The First Sunday School and the First Meeting
The Beck Family, late comers to Texas, moved five miles east of Huntsville in 1916. Before this time, they lived in Denver, Colorado, and when the family heard that there was land available in Texas, they bought 225 acres.[10] Sister Esther Beck Harper was Mormon, and she took her children to a Baptist church for the church activities, until she started having Sunday school in her own home. It is possible that she found out, through the missionaries, that the Toole family, long-time members of the church, were in the area, and invited them to church services in her home.[11] On August 7, 1949, the Latter-day Saints officially met in the home of Esther Beck Harper on 15th Street, [12]to start the first official “dependent Sunday school” in Huntsville, Texas.[13] The president of the Texas-Louisiana Mission, Leigh W. Clark, presided over this meeting, and seventeen other members attended.[14] Some of the original families that met at the Harper’s residence were the Harpers, the Becks, the Johnsons, and the three Toole families.
Source Footnotes
[10] “By Small and Simple Things”, a compilation of stories in the Huntsville Meetinghouse Library
[11] Clint A. Hawkins, “A Talk on Mormon History of Texas & Houston, 1843-1989.”
[12] James S. Olson and Lucky Beck Grissom, A History of Walker County, Texas, “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” p.144-145, 1986
[13]Sister Lorita Ballew, phone interview.
[14] Ballew, A. E. and Lorita Ballew, “Huntsville Ward History”
