The congregation of Shady Grove Southern Congregational Methodist Church, in Cooke County, hopes to refurbish their original church building that has fallen into disrepair.
“We want the old church to be what it once was,” church member Rheba Heffley Walker said.
And they are raising money for the cause. A successful bake sale last week at South State Bank in Collinsville yielded $2,300 and a group of church members is planning a yard sale this weekend to build on that success.
The multi-family sale will take place Friday and Saturday at 763 CR 222, Gainesville. That is six miles west of Collinsville.
Organizers promise shady shopping, lots of goodies and all the proceeds will benefit the church project.
The original, old wood church was built in 1950, with no debt, by community members on one acre of donated land.
The church grew into its current brick building in 1985, and they converted the old building into a fellowship hall.
In recent years, the fellowship hall has been closed due to lack of repairs, and they want to bring it back to life.
The Shady Grove Church serves to recall the memory of a once thriving community and a beacon to the future for faithful in the area.
“We are here to serve,” Walker said. “We are located central to Lake Kiowa, Collinsville and Gainesville. The doors are open and all are welcome.”
Walker said the church has never borrowed money and they don’t plan to start now.
“We are a small congregation and we are too prideful to ask for help when we need it,” Walker said.
The story of the church, and the Salem community, starts with the story of a water well.
Long before rural water systems reached southeastern Cooke County, the Salem community relied on a hand-dug well beside its church and school as the center of daily life.
The well, dug by local residents in the late 1800s, still stands about 12 feet north of CR 222 and east of the intersection with FM 3164 and is pinned with a Texas Historical Marker.
Originally dug to provide water for the Salem School, the approximately 17-foot-deep well quickly became the area’s only dependable source of water for nearby families, livestock and farms.
Residents often traveled several miles by wagon to draw water, and the site became a gathering place where neighbors visited while filling barrels and buckets.
The Salem School building doubled as a community church for decades, hosting several religious congregations before members of the Congregational Methodist Church organized a permanent congregation there in 1937.
The congregation eventually relocated to nearby Shady Grove.
During World War II, local women gathered in the schoolhouse to pray for area servicemen, and the building continued serving both educational and religious purposes until the school closed.
As the congregation grew, church leaders sought a permanent home.
Land for a new church was donated by Tom Hickman after discussions with Noah Heffley.
Local residents constructed what became the Shady Grove Congregational Methodist Church in 1950. The small white church is nestled among shade trees about a mile northeast of the original Salem site.
While the church evolved, the surrounding Salem community continued to grow around its school and well.
The Salem School served seven grades and educated children from surrounding farms while also hosting revival meetings, prayer services and community events.
Historical records indicate the school became known as Salem around 1913-14 after earlier operating under the name Pleasant Hill.
Photographs preserved by local families show teachers and students gathered around the well during the early 1900s, illustrating its role in everyday school life.
In 1942, Salem School consolidated with the Rad Ware School near Woodbine, ending classes at the one-room schoolhouse.
The building later stood vacant before being reopened in 1945 by Noah Heffley and area residents for Sunday afternoon Bible studies, eventually leading to the re-establishment of the Congregational Methodist Church.
The original school building was sold in the 1950s, moved from the property and later collapsed.
Today, the land surrounding the historic well is privately owned, but the well itself remains beside the road as it has for more than a century.
Although the Salem community eventually became known as Shady Grove, descendants of many of its founding families still live throughout Cooke and Grayson counties, carrying forward the legacy of a rural community built around its church, school and dependable well.
It is that legacy the current church membership wishes to carry on with the renovation project.
Sunday School is at 10 a.m. weekly and Sunday services start a 11 a.m. Lonnie Dotson currently serves as the church’s pastor.
For more information about the church project, or to make a donation, contact Ogene Bridges at 903-813-6402.
