Derden Bend Community and Josey Community
Erben Toole was the first person to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Derden Bend Community, near Oakhurst, Texas in November 1899. This family was isolated in the community of Derden, unless the missionaries came by. The only church in this community was a little white chapel, which various denominations used. “The Toole family, being very religious, would attend whatever denominational service [was] being held.”[5] Sometime after 1904, some members moved to a small community called Josey. This community was “located in Madison County, near Madisonville and Bedias on U.S. Highway 90,” with a community of farms a few miles apart.[6] This community had its own school.[7] Before 1911, they built their second chapel after their first was destroyed by arson. Josey became “one of three settlements where the Latter-day Saints gathered, rather than moving west.”[8] In the 1930’s traveling missionaries, who were called from Utah, traveled from city to city and community to community teaching and helping people learn the true gospel of Jesus Christ, which Joseph Smith restored. The missionaries moved across the Texas and Louisiana territory, and would not stay in one place for too long. Southern hospitality was no different back then. Even if people did not like the “Mormons,” a nickname given to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints members, or want to be taught by the missionaries, they would still put the missionaries up for the night. As the missionaries left each community, they would leave about five or six members of the Church who would assemble and grow their testimonies wherever they could find a place for worship. In these times, it was difficult to keep record of the converts and members, so they would keep a record of the members in the Church by recording their names. By the 1940’s, there was a small cluster of Church members living in the Josey Community. These members made up a little branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and only had about fifty people were living in that area.[9]
Source Footnotes:
[5] Clint A. Hawkins, “A Talk on Mormon History of Texas & Houston, 1843-1989” (talk, Huntsville meetinghouse library, Huntsville, Texas, before October 2, 1989).
[6] Ibid.
[7] James S. Olson interview.
[8] Clint A. Hawkins, “A Talk on Mormon History of Texas & Houston, 1843-1989.”
[9] James S. Olson, interview.
