Looking Back: The Hard Shell Baptist Church

by Marcia Napier, Grain Valley Historical Society
 
        
 If you are a regular reader of this column then you know I’m on a quest to discover more about some of the oldest homes in Grain Valley.  This week, my curiosity led me to Yennie Street named for Peter Joseph Yennie who was a resident of Grain Valley according to the 1910 U. S. Census. His first wife, who died in 1912, was Minnie Cates.  That’s right, Mrs. Minnie Yennie! He later married Willa Ann Turner and they moved to Strasberg, Missouri, in Cass County.
 
On a 1904 city map, Yennie is an east/west street which ran along the northern edge of town. At that time there were only nine structures on the north side of the street. The building at the north end of Capelle Street was labeled Hard Shell Baptist Church. When it became a church and how long it existed is unknown to me. Several years ago, Patricia Parr Davis, spoke at a meeting of the historical society. Her talk, “Growing Up in Grain Valley,” included going up and down each street and telling who lived in each house in the early 1940s.

She also referred to the Hard Shell Baptist Church at this location. Hard Shell Baptist –also known as Primitive Baptist, Regular Baptist, Old School Baptist and Foot Washing Baptist – are conservative Baptist adhering to a degree of Calvinist beliefs. They coalesced out of the controversy among Baptists in the early 19th century over the appropriateness of mission boards, tract societies, and temperance societies. Primitive Baptists are a subset of the Calvinistic Baptist tradition. The adjective "primitive" in the name is used in the sense of "original".
 
If I were to talk about “growing up in Grain Valley, I would refer to the structure as the home of Guy and Hattie Thompson. According to the 1950 U. S. Census, the Thompsons lived in this house with their five children.  Mr. Thompson died in 1953. My memory of the house goes back to the late 1950s when Mrs. Thompson lived there with her grown son Paul. He was always working on cars in the garage at the back.

Maybe it was the steep roof, maybe it was because there was no front porch at that time, or maybe it was because my grandmother called it the old Hard Shell Baptist Church; at any rate, that’s what I think of when I drive past.  I wonder who attended, if it was a large congregation, and when did it cease to exist. As usual, I have many more questions than answers.
 
Today, at 120 plus years, it in an attractive, well-maintained piece of history with a pretty little front porch. If only the wall could talk!

Photo credit: Grain Valley Historical Society