Contents: Biographies | Church Histories

BIOGRAPHIES

Robinson, George Warren

(April 15, 1883-September 30, 1948)

Longtime minister of Corinthian Baptist Church in Des Moines and civil rights leader in Des Moines.

George Warren Robinson was born in Bennettsville, S.C. and graduated from Benedict College, Columbia, S.C in 1910. The Iowa Bystander noted he was to be conferred a Doctor of Divinity at the college’s graduation on May 6, 1918. He was referenced as pastor-elect for Corinthian Baptist Church in the Bystander March 9, 1917 and was confirmed as reported in the Bystander of April 19, 1918. He also listed that role as his occupation on his selective service card in September 1918. He served in this role until his death in 1948.

In 1912 he married Leona Crockett in Texas. The couple moved to Des Moines by early 1917 as the Bystander reported in the January 12, 1917 edition that she hosted the Jolly Club at their home.

Reverend Robinson was a charter member and past president of Des Moines Interracial Commission (founded in about 1925); and a founder of the Crocker branch of the Y.M.C.A. He was active in the community including the NAACP and other community groups; preached at White churches on race relations including Central Presbyterian in 1926. He is buried at Glendale Cemetery.

McCraven, Henry

(July 1854 - March 26, 1942)
AME and non-denominational minister, long-time AME Sunday school teacher, porter at the Iowa State House

Born in Missouri in July 1854, Henry McCraven came to Des Moines by 1876, and married Maria Stevens in that year. He was said to be ordained an AME minister by Bishop Brown in Quincy, Ill. in 1884. St. Paul A.M.E. Church history lists him as a member of the group who incorporated the church on September 29, 1879.

For a short time he left St. Paul and worked with another church. The Bystander reported on February 14, 1896 that McCraven was “late of the A.M.E. church, but now, is reported of the First or Central Christian Church.” By January 14, 1898 he was listed again as an official with St. Paul. He and Maria McCraven would continue to serve that church through each of their lifetimes.

He was described as one of the most widely known Black residents of Des Moines in 1926. He was employed as a porter for the Iowa legislature. It is known he delivered the opening prayer at multiple legislative sessions and for Iowa Senate sessions multiple times in late 1933 and early 1934. He was honored with a picnic at Good Park on July 4, 1935 by the Better Government League. He is buried in Woodland Cemetery.

Brent, Albert (A.) Ross

(June 9, 1907 - December 3, 1984)
Baptist minister in the 1930s, founder of the Progressive National Baptist Convention

A. Ross Brent was born in Bunceton, Missouri on June 9, 1907 and attended college at Fisk University. He received his doctorate degree in divinity from Western Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. Married Doris Brent, and later married to Beulah Brent.

Rev. Dr. Brent was announced as the pastor for the new Maple St. Baptist Church at E. 16th and Maple St. in the Des Moines Tribune of January 1, 1933. An unknown disagreement led to his attempted removal in the spring of 1938. He retained his position and served until March of 1941. He then took a position at Shiloh Baptist Church in Plainfield, New Jersey. He died there on December 3, 1984 and is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, N.J.

Bates, Samuel

(March 2, 1849 - December 5, 1930)
Baptist minister across southern and central Iowa

Samuel Bates was born in Virginia before the Civil War and lived there as late as 1870, perhaps later. He moved to the Midwest by 1880. He married his spouse Susan in 1897, she died in 1900. Later remarried (check name in city directory, post 1924)

Rev. Bates served at multiple churches in the early 1900s including at Corinthian Baptist in Des Moines in 1901, at Galilee Baptist in Evans in Mahaska County in 1903, and Clarinda in southwest Iowa in 1906. He returned to central Iowa serving in Colfax in September 1906, then returning to Des Moines in 1907 to serve at Maple Street Baptist Church. He was a pastor there until his death in 1930. He is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Des Moines.

Lucas, Jerry Louis

(March 2, 1879 - June 1, 1940)
Central Iowa Baptist pastor, Des Moines barber from mid-1910s to 1940

Born in Alexandria, Louisiana, Rev. Jerry L. Lucas lived in Des Moines but also served in Perry and Fort Dodge. Married to Jenevieve Johnson in 1908.

Rev. Lucas had a barbershop in Des Moines by 1909 as he appeared in the Des Moines City Directory listed as Jeremiah L. Lucas. He is referenced as being in Perry on March 9, 1917 as pastor but it was inferred he travelled from Des Moines. The May 14, 1920 Bystander noted he was the pastor at Fort Dodge. At the time of his death in 1940, the Des Moines Register noted his ministry in those locales, but reported he was serving Shiloh Baptist Church. He had been part of the groundbreaking for that church at 1317 SE Scott in 1937. It was noted he served in the “ministerial alliance” and the NAACP. He is buried in Glendale Cemetery

Hunter, Price M.

