Devil,” but my Fort Lauderdale niece notes all humans are “Of-the-Devil” before seeing the light.
“Stupid” or “disgusting” might be more correct. I was also “rebellious” for not worshiping my father as worthy of the right hand of Jesus.
Some will rightly criticize bringing up my dreadful childhood again. That’s all long ago, and Hilda’s insistence “No pretty girl will talk to you” has been thoroughly skonked.
But they marked me for life, such that revisiting my childhood is extremely depressing. So far I’ve done it twice, and never will I do it again.
And now the church my father helped found is no longer a church.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on.”

• Our church was originally called “Ellisburg Community Baptist Church,” since it was originally in nearby Ellisburg. The move transferred it into Erlton.
• That final quote is from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.