Mount Zion Update, part 3: Work Days at the Church
After opening its wallet, the community rolls up its sleeves
By David Cohea (savemtzionchurch@gmail.com)
Note: 2016 comes to a close with Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church with renewed hope for a future in the Mount Dora-Tangerine community. Originally reported on last September, this series provides an update on the work done so far.
On November 8, the nation headed to the polls, and Donald Trump was elected president. The exhaustive presidential election season ground to a surprise finish and a uncertain next chapter began.
Four days later, fifteen volunteers turned out to help Mount Zion with its next chapter.
After a work-day prayer provided by Jack Harris, associate pastor at Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist in Tangerine, we got to work. Pews were disassembled and removed to a dumpster (whose rental was donated by CRM Rolloff Division). The piano was cleaned of animal habitation inside and out, hymnals and Bibles were cleaned and stacked. The front door was further repaired and painted. Beulah and I went through the office and threw out a lot of useless stuff. Wayne Hetzel got the vacuum working, went out and bought some bags, and the church got a sweeping for the first time in many years.
Outside, an overgrown shrub in front of the church was cut down, bushes were trimmed back from sides of the church, overgrowth pulled out,limbs overhanging the roof cut back, a large fallen limb buzz-sawed and removed. Mowed weeds were raked up. Plastic sides from the bottom of church were removed to the dumpster, and a rack behind the church disassembled and removed.
During the day, several members of St. Annis Baptist Church stopped by, including Pastor Will Ridgley. Pastor Will had found out about Mount Zion’s plight from the Channel 9 report and had contacted me offering the help of his Deland church. Remembering what Beaulah had said to me back in September about longing to hear singing again in Mount Zion, I asked Pastor Will if St. Annis might be able to bring a service to Mount Zion. He took it up with his elders and they readily agreed. We set the day for Saturday, Dec. 17.
By day’s end, Mount Zion began looking like a church that was back in use again. We assembled for a picture on the church steps, and the message was clear: Mount Dora loves Mount Zion, and Mount Zion will persevere.
Trish Morgan from the Mount Dora Buzz was one of the volunteers, along with her son and husband. Besides helping with clean-up, she took pictures and wrote about the preservation project on the Buzz website a few days later.
Tom Benitez — who had created the original fundraising video — came out to shoot more footage for a larger documentary about the project. Angela Jacobs with Channel 9 News and her camerawoman also came out for more filming for a longer piece that was to finish some time after Christmas.
Other angels came through. Phil Barnard, proprietor of the Magical Meat Boutique (which had been wonderful in raising money for the original fundraiser), offered to replace the fallen sign outside. Ed Cavaliere, a former Deputy Sheriff for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, offered to donate a restored upright piano (neither the existing piano or the organ now in the church are functional). Offers came in for pews and a new door. Some of this would have to wait until the building saw further preservation, but the largesse of the community was extraordinary.
Another angel who also got involved about this time was Annelise Kouns-Warburton of Heritage Matters, a Mount Dora-based historic preservation consultant. I first found out about Annelise in a proposal to restore the Princess Theater in Mount Dora to use which I had found online. I contacted her and she and her daughter came out to the church, asking many questions and taking many photos. Through contacts with the National Register, she got word that Mount Zion is a good candidate for placement on the National Register.
With an event near Christmas forming on the horizon, I considered whether there was time to paint the church after it was tented — one weekend to prep, the next to paint. Surely that would put a happy face on things, but working full-time it was going to be a weekend-by-weekend press just as the holiday season was rolling out.
After a consultation with Pope’s Precision Projects — a company specializing in painting historically-preserved buildings — I learned there was just too much work to do ahead of painting. The foundation needed shoring up, boards needed replacing; the roof is rusted so badly that it probably will cost as much to replace as repair, and we have no idea the condition of the rafters and steeple. So I decided to wait on painting and focus on cleaning up as much as possible in time for the Dec. 17 event.
Tenting by Above and Beyond Pest Control began on November 29. It was something to see Mount Zion slowly covered in a circus-tent material. Generations of wasps and termites vanished under the cloak.
Aside from dispatching all of those wasps and termites on to glory, there was one further casualty from the tenting. To fumigate properly, the tent had to go over the cross, and the weight of it caused it to bend and broke the top off. The cross is original to the 1926 construction, and 90 years of exposure to the elements and termites had degraded it badly. The cross-beam broke off a week later, so that now there’s only an upright pole. The cross apparently connects to a cross-beam inside the steeple, which means the whole thing can’t be replaced until a crane that can lift it into place — probably at the same time the roof and steeple are being renovated.