February 15, 1865 - October 3, 1936

Deacon, Baptist choir and Sunday School leader; coal miner, municipal janitor and civil rights advocate

Hunter came to central Iowa by the late 1890s as he received mention in the Bystander as being in Colfax in 1897, and helped organize an Afro-American League in the unincorporated community of Marquisville in eastern Polk County that year. He was listed as a resident of Des Mines in the city directory for 1902. His occupation was stated as a janitor at the Polk County Courthouse by 1909.

Among his religious functions was to assist with a convention for Sunday Schools for African Baptists in the northwest in 1907, and he served as superintendent of the Maple St. Baptist Church in 1908, and choir director by 1918. A 1936 story reporting his death in the Des Moines Register noted he was “an active member of Maple St. Baptist Church.” He is buried in Glendale Cemetery

Terrell, George Overton

(April 10 1858 - December 10, 1931) ,
Pastor in Colfax, a coal miner, leader in of the Odd Fellows

Born in Albemarle County, Virginia, he was reportedly an Iowa resident by the early 1880s. The family was noted as living in Muchakinock in 1895, possibly relocated to Polk County at that time. He was listed in the 1900 and 1910 censuses as a coal miner in Colfax in Jasper County. He was active in the social organization the International Order of the Odd Fellows, and served as its Iowa Grand Master.

Listed as a speaker at the Baptist Sunday School Convention in Des Moines in 1911, he was not designated as a minister. An August 1917 report from Sioux City in the Bystander referred to him as Rev. G. O. Terrell of Colfax. He moved to Des Moines by the late 1920s. His 1931 funeral services were in Des Moines but he is buried in the Colfax Cemetery

Photo in Patten, Reverend George O. and Elvira Terrell family in front of their residence at 1116 11th Street.

Guy, William Elihu

(1870/April 24, 1874 - December 17, 1954)

Methodist minister in the Midwest, also lived in Canada, the first Black graduate of Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois

Born in Shelbyville, Tennessee, William E. Guy attended Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, and was its first Black graduate completing his education in 1899. Additional coursework is unknown, but by the 1920s he was sometimes referred to as Dr. William Guy.

He pastored at St. Paul AME Church in Des Moines from 1930 through late 1932, having previously served in Windsor, Ontario and Lansing, Michigan. His portrait is included in a small feature in the Des Moines Tribune on October 11, 1930. He would later minister in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Indianapolis, Indiana; and St. Paul, Minnesota. He was presiding elder for the St. Paul District of the AME Church and visited Iowa at times in the 1940s. He died in Kansas City, Missouri, with funeral services in Springfield, Illinois. He has a gravestone in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois. Illinois College has a small archive connected to his life and featured him in a display in 2025.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/325166999/?match=1\&terms=%22e.%20guy%22

Davis, Ruth Bell

(December 14, 1910 -)
Church vocalist and YWCA devotee

From the coal mining community of Carney in Polk County, Miss Davis with her family had located to Des Moines by the early 1920s. She was a frequent participant in YWCA activities. In January 1921 she provided a solo program by the organization’s religion committee.

She was on the program as a soloist for the installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent as pastor of the Maple Street Baptist Church on April 27, 1928. She graduated from North High School and attended Drake for three years. She also studied voice at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. She was a member of the Union Baptist Church at East 16th Street and University Avenue in 1934.

By 1936 she had moved to Chicago but was married in Des Moines on June 30. She returned to Des Moines for a 1952 concert at Corinthian Baptist Church, it was stated she had returned from a five month international tour. She later lived in Los Angeles. Her death date and burial location are not known.

Tutt, Jordan William see Patten item - 1995.002.1303

(November 29, 1872 - January 19, 1942) (Death certificate)

Baptist minister in Iowa, Sunday School educator, YMCA figure, Civil Rights leader in Des Moines

Married Hattie
A Howard Co., Missouri native, Rev. Tutt came to Des Moines in July 1929 as reported in 1931. He previously ministered at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Davenport, where he was named as minister in March 1920. He moved to Mount Zion Baptist Church in Sioux City by 1923, and a Sioux City Journal report of March 5, 1923 noted he was a candidate for the school board, the first Black person to be a candidate for that position there. The Journal noted his departure for Ottumwa in its March 3, 1926 edition.

In Des Moines Tutt often appeared as a participant at Baptist convention activities in Iowa newspapers. He was in Davenport in 1928, Waterloo in 1929, and Muscatine in 1933. He also led activities sponsored by the Crocker St. YMCA. He is buried in Glendale Cemetery.

