The first church to which I remember going was St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, a little country church on Cullers Run Road in Hardy County, West Virginia. It was my dad (Owen Guy Stultz)’s family church. My mom (Eileen Mae Dove Stultz)’s family church was Valley View Mennonite Church in Criders, Virginia, and although I don’t recall going to Valley View with my parents as a very young child, I did attend church services often with my grandparents at Valley View as well as Bible School in the summertime when I was a child. My mom and dad were married at the Lutheran parsonage in Bergton, VA, in 1947. I was not baptized as a baby as most children are in Lutheran churches.
According to a 2008 Heritage Weekend brochure, St. John’s met as a congregation as early as 1894, before the church building was built (the cornerstone has 1901). Joshua Miller, who bought St. John’s Lutheran Church, the farmhouse and property around it in 2000, renovated the church into a woodworking shop which he opened to the public that Heritage Weekend. His business Joshua Miller Design: Timberframe and Building, designs and builds homes, as well as does home renovation projects and custom cabinetry. (joshuamillerdesign.com)
My sister, Eleanor Stultz Heishman, and I recall sitting on the front bench of St. John’s for Sunday School with Frieda Dove Whetzel as our teacher. Eleanor remembers my mother taking our baby brother Robert Lee Stultz out of church one Sunday; she went along while I stayed in church with my dad.
Brown and Stella Shipe Stultz owned the house above the church. Their daughter, Jessie Stultz Turner, told Kimberly Shipe (whose family were members at St. Johns) that the church was built by a well-known woodworker, Louis Lowery, who also built Kimberly’s grandmother’s childhood house just down the road. (That house was just torn down this summer.) Jessie said that Louis also made the pews in the church.
Kimberly relates that Jessie told her that her late grandmother, Gladys May Shipe (Mrs. Arthur Shipe), played the organ. Gladys was born in 1901 and baptized at St. John’s. According to Jessie, Gladys’ son Ralph would cry unless someone held him up so that he could see his mother while she played. Gladys’ sons Freel and Lynn Shipe also attended the church as children. Eleanor Fawley Shipe (wife of the late Freel Shipe) recalls attending St. John’s after they were married.
My uncle Ruel Stultz, who still lives at my dad’s homeplace on Cullers Run near the church, recollects making the fires in the two wood stoves at the front of the church each Sunday. Ruel says that they had good wood and it didn’t take long for the fires to start and heat the church to a comfortable temperature for the service.
According to the Heritage Day brochure, founders at St. John’s included “Delawder, Dove, Fauley, Jenkins, Loury, May, Moyers, Sherman, Souder, Sours, Stultz, Ketterman, Loy, Strawderman and Wilkins.” The brochure mentions that the first baptism was “Jan. 17, 1903, for Virginia V. Smith. The first marriage in the church was for Noah Moyers and Emma Loury on Nov. 15, 1903, and Perry L. Dove and Florence H. Loury were married on Dec. 24, 1903.”
Land was provided for a cemetery on a hilltop above St. Johns (now called the Lowery Cemetery) by Lewis Loury, according to the brochure. “The earlier marker carries the date April 8, 1894, for Arthur Loury.” Kimberly Shipe’s parents Lynn and Gerda Shipe are buried there, as are my parents, grandparents Loy and Sadie Dispanet Stultz, and great grandparents Jesse and Martha Lowery Stultz.
St. John’s Lutheran Church closed in 1961, when it merged with Phanuel and Bethel churches near Bergton to create Martin Luther Lutheran Church. Dr. William Edward Eisenberg’s book The Lutheran Church in Virginia 1717 – 1962 does not include St. John’s although he lists other Lutheran Churches in Hardy County, West Virginia, with ties to Virginia Lutheran churches. (He writes that Martin Luther, an ALC church in Bergton was formed in 1961 by the merger of Phanuel, the old Brocks Gap Congregation, and Bethel Church.) Current pastor at Martin Luther, Jeff May (who also grew up attending Martin Luther Church) states that St. Johns on Cullers Run was one of the churches that merged. It is a mystery why St. Johns on Cullers Run Road in Hardy County is never mentioned.
On July 5 and 6, 2024, the former St. John’s Lutheran Church will be the center of an awesome art event that current owner Joshua Miller hosts most years: Art on Cullers Run. The time is 10 am to 5 pm at 460 Cullers Run Road. Information: info86@hardynetc.com. I love it! Y’all come!
