Prospect Avenue Baptist

Founded in 1867 as the Ninth Street Baptist Church, this is Buffalo's first Baptist Church.

January 27, 2002

Pastor

Prospect Ave Baptist Church

67 Prospect Ave.

Buffalo, NY 14201

Dear Pastor & Congregation,

During the Christmas season (2000), my son-in-law, George Thompson and I had an opportunity to wander through a Buffalo Landmark and the home of the most precious memories of my life, Prospect Avenue Baptist Church. It was the church of my childhood, since 1939, and where I first learned about Jesus.

I hadn’t been back there since Feb of 1990, shortly after the death of my parents. My last memories of the edifice were of water stained walls with plaster crumbling; stained glass windows broken; ceilings collapsed; ornate staircases sagging, and the building in general, in a sad state of disrepair.

The exterior of the Church, which I’m told, is now home to a vibrant Spanish speaking Baptist Congregation, exhibited signs of restoration projects underway. The old wooden stairs leading to the sanctuary vestibule had been replaced in concrete, and the fact that some of the stained glass windows showed signs of repair, should have prepared me for what I was about to experience.

As my son-in-law George rang the door bell of the original Ninth Street Baptist Church my heart was in a state of turmoil in anticipation of what awaited me. When the door opened, we were greeted by a caretaker named George, who, as soon as he heard my name, welcomed my son-in-law and myself into the church with open arms. As we climbed the steps to the Upper Fellowship Hall, we passed the bell rope hanging as it always had from the bell tower. The old temptation to grasp the rope and give it a couple of good pulls, plagued me as it always had as a child. Memories of the janitor, Carey Deweese tugging on that old bell rope still lingered as fresh as yesterday. Even at this early stage of our tour it was quite evident that many man and woman hours had gone into cleaning, painting and polishing the old building. Aside from the basket ball hoop on one of the walls, the high-ceilinged room, looked the same as I recalled from Release Time Classes, back in the ‘40’s. The small balcony on one end and down the left wall rang with memories of Sunday School, Pastor Cole’s oak panelled office at the head of the stairs, the Cradle roll, and in later years AWANA Club meetings.

However, as I walked into that pillared, balconied sanctuary, I was magically transformed into a vertically challenged youngster during and shortly following WWII. My ears filled with the majestic strains from that wonderful old organ played by Miss Edna Miles.   In my mind’s eye I saw a young Alan Forbes vigorously leading  the large congregation in those wonderful old hymns of the day, accompanied by his wife Jane at the piano.

Memories of being caught by Edna Miles Duncan as I slid down the curving banister from the balcony. I can still her admonition, “Master Helt, what do you think your father would say about such ungentlemanly behavior in the house of God?”

Once again the old church echoed with the shouts and running feet of fifty or so boys and girls as they charged out of the two or three chartered busses that brought them from the Protestant Home on Niagara Street, every Sunday, into the waiting arms of Mrs. Wright, Edna Moore Schultz, Mrs. Earle Popp, Ma Greenwood, and a full staff of Sunday School Teachers.

Being just a little guy that old church seemed massive back then, with it’s beautiful high domed sanctuary, gigantic ornate stained glass windows, curved pillared balcony, and the golden organ pipes gracing the Choir loft above the pulpit, where I watched on many a Sunday as my mother joined the choir under the direction of Miss Edna Miles. When the organ throbbed to those great old hymns and the congregation joined in, it seemed to me as though the entire building vibrated with the glory of it all. I imagined that I was in heaven and the folks around me were angels singing praises to the Lord God Almighty. My spine tingled with the thrill of it as goose bumps raised on my arms.

Many recollections brought ghosts from the past flashing thru my mind that day, but as I was drawn into a recently remodeled prayer room to the right of the pulpit , the sight of the old marble sink still mounted on the wall triggered a memory that swept me back fifty-two years to the winter of 1948.

I was one of a group of youngsters that responded to an invitation to accept the Lord and I was sitting in that same prayer room looking at that, even then old sink, when a man whose last name was Irr, handed me a paper bound copy of the first five books of the New Testament and a shiny New Testament, after which he prayed for me and showed me the plan of salvation. I remembered how clean I felt as I left that Prayer Room after accepting the Lord Jesus Christ that day so long ago.

Standing there in that prayer room, as an adult, with my son-in-law beside me, it was all that I could do to control my emotions. Tears were building to the point of overflowing and I was on an emotional high, such as I’ve seldom experienced. I walked away from that Century-plus, old Church praising the Lord for the souls reached by the ministry of that old church and for what He had come to mean to me over the years, since as a lad of fourteen years old, I walked those aisles. On occasion, I pick up the tattered New Testament with my name and the date of my Salvation scrawled childishly inside of the cover and I thank God for God fearing parents and Bible preaching churches like Prospect Baptist, and many others, that reach out into the neighborhoods to bring other children like myself to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

You folks of the Spanish congregation have done a commendable job in restoring the physical aspect of Prospect Ave. Baptist Church to it’s former glory. My prayer is that thru the guidance of the Holy Spirit the spiritual outreach and soul winning impact of the church will live up to it’s former glory, to the Glory of God Almighty.

Thank you Prospect Avenue Baptist Church for allowing me to relive those precious memories from my past.

In grateful humility,

Ted Helt Jr.