Union Baptist, 1934, E. 15th and University, J. W. Tutt (Union Missionary Baptist Church)
(18 - 1-19-1942, check)
Good clipping in March 9, 1920, photo in Davenport, photo in Des Moines June 8, 1931 - CHurch history too

Wilson, Harry Eben

(February 19, 1884 - September 10, 1943)

World War I officer, Civil Rights leader, elder at Maple St. Baptist Church
A Des Moines resident by 1914, Harry E. Wilson was a leader in the community in the 1920s and 1930s. He was among the men trained at Fort Des Moines as the first Black officers in World War I. He was commissioned a 1st Lieutenant and earned the Distinguished Service Cross.

He participated in the NAACP in Des Moines and served on its executive committee. Wilson was listed among those on the program for the installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent as pastor for the Maple Street Baptist Church on April 27, 1928. He remained a member of that church. His funeral services were held there and he is buried in Glendale Cemetery.

Watlington, Andrew

(December 14, 1890 - February 1971)

Maple St. Baptist Church figure; fraternal lodge leader

A native of North Carolina, Mr. Watlington arrived in Des Moines by 1917 as he registered for selective service for the Great War in the city on June 5, 1917. He married Viola Williams of Knoxville in July of 1917.

He was widowed in 1920 but remained in Des Moines through 1932. Watlington was listed as junior steward for the Doric Lodge in 1920. He is listed on the program with Harry E. Wilson for the installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent as pastor of the Maple Street Baptist Church on April 27, 1928. He later moved to Kansas City and then Colorado. His exact death date and burial location are unknown at this time.

Wheeler, Claude B.

(June 4, 1893 -no additional ancestry )

Pastor for Mount Olive Baptist Church,
A native of Moberly, Missouri, Claude Wheeler married Dorothy Allen in Des Moines in September 1922. He serves as pastor at Mount Olive Baptist Church by 1929. He participated in a veterans’ ceremony with the Lincoln American Legion Post planned for Armistice Day that November. The newspaper reference has a typo as he was listed as O. B. Wheeler of Moiunt Olive Baptist Church. He is listed regularly as pastor for the church in the Des Moines Tribune from 1930 to 1934.

He moved to St. Paul, Minn. to serve as a minister, but sometimes returned to Des Moines. He was a guest pastor in 1936 and 1941 at Union Baptist CHurch. He visited Corinthian Baptist Church in 1943. He continued to serve as a minister in St. Paul into 1959. He is referenced as the late C. B. Wheeler in a St. Paul Recorder story on September 30, 1960. His death date and burial location are unknown at this time.

Brumfield, Thomas Mason

(December 14, 1883 - August 7, 1967)

Pastor at Union Congregational Church

A native of Bowling Green Kentucky, and graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, Rev. Brumfield served as minister for the Union Congregational Church at 10th and Park St. He had arrived by December 1912 and served into March 1914. An April 3, 1914 report in the Bystander noted he was bid farewell by a large crowd of various creeds as he and his family had departed on March 31 for his “new charge in the southland.”

He finished an M.A. from University of Chicago in 1928 while he taught at Fisk University. He published a study of Black churches in Nashville. He died there in 1967 and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Nashville.

Moore, Steward Benjamin

(December 4, 1864 - August 25, 1920)

Pastor in Illinois and Iowa; Presiding elder of Des Moines District of the AME Church in the 1910s

A native of Holly Springs, Ark, he married in 1889 in Chicago, and Moore pastored at Iowa churches in Clinton, Keokuk, and Davenport; according to his obituary he also served at churches in Galesburg, Rockford, and Chicago.

In September 1911 he was made Presiding Elder of the Des Moines District for the AME Church. He made Des Moines his home for a time beginning in 1912 but preached across the state including Carney, Des Moines, and Oralabor in Polk County; Albia, Boone, Buxton, Council Bluffs, Ottumwa, Sioux City, and Waterloo. He likely made other stops at AME churches across the state.

He became a pastor with a church again by 1917 at the Keokuk AME Church. He participated in ceremonies in Keokuk when Black men went into service in 1917 and 1918. He became pastor of Bethel AME Church in Davenport. He died of a stroke there and is buried in Linwood Cemetery, Galesburg, Ill.

Graves, Horace Stepney

(Born about 1870 - July 4, 1913)

Pastor at St. Paul AME Church; AME minister and official in the Midwest; Wilberforce College trustee

Rev. Horace S. Graves was born in Paducah, Kent. and attended Wilberforce College in Ohio where he completed a degree and divinity coursework.

He participated in the AME district convention in Mount Pleasant in 1897 though he is not identified with a specific congregation. He is referenced as the secretary of the conference in 1899, and later that year is said to have become the pastor of the Galesburg AME Church on September 1.

