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As many of you know one of the churches that I am blessed to lead stepped out and purchased what I like to call the, "North Wheeling Community Dream Center." Due to all the problems, challenges, and difficulties we have had since its purchase in February 2016, some members call the building the, "North Wheeling Community Nightmare." I understand it, but I don't like it. I have been told that I am too transparent, and that I share way too much about my life and ministry. It is very possible, this may be more evidence they can use against me, about sharing too much.
No question, we have a dream, and no question there has been nightmares after nightmares. When we first purchased what was the former Bond Bakery Building, where I am told people could come and get breads, bakery items, etc., for its first 50 years or so, and then became the Social Services Building where people from all over the community could come for the next 30 years or so to come and get help for their families, then became vacant for so many years, things were working decently.
We were feeding the hungry with our Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Food Basket Giveaways, and our Adopt a Student programs, feeding, clothing, and meeting the needs of 100s that came for help. We were happy to help with working with other agencies that used the building to give veterans emergency housing, and we had our North Wheeling Community Youth Center activities in the building as well. We had some of our special church services there, movie nights for the neighborhood, and we were getting ready to host cooking classes. We also hosted a West Virginia Human Rights Housing Conference and also other events.
During the pandemic the nightmares began. We were told we could not have our annual Easter Food Basket Giveaway because too many people could come in and the virus could be passed on to others. We decided to change to a drive-through format. We had our first event, where hundreds of cars came through and families were helped. A few days before the giveaway, the pipes in the sprinkler system burst on the top floor and went through the roof. We had insurance, and they did help, but they would not cover everything. They determined that some things were pre-existing conditions. We have had challenge after challenge, and we have been helped by the community, grants, offerings, fundraisers, individuals, and most of all, God.
Thanks to the insurance a new sprinkler system was installed, but now a new heating system is needed to prevent the pipes from bursting in the basement fellowship hall. This part of the building is below ground, and I am told that it has not had heat in over 30 years. It is the opposite place of were the pipes burst.
I did not know that I would have a Black Inventor by the name of Alice H. Parker to thank for helping to solve this nightmare in the Dream Center. I was not able to find out a lot about Alice Parker, except that she was born in 1895, in Morristown, New Jersey. Interestingly enough, she attended Howard University Academy in Washington D. C. The academy is said to be the High School associated with the University. Howard University is a well-known historically black university that was founded in 1867. It was said to be named after General Oliver Otis Howard, who was the head of the post-Civil War Freedmen's Bureau, who worked with Congress to appropriate funds for education of blacks. It is beyond my understanding of how she made it. To be an African- American at that time and to be a woman. She was able to go to school, when other young people during that time had to go to work to bring home money for their families. What we do know is in 1910 she earned the certificate they offered with high honors and that Alice Parker was an African American inventor who was most known for her patent system of central heating using natural gas. There are some questions of how she got to file a patent during that time, women had limited options, and African-American women had even less opportunities and more nightmares than many others.
I have been told story after story by some of my senior citizen friends of how they had to bring in wood, coal, or oil to heat up the house. Cleaning the fireplace of the ashes, someone getting up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire. Going out on a regular basis to chop wood or buy wood. Maybe having to go outside to bring the wood inside to keep the fire burning. I don't have any real experience with fireplaces; we have one, but we are not dependent on it for heat; it is more for looks than anything else. I can only imagine that there were more house fires due to the fireplace as well. On Dec. 23, 1919, a few days before Christmas, Alice Parker filed a patent for her heating system invention. In 1920, it is said that she died at the age of 25. When she filed it in the 1900s that was considered a totally unique and revolutionary method of heating. Creating a central heating system that would be used later to also pave the way to create an air-conditioning system. The majority of us use natural gas to heat our homes and businesses. The Dream Center would need not just one, but four furnaces for the lower fellowship hall.
Her thought was you take cool air in, heat it up with fire from natural gas, and then send it out to different areas of the house or business. This was done through something that would be called a heat exchanger. I am told by others that the idea of central heating existed before Alice Parker, but her thought to put it with natural gas was special to her patent. It is said in the Socratic dialogue, called the "Republic," that Plato wrote that, "our need will be the real creator." It is believed that over time it got changed to or misquoted to become, "necessity is the mother of invention." Whatever way it happened, this is said to be true of Alice Parker, sitting in front of her fireplace on a cold winter night where she lived. Those who are in the know said, they never really used her plans, but they did use her ideas, which they still use today.
I don't know how she conquered her nightmares and fulfilled her dreams getting a patent, but she did. This month of February when we celebrate Black History Month, one of the cold days, when you turn up the gas heat, we hope you remember and are inspired by Alice Parker. Turn your nightmares into dreams! I am sure going to try.
Bishop Darrell W. Cummings is pastor of Bethlehem Apostolic Temple in Wheeling and Shiloh Apostolic Temple in Weirton.