For the last two years my associate and I have been sifting through an estimated 25,000 letters to and from George White McDaniel, a prominent 20th-century minister and denominational leader, as I have been writing his biography. McDaniel died of a massive stroke in August 1927 at the age of 51.
Fred Anderson
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Just about three months earlier, he had completed his third and final term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention during one of the most stressful times in its long history. He almost singlehandedly rescued the convention from the brink of bankruptcy caused by huge debts in a bad economic climate and from self-implosion over the evolution controversy. At the same time, he was leading his congregation, First Baptist Church in Richmond, to raise funds for relocating to its present site on Monument Avenue. He did not want the church to undertake a new building for itself until it had met its hefty pledge for the SBC’s fundraising campaign.
McDaniel’s letters have been waiting 86 years. It has been an education to read those thousands of letters from people who were obscure to those who were prominent in religious, civic and political circles. The bulk of the papers cover his Richmond pastorate of 1905-27 with some from earlier years in his native Texas.
It stands to reason that his correspondents are deceased. All save one!
Oscar Pitts and the postcard he sent in 1925.
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Two years before his death, in 1925, and again during his SBC presidency, he suffered his first stroke. He was 49 and at the zenith of his career. He constantly was in demand as a public speaker and guest preacher. He wrote opinion pieces which were printed in many state Baptist newspapers. He was involved in every facet of life.
The first stroke was a warning. Friends had cautioned him to slow down, but a tiny clot did what they could not persuade. The church gave him six months to recuperate. He headed to western New York and a sanitarium that specialized in physical therapy.
The head of the junior department of the Sunday school at First Baptist Church bought a stack of postcards. She chose an assortment — some comical, some get well messages, some cheery thoughts, some Richmond scenes, including the Capitol, the Jefferson Hotel, City Hall and the monuments along the grand avenue where he hoped to someday see a Baptist church. The children wrote messages of cheer to their pastor.
One day, while flipping through the stack of cards, I recognized a name. “I know the person who sent this card,” I shouted. “He lives at Lakewood Manor.” Imagine coming across a piece of correspondence sent in 1925, 88 years ago, and knowing that the person who wrote it is still alive!
In mid-August 1925, Oscar D. Pitts Jr., an 11-year-old member of the junior department, wrote: “Hello Pastor — Wish you were going to preach for us today.” Imagine the joy on the pastor’s heart when he read that bundle of cards and he knew each one of those children personally.
Oscar Pitts as a boy.
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Four years earlier, at age 7, Oscar had felt led to visit the pastor’s study at the church. His mother found him there — much like another mother in the Bible found her son talking to the temple priests — and — like that mother — admonished him not to go into the pastor’s study and not to bother the pastor. George White McDaniel told Mrs. Pitts, “Yes, indeed, Oscar can come any time he wants to.”
Oscar Pitts remembers that episode and has other vivid memories of the church which he joined at its former site at 12th and Broad streets in downtown Richmond. The Pitts family lived on the Northside and took the streetcar or would “bum a ride” to church. Except for service in India in World War II, Oscar always has resided in Richmond. His professional work was as an auditor; at age 99, he still has an auditor’s mind for details, including boyhood remembrances of his pastor.
Oscar Pitts married “a country girl, Bertha Robertson, from Church Road, Va., midway between Petersburg and Black-stone.” She already was a Baptist when she met and married Oscar and the two are devoted members of First Baptist Church. Their participation now is limited to watching the worship service on television from their two-room quarters in the assisted living wing of Lakewood Manor, the Virginia Baptist Home in Richmond. It only was a few years ago that Oscar joined other church members on a tour of “the old church,” now the student center for VCU’s medical school campus. He stood on the old platform just where McDaniel used to stand and swept his arm across to point out the area where the Pitts family would sit in the services.
Recently this columnist was the guest speaker for a Sunday morning worship service at Lakewood Manor and I visited Oscar and Bertha and placed into his hands the postcard, bearing his message and a two cent stamp, which he had sent his pastor 88 years ago. It was time to return it to the sender.
The forthcoming McDaniel biography entitled My Dear Doctor Mac is expected to be published by the Virginia Baptist Historical Society in May. Advance orders can be received for $15.75 plus $4 shipping and handling. Send orders to VBHS, Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173. Copies will be mailed to all VBHS members.
Fred Anderson ([email protected]) is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies, both at the University of Richmond.