Betty Hibdon doesn't care who knows it. She cried as they tore the old church down.
One of her happiest memories is, as a 21-year-old bride, walking down the aisle at Hepler Christian Church on Sept. 24, 1955, toward her soon-to-be husband, Carl. It was the church she'd grown up in. It was fitting she cast off her childhood within its walls.
Fast forward 53 years, to last Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008. Now 74, Betty Hibdon stood outside the church she'd been married in, watching as the building was razed to the ground.
“It breaks my heart,” she said, sitting in the shade behind her home Thursday, the sound of the continuing demolition carried across town on the breeze.
“I stood down there yesterday, the date of our 53rd anniversary, and I cried. I don't care who knows it. I cried about it.”
Churches have always been central to life in rural America, more so perhaps in small towns than in larger cities, because of the close-knit nature of the communities they served. But, as times changed, aging members of congregations died and younger members didn't move in to fill those voids.
Such was the story at Hepler Christian Church. Once a thriving congregation, numbers dwindled over the years until only a handful remained. Too few, Hibdon said, to shoulder the financial burden of an aging church building.
So, on Oct. 14, 2001, the church bell rang for the last time. Hepler Christian Church was closed.
“As time went on, people started to fall away from our church,” Hibdon said. “That's the main reason it's not in existence today.
“There were probably four or five of us left when it finally closed, because we just couldn't keep up the expense of it and we definitely couldn't repair it. We tried, but we just could not do it.”
Hibdon's brother, Don Winterbower, agreed: “We had a good congregation then. Now, it's about like somebody stepping on your heart.”
Winterbower was baptized in Hepler Christian Church and was a member all his life. By the time Hibdon was ready for her consecration into the church, the baptismal fount had been abandoned, covered over and left below the altar. But their parents and at least one of their grandparents were church members all their lives, he said.
The church was established, with 17 members, and construction started, Nov. 18, 1881. Official dedication ceremonies were held April 23, 1882. But the church was already serving its community, with the first marriage in the still relatively new town of Hepler held on March 29, 1882, in the same building that stood until last week.
Over the years, the church served a variety of needs, from Sunday school classes to weekly services to monthly church dinners. It hosted a strong Ladies Aide Society and regular quilting bees.
And it served as a first pulpit for many young ministers.
“We got a lot of preachers from Ozark Bible College, kids just starting out, wanting to be preachers,” Winterbower said. “They drove up here for $40 a week and they was scared to death, but they'd come up here.
“A lot of them couldn't talk on account of being so scared. But some of them knew the Bible.”
And new ground was broken, occasionally, at Hepler Christian Church. Winterbower and Hibdon fondly remembered Jean Minnich, who was probably one of the first woman ministers to be ordained in the area, they said. According to a history of the church compiled by another former member, Mary Ann Kiser, Minnich for years credited the community with the start of her life, serving God.
“She was a wonderful lady,” Winterbower said. “She'd draw for us on Sunday evenings, then give us a sermon. I don't know if she's still alive today or not.”
Minnich's ordination caused quite a stir in the church community, Winterbower and Hibdon said. Some of the church elders openly opposed her appointment to the pulpit. But she was not daunted, Winterbower said.
“The elders, a couple of them thought a woman's place was to sit over in the corner and be quiet, but she didn't want to be that way,” he said. “If you went and listened to one of her sermons, you knew you'd been to church.
“It wasn't like just going out to the ballpark. It made you feel like Jesus was there. She pulled on our hearts pretty strong.”
The church building itself stood for more than 125 years, with only a handful of significant changes. The interior was redone several times, with a choir rostrum added in 1894.
The last major change came in 1950, when the old Raymond Community school building was brought into town from its place in the country. It was added to the back of the existing building and became the church hall, where dinners and other events were held, right up to the end.
“Before we put that schoolhouse on, we didn't have a lot of extra room,” Winterbower said. “We had to make due.
“For Sunday school, we had a little corner back in the back where the pews didn't quite come together. The kids would go back in there and the teacher would teach us right there, in that little old corner. You learned about the Bible there.”
Through it all, Hepler Christian Church was central to the lives of its members. Even as children, Hibdon and Winterbower said some of their happiest memories centered around the church.
“It was central to my life,” Hibdon said. “For the kids growing up, it was kind of the highlight of the week on Sunday mornings, getting up and going to Sunday school and to church.
“It was always nice to be able to get up and go to Sunday school, to be with some of the other children our age, to be involved in the Sunday services. Sometimes, we got to get up and sing a song or say a memory verse, things like that.”
And the church served as a central landmark in the town. People would start from the church building when giving visitors directions to their homes.
The future of the land is uncertain. Before it was demolished, several attempts were made to sell the land and building. It was even listed on eBay for a time, Hibdon said. She received a handful of inquiries, but no one came to see it. There were other expressions of interest from local folks, but the deteriorated condition of the building that sat empty for most of seven years was probably kept it from being sold, she said.
The only remaining option was to tear the building down. But, now that it's gone, taxes will have to be paid on the land, Hibdon said. In charge of the church books and accounts since 1995, she has a little bit of money left to pay the taxes. Once that money is gone, if the land hasn't sold, the final option will be a sheriff's sale, she said.
Taking the building down was probably the most fitting final chapter for the church that was so much a part of their lives for so long, Winterbower said. He likened it to holding a funeral for a departed family member. He's seen churches that closed and the remaining members just walked away, letting the buildings moulder and decay until they were just a shadow, overgrown with weeds and trees.
“That's not the way I'd like to remember” the church, he said. “I'd like to remember it the way it was when we were there. It's not just an old building. It's someplace we loved.
“Let's remember the good times we had when it was here. In that church, there was love.”