Updated May 30, 2010.
Interviews are from THE ISLANDERS. A publication produced by the Knotts Island Junior Historians at the Elementary School under the guidiance of Faye Freeman. These interviews are from Volume 1 of 1987.
Nina White. Interviewed by Faye Freeman. Story written by Jennifer Devlin, Miss Nina White, who died in 1984 at the age of 85, revealed in a 1983 interview what she remembered about Sunday School and church services at Knotts Island Methodist Church. Before the Educational Building was added to the church all Sunday School classes met in the sanctuary. Sunday School you know, they'd (each class) have two or three seats. You'd sit here in the back. Them seats, the real long ones in the back, was Aunt Mandila's class, they always called it that, and it was in between the women and men (classes). We never had Sunday School in the morning until Hal Williams was superintendent. He said we were going to have preaching and Sunday School in the morning and the Baptist can go to their church or come to ours.
Mrs. Bessie Cason. Interviewed by Sherry Cason. Story written by Sherry Cason. Mrs. Bessie Cason, 77, recalled what the churches used to be like on Knotts Island. I was just a small child when I started going to the Baptist Church. My parents carried me and then when I got up a little older my brother and all used to walk me to church. But I've been going all my life. It was a lot of people at the church that went there. Almost everybody on this Island went to church. It ain't like it is now; they got somewhere else to go. Half would go to the Methodist Church and half would go to the Baptist Church. At a time there, we went to both churches. We went to the Baptist Church in the morning and the Methodist in the evening.
Ada Waterfield. Interviewed by Brenda Emmons. Story written by Jodi Brown & Becky Sawyer. There are two churches on Knotts Island. The Knotts Island Methodist Church was built in 1811. The Knotts Island Baptist Church was built in 1878. Both of the churches remain active today, although there have been many changes. The most noticeable change is in the structures themselves. The original, simple A-frame building is gone. The Methodist Church, rebuilt in 1911 is a white wooden structure with stained-glass windows. The cinder-block educational building was added in the 1950's. The original Baptist Church had to be demolished in the 1980's. In its place a new modern brick church with stained-g1ass windows was built. Mrs. Ada Waterfield, 93, told the Junior Historians what she remembered about the Methodist Church. It was an old church, something like the Baptist Church, only it was wider. It had two doors in the front facing the road. The men went in one door, and women in the other door. They both didn't go in the same door. The evening services started at 2:00 p.m., and it ended about an hour and a half or two hours later. The Sunday School rooms were built in the l950's. Before that time the Sunday School classes met in the sanctuary. Mrs. Ada Waterfield told about her class. Each teacher had a, one seat ya might say, and if it was a large class; the one that I was in was in the back of the church and had those seats that are up there, but I didn't stay there long. They had preaching in the morning and Sunday School in the afternoon and there was a whole session of Sunday School singing, unlike today.
Mrs. Alyda Beasley. Interviewed by Faye Freeman. Story written by Jennifer Devlin. Mrs, Alyda Beasley, who died in 1984 at the age of 74, revealed in a 1983 interview what she remembered about the Children's Day and the circuit rider at Knotts Island Methodist Church. Lynn Smith and Minnie, you know Minnie White, they got up Children's Day. It took three weeks to get it out, but we had the prettiest programs. They played music, cause music came with that book. That book was only Children's Day. Every little girl got a new white dress for Children's Day. It was held once a year, sometimes in the spring because everybody turned up for Children's Day. Children's Day lasted from early in the morning till--I don't know how long. Each child had a speech to memorize and say. It had to do with religion. Children's Day was a horse and buggie day. There were times when Knotts Tsland had to share their circuit minister with churches in Virginia. He had to drive a horse and buggie across the marsh road and "that was bumpy as can be and it was crooked". On Sundays that the circuit preacher wash't there, they just had Sunday School.