April 18, Berea Methodist Church

This area is predominantly Baptist, but there is a small but quite active Methodist Church and they made us feel very welcome this morning.

April 15, Chapels

This circular staircase is even more impressive in real life.

Students made the chairs in Danforth Chapel and signed their names on the underside of the chairs.

Danforth Chapel.

This is the inside of the Phelps Stokes Chapel. The outside is pictured in my April 15, Berea College entry. When the original chapel burned down in 1902 a New York woman named Olivia Phelps Stokes offered to pay for a new one with two conditions: It was to be built by students and no one was to know where the money came from until after she died. Students made the bricks, they hewed the stones from a place 12 miles away, they felled the trees for the floors, and did all the woodworking for the paneling and ceiling. The building was just called the Chapel until after Olivia died. The students, not used to erecting buildings, must have done okay because the Phelps Stokes Chapel turned 100 in 2006.

April 15, Berea College

We took a fascinating free tour of Berea College today. Founded in 1855 by abolitionist John G. Fee, Berea College was the first interracial and coeducational school in the South. The Christian school provides a private, tuition-free, liberal arts education to about 1,500 students each year, most of whom come from Kentucky and the Appalachian region. In lieu of tuition, Berea has a work program that requires its students to work in on-campus jobs for at least 10 hours each week in their choice of some 130 different departments. Berea offers about 30 majors leading to Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, and each student is required to attend seven convocations (guest lectures, concerts, or other cultural events) each term. Galen and I attended one these convocations today. We heard Silas House, a Kentucky writer, speak. Others who have given convocations: Robert Frost, Margaret Mead, Maya Angelou, and Alex Haley. George Winston will give one next month.

April 12, Hands

These hands are all around town. These two, four if you count Galen's, are in front of the visitor center in Old Town.