He came to Des Moines in May 1902 and served at St. Paul AME until 1906. He led a crusade on Court Ave. in 1904 and was active in discrimination issues. He was transferred to St. Paul, Minn. in April 1906. He continued to visit Iowa and participated in church events in Cedar Rapids in 1909 and Des Moines in 1911.

Rev. Graves became pastor of the Ebenezer AME Church in Evanston, Ill. in 1911. He ministered there until facing health problems in early 1913. He traveled to North Carolina for care by April but never fully recovered. He died there in July and funeral services and his burial was in Evanston.

Webb Bayles, Clara

(October 1, 1909 - June 10, 1973)

Elder at Corinthian Baptist Church in Des Moines and Civil Rights advocate

Musician for installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent as pastor at Corinthian Baptist Church on April 27, 1928. She attended and graduated from Drake University and was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She was the secretary in the integrated Baptist Young Peoples Union in 1932. She worked for Polk County Social Services. She married Clifford Bayles in September of 1945.

She would be prominent in the Des Moines National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Webb Bayles served as president of the organization having been elected in 1956 and vice president beginning in 1966. A 1974 report noted she was a three time president of the group. She led an interracial book group in 1959 and is pictured in the Des Moines Register of November 11,1959 with Martin Luther King, Jr. following King’s visit to Des Moines. Webb Bayles led a forum on race in 1962. She remained active in central Iowa activities providing programs on travel to Africa and Black history programs. She is buried in Glendale Cemetery.

Phipps Cox, Fannie

(about 1869 - December 17, 1954)

Longtime employee of the Maple St. Baptist Church

Born in Kentucky as the daughter of Civil War veteran John Phipps and Sarah Narcissus Phipps, her given name may have been Mary Fannie Phipps, census records show her birth year of 1867 or 1869. Fannie Phipps moved to Iowa in about 1887. She is listed as a student in the 1893 Des Moines city directory. She married Charles C. Cox in 1903 in Des Moines.

She participated and led church activities at Maple St. Baptist Church by the early 1910s. A 1911 report in the Bystander noted she assisted with planning the church’s Thanksgiving program. In 1917 she was on the program for the Western Baptist Convention in Des Moines. She participated in community activities including a meeting at St. Paul AME Church mentioned in the Bystander of October 7, 1920. She assisted with the program for the installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent at Maple St. Baptist Church on April 27, 1928. In her death notice it was reported she had worked for Maple St. Baptist Church for 45 years. She is buried in Glendale Cemetery.

Garland, Freida Mary

(December 5, 1909 - March 10, 1973)

Vocalist for Baptist church

Born in Higbee, Missouri, her mother Esther Brooks married William Garland of Enterprise in that town by a Baptist minister in July 1915.

Ms. Garland lived her life in Des Moines and later had a career as a clerk with the Des Moines Register & Tribune Syndicate. She assisted with the program for the installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent at Maple St. Baptist Church on April 27, 1928. She presumably continued to be a member of that church as her mother’s services were there in 1944. She looks to have converted to Catholicism as her funeral was held on March 12, 1973 at St. Ambrose Cathedral. She is buried in Glendale Cemetery.

Williams, Vera Elizabeth Mays

(June 1, 1897 - February 14, 1964)
Vocalist and Methodist elder

Born and raised in Newton, Iowa, from a noted family as her father Lewis Mays served in the Civil War in the 1st Colored Regiment of Iowa/US 60th Colored Troops. Her sister Lettie Mays Mash also was active in the Des Moines church community.

Ms. Mays married James Williams sometime around 1915. She is listed as Vera Williams as a vocalist in a duet with her sister Lettie in the program for the installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent at Maple St. Baptist Church on April 27, 1928. She assisted with women’s and church activities at Bethel AME Church in the years following World War II. Her funeral services were held at Bethel AME and she was buried in Glendale Cemetery
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/104733882/vera_e-williams

Mash, Lettie Mays Young Thomas

(September 4, 1901 - April 15, 1967)
Vocalist and Methodist elder

Born and raised in Newton, Iowa, from a noted family as her father Lewis Mays served in the Civil War in the 1st Colored Regiment of Iowa/US 60th Colored Troops. Her sister Vera Mays Williams also was active in the Des Moines church community.

Ms. Mays married W. E. Young on January 8, 1917 in Newton. The couple divorced and she later married Fletcher Thomas. She is listed as Lettie Thomas and served as a vocalist for a duet with her sister Vera in the program for the installation of Rev. A. Ross Brent at Maple St. Baptist Church on April 27, 1928.

She was divorced from Mr. Thomas in 1929. She then married David Mash in Indianola in 1935. She served in various roles for the Bethel AME Church in Des Moines. Her funeral was held at Bethel AME Church, and she was buried in Glendale Cemetery.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/83676116/lettie-mash