The old rugged cross was gone, but Mount Zion was now secure. No more fading back into the elements.
On Dec. 3 we had our next work day in the church. Now that painting was off the schedule, we looked at how to dress the church as best we could for a holiday event. Trish Morgan brought a wreaths and garlands which we hung around the room and outside. David McMillan and I changed out the plywood boards on the western windows for clear plexiglass sheets — a temporary fix but one which allowed much more light into the sanctuary. Shirley Bias and Dorrie Pighetti cleaned like the dickens. Hanging one wreath on the outside door, Mount Zion looked like a little country church in December.
Later that week I met with Cal Rolfson to go over the Live Oak Collective agreement with the Mount Dora Community Trust, which would allow people to make tax-deductible donations to Mount Zion. We felt confident that this would be the best way to take care of the bigger needs of the little church.
On December 10 we met again in the church, setting up a Christmas tree donated by Dorrie and trimming it with angel ornaments provided by Trish and strands of white lights. We had been hoping to get the well working so water could supply the bathrooms, but the job proved more complicated — and costly. After years of sitting idle, the water table has changed or metals have gotten into the pipe. The bathrooms were shut off and I made plans to rent a port-potty.
We also had considered moving in donated pews, but considering the variety of sizes offered, we weren’t sure just how they would fit. Plus, whatever we moved in for the Dec. 17 event would have to be moved aside or back out again when we pulled up the carpet to look under the floor. So instead I rented 50 ballroom chairs and prayed Mount Zion’s floor could handle a congregation that large. How long had it been? Had Mount Zion ever handled so much song? I took out event insurance and crossed my fingers.
On December 13, Cal Rolfson and I met with Phoebe Mello at the Mount Dora First National Bank Trust Department to sign the Community Trust sub-trust agreement allowing Save Mount Zion — fundraising project of the Live Oak Collective — to receive tax-deductible donations. There are so many preservation projects in need away from Mount Dora’s historic downtown, Mount Zion is the first of many to come, and Live Oak Collective has been created to address them where to date other public and private entities have not been able to. (Donations can now be made by check made out to the MDCT Live Oak Fund and sent to Mount Dora Community Trust, 821 N. Donnelly St., Mount Dora, FL 32757.)
I took a vacation day on Dec. 16 to oversee the delivery of chairs and the port-a-potty. The day was seasonably warm — bumping up into the mid-80s. While I was at the church, Phil Barnard arrived to finish installing the new sign he had created, an exact duplicate of the original that had collapsed but built to last. A native of England, Phil bemoaned the sorry state of historic preservation in Mount Dora. His many talents and energy has been a real bonus for Mount Zion.
David McClintock dropped off a dozen poinsettas, and Beualah Babbs brought linens from the church she had laundered; bright and clean now, two linens with pictures of an old country church were hung in window, with the long overlay crossing the altar. Trish Morgan brought an extra table for the refreshment service and a freshly-cleaned pitcher and bowls that had been used in foot-washing ceremonies. Setting them on the altar, the sanctuary looked complete: ready to receive the flock.
Pastor Will Ridgley from St. Annis Primitive Baptist in Deland came by to get a feel for the setup. He’s a smart guy, and he’s seen how historic preservation worked at a family church up in Maryland — Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church in Capital Heights. And like Mount Zion, Ridgely AME was moved to make way for development, pushing it back when the road it sat on was widened. While St. Annis hopes to have a role in Mount Zion’s future, Will understands how public-partnerships are vital for successful preservation projects like this. The African-American community Mount Zion served for 150 years is almost gone, so to have a future, Mount Zion needs to connect with both its past and future.
When I locked Mount Zion back up later that afternoon, its was looking again like a church awaiting the faithful — orderly rows of chairs, each with a program featuring a photo of Mount Zion on the cover, the Christmas tree and wreaths and garlands, a speaker set up for the keyboard player.
All Mount Zion needed now was the people.
And their song.
The series continues tomorrow.
Part 1: A Church in Need with a Yearning Pedigree
Part 2: No Bell, But a Calling
David Cohea is executive director of the Mount Dora-based Live Oak Collective
