Church Folk – Michele Andrea Brown

Theophilus Simmons in his place.” He drew strength from looking out at Essie, sitting next to Coral and D.S. Thomas. Though three months had passed since the Annual Conference, this was the first visit they had been able to schedule that didn’t include Essie’s entire family. It wasn’t that Theophilus didn’t like her family—he did, a lot—but he longed for the chance to see her alone. She had arrived in Memphis so late last night that, after picking her up at the train station, all he had time to do was give her a chaste peck on the cheek before Coral Thomas whisked her into the house.

Back home, he had shared his frustration with Eddie, who was a night owl, on the telephone, only to be told, in no uncertain terms, that marriage would solve all of that. Theophilus had choked on those words, coughing so hard it made tears come into his eyes. But Eddie had just waited patiently for him to stop coughing and then said, “You know doggone well you want to marry this woman.

Just scared to death, that’s all. Think of it this way. If Essie Lane were Mrs. Essie Simmons, you could have whisked her off to your house and nobody could say a thing about it.” No wonder he was tired this morning, Theophilus thought. He didn’t feel much like preaching. But his congregation, especially the older, tithing members, expected to hear their pastor preach on the church’s anniversary.

Sister Clayton just kept going on and on, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the entire congregation was growing restless and bored. He bent down, hoping no one could see him shaking his head in disgust. When he sat back up, Essie was looking at him with a big grin on her face, barely able to contain her laughter over this mess. He got control of the answering smile tugging at the corner of his own mouth and shot her a stern look, as if to say, “Girl, you know you ought to be a-shamed of your-self for laughing in church.”

This book is dedicated to my mother, Minnie Bowen and in memory of my father, Wadell Bowen. My parents didn’t have a lot of money but they were rich in spirit, love, and wisdom, just like the folks in Church Folk. Contents Part 1 Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Part 2 Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Part 3 Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-one Chapter Twenty-two Chapter Twenty-three Chapter Twenty-four Chapter Twenty-five Chapter Twenty-six Chapter Twenty-seven Chapter Twenty-eight Chapter Twenty-nine Chapter Thirty Acknowledgments WHEW!

THIS HAS BEEN A LONG JOURNEY—A blessed one but a long journey nonetheless. This novel started out as a dream six years ago, with me sharing my hopes and scribbles with my friends and family, heart wide open, faith activated, and prayers going up to have the courage to write it, to be blessed with the story, to find an agent and get Church Folk to this point. So many people have contributed to my being able to write this book through their prayers, words and notes of encouragement, and patience when I started talking about Essie and Theophilus ‘nem like they were real folks sitting right in the kitchen with us.

I know I will not be able to include everybody who blessed me with their love and support for this book but I will try to name a few. So here is my thank you note. I want to start out by thanking a man named Mr. G. C. “Pete” Hendricks, who wrote a book called The Second War and taught a writing workshop in 1995 for the North Carolina Writers’ Network for beginning novelists.

Church Folk was in its very early stages and Mr. Hendricks pulled me aside and told me that this project was a real novel and that I should pursue it to the end. And then there is Marita Golden, who took me on as a student and told me that I was definitely writing a novel, nurturing me at a time when I really benefitted from encouragement from a seasoned and well-respected author. Thank you, Marita. Professor Daryl Dance for including a very early excerpt of Church Folk in your highly respected anthology, Honey Hush!

You have been such a wonderful supporter.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: e9c9d16257a7fe7a
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 813,481 bytes (0.776 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780759524644
• Pages: 257
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 474.47 minutes
• Total Words: 94,894
• Total Characters: 521,326
• Average Words per Page: 369.24
• Average Characters per Page: 2028.51

Most Frequent Words

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