The Tragic End of Things We Have Loved

Growing Up, Life in Pensacola 1 Minute

The tragic end of things we have loved is always hard. So it is with Whitfield Memorial Baptist Church in Pensacola. I was baptized and grew up there. And then I watched on Facebook video as the church building was demolished only weeks ago on August 14, 2018.

Today, someone from my early and golden church years sent me a memento I will always treasure. Linda Dolihite — daughter of Mr. and Mrs. K.C. Rogers of Whitfield Baptist — sent me the ornament shown in these pictures.

It contains fragments of the beautiful stained glass windows that once illuminated my days singing in church cantatas, reciting Bible verses, and enjoying the church people I had known since birth. Whitfield’s demolition last summer occurred with such haste that nothing was saved, not even the once-expensive colored glass.

In July I wrote about life at this church and the reasons it ultimately failed. To the Greeks, real tragedy is caused by willful pride — pride that always goes before a fall. Whitfield’s fall was no exception. Today, the church is forever gone.

But here today, I want only to remember the good things the church did. And I also want to cherish once again families like the Rogers — people who meant so much to my family and also to me.

Thank you so much for this beautiful memento, Linda. And may God bless you and yours.

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Published by Robert Craig Waters

Robert Craig Waters is a Florida writer. After leaving journalism in the early 1980s, he worked as an attorney, communications director, and public spokesman for the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee for 35 years. He grew up on a family farm in Beulah, Florida, not far from the Alabama border, before attending Brown University in the 1970s. His mother's family traces its roots to Weaverville, North Carolina. His father's family is from the small village of Burnt Corn, Alabama, where Mr. Waters spent part of his childhood.

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