Article and Photos by Linda Charlton
Dateline: Tuscanooga Island
With a three hour open house at their new parsonage, the Tuscanooga Baptist Church community on Sunday symbolically closed a dramatic chapter in the life of the church. The saga started January 24, when an early morning tornado ripped through Tuscanooga Island and parts of nearby Sumter County. The church suffered major roof damage, there was damage in the cemetery, and the parsonage was destroyed. Retired pastor James Madison and wife Mary Lou were inside the parsonage at the time, where they had lived since 1960.
The Madisons had no warning of the early morning tornado. Mrs. Madison figures that any audible warning they might have had was masked by the air conditioning unit outside their bedroom. She also figures that the lack of warning was a good thing because if they had known what was coming, they probably would have moved to one of the other bedrooms — both of which were destroyed. As it was, the first they knew of a problem was that the bed slid. The petite Mrs. Madison was thrown out and hit her head, then looked up to see that the tall, heavy chest of drawers normally by the bed had also slid, and was only inches away.
“That’s when I knew something bad had happened,” she says.
The old wooden house had moved more than 20 feet off its foundation and come to rest against a large camphor tree. The Madisons have been told that if the house had not been stopped by the tree, it would have started to tumble.
So when Mrs, Madison says “thank God for that tree,” she means it literally.
“The good Lord just let everything survive,” she adds.
Final inspection on the replacement parsonage came on September 24, eight months to the day after the original was destroyed. The Madisons moved in soon after. Visitors at the open house admired the new building, with its impeccable workmanship and generous doorways. But mainly they admired how many of the Madisons’ belongings had survived the tornado — all of their bedroom furniture, except for the mirror, his lift-chair, the candlestick and antique desk bought years ago in Germany, the large print Bible … Mrs. Madison, for her part, seemed to take particular delight in showing off the living room coffee table and laundry room hat rack, both made from wood salvaged from the old parsonage.
“They will be cherished,” Mrs. Madison said of the church members’ handiwork.
When asked what good sticks out from his tornado experience, James Madison says “Family. They took us in. We didn’t have any place to go.”
Mary Lou Madison marvels at the many volunteers that pitched in to help, both in the initial cleanup and the later reconstruction. She notes that at one point in the initial clean-up, volunteers had to be turned away because there just wasn’t any more room inside the remains of the parsonage. Many volunteers were church members but some, such as local construction company owner Buddy Raney, had no direct connection to the church, or to the Madisons.
“We love the Madison family,” Raney says, “and we’ve been blessed by the ability to give back, and that’s what we did. The Madisons are the heroes because they lived through it. For what we do, we give credit to the Lord.”
When asked what good from sticks out from her tornado experience, Mrs. Madison says “it shows that we have so many people in the world that are good. When you have this many friends … That is really the best testimony. It shows that God was in control of everything.”
James Madison was the church’s first-ever, full-time pastor, and served in that capacity from 1959 to 2009. When he retired, church officials voted that the Madisons would have full use of the parsonage for as long as either of them shall live. In reality, though, those decisions were made well in advance.
As long-time church member Deanna Chapman said of Madison in a 2006 Lakeland Ledger article (three years before the pastor retired) “We love him, and we believe in taking care of our pastor. When he retires, we’ll still take care of him. He’s a wonderful man.”
Tuscanooga Island is located north of Mascotte. Tuscanooga Road is named for the island, and both the church and the parsonage are on Tuscanooga Road.
