WALTER CURTIS LEWIS
(1890-1921)
Walter Curtis Lewis, the elder of two sons of David
and Mary Lena (Street) Lewis, was born in Vanleer, Tennessee, June 30,
1890. His younger brother was Felix Early. Vanleer, the hometown of the
Streets, Belfield and Nancy, is located in rural Dickson County,
Tennessee. This small and sleepy little
cradle-town, named for Anthony W. Vanleer, is located about three miles from
Cumberland Furnace, and eight miles from the county seat, Charlotte. Although Dave, and others of the Lewises,
worked at Cumberland Furnace, he and his wife, Mary Lena, located and reared
their children in Dickson, the largest city in the county and hometown of the
Lewis clan. It was from these three
locations in Tennessee (Vanleer, Cumberland Furnace, and Dickson) that a
combination of factors emanated to yield the agricultural,
psycho-philosophical, and religious acumen evident in the founders of the
Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth, Inc.[1]
Early in his life, Walter was
chosen as co-laborer in the Gospel with his brother, and his mother. Through them, God revived the light of True
Holiness and Sanctification in these last days. Moving with fear and obedience, these laborers preached the
beauty of holiness beginning at Steele Springs, Tennessee, and spreading from
there throughout many states in the United States. The church was established in 1903 and held its first General
Assembly in 1908 at Greenville, Alabama, under the auspices of Mary Lena Lewis
and her two sons. Walter Curtis and
Felix Early Lewis were ordained to the bishopric in 1914 at Quitman, Georgia
and appointed as two of the first four
State Bishops of the church.[2]
The first of Walter Curtis’
two marriages occurred in 1906, when he was barely seventeen. One son,
Nathaniel Aaron, was born to this union.
During the Period of Rapid Growth and Expansion (1908-1918) of
the church, Walter Curtis met Mary Frankie Giles from Lumpkin, Georgia and they
were later married. To this union six
children were born, Robert David, Lillie Pearlena, Walter Curtis (II), Israel
Paul, Mary Curtese (“Sydnie”), and Felix, III.
Bishop Lewis traveled up and down the Eastern Seaboard establishing,
confirming, and purchasing or building church structures. He and his wife and those under his
overseership, were responsible for the establishment of many of the churches
located in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee,
Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, and Illinois, among other states. Very much involved with his mother’s
sisters, Bishop W.C. Lewis held perhaps his last church conference in 1920 in
St. Louis, Missouri where Bishop Dora O’Neal lived, the year before he
died. There he rented a hotel on
Beaumont and Laughton, which was later bought by Elder Scott, one of the
energetic church members in the area during that time.
Bishop Lewis, like many of
the preachers and builders in the church, worked on a “temporal” job in several
of the places where he found himself establishing the church. In Pennsylvania, he was employed in the
coalmines. It was during this time that
he contracted pneumonia. Bishop Walter
Curtis Lewis was to have held a State Assembly in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but
died there on February 7, 1921. He was
buried in the Forrest Hill Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee.[3]