Little Fork Church Notes From History – August 17, 2023

Brendan Murphy on August 14, 2023

Don Stockton, one of Little Fork Church’s historians has been working very hard at digitalizing the history of Little Fork Church. In the process of doing so, he has come across some very interesting stories and facts and he will be sharing them as a weekly eNews article and post to the History page of our website. If you have any questions you may reach out to Don Stockton at [email protected] We hope you enjoy!

I’m always scouring the web tracing sources to verify facts and found a BlogSpot called “Little Bits of History Along U.S. Roadways”. This one, published on Sunday, February 27, 2011 was about Little Fork Church. What caught my eye was a comment posted on July 30, 2019 by what obviously was the wife of Reverend Steed, Mary Lou (Widmer) Steed. Rev John Griffith Steed 1942-2018.

-Don Stockton

Little Bits of History Along U.S. Roadways Link

Unknown Author July 30,2019 5:10 PM

My late husband, Rev John Steed, was a curate at St. Stephens in 1971. He held Sunday evening summer services for the community. He and I swept the church, especially the cob webs, cleaned the oil lamps and filled them with fresh wicks and oil. At the first service, the Baptist Youth Choir sang. John had just started his sermon when the youth screamed, jumped up, and ran out. Frankly, I wondered what John had said that upset the good Baptist youth. Then I saw it — a huge, long, very black, snake, at least 20′ long, lying on top of the Ten Commandments reredos, with its head slowly undulating over the air, right towards John’s head. I screamed,John! Get out, now!! John took my word for it and suggested everyone leave. The next day John went back with several men from St. Stephens. They found the snake’s nest. The snake was never heard from again.