The difference one life can make

One of the kindest men I have ever been blessed to know was my barber, Ramon Gonzales. He passed away in January after a long career of cutting hair in Oak Cliff. Ramon loved people and had a knack for putting others at ease. I always felt and looked a little better after visiting him. He was quiet but always spoke with wisdom. Short but a giant in character.

There’s a word that comes to me when I remember Ramon: Faithful.

His shop had been sold years ago to another owner then sold again to a new, younger owner. Through all the changes, Ramon continued to cut hair in the same spot for 40 years.

On a Friday afternoon in the summer of 2013, I sat in Ramon’s chair for a regular appointment. The shop on Jefferson Boulevard was operating as usual when a man came in the back entrance. Out of his mind, he screamed and threatened to kill the new owner. Everyone froze. As the rant continued, however, the barbers went back to business.

“Ramon, we need to call the police,” I said. “This guy is dangerous.”

“Just ignore him,” he counseled. “He’s upset because he was fired yesterday. He’ll be gone soon.”

I asked for the phone and dialed 911 while Ramon continued to cut my hair. “You need to come immediately,” I said, hearing the fear in my own voice.

The officers arrived within just a few minutes, but as Ramon predicted, the man had gone already. The police said to call if he returned.

I left the shop without thinking anymore about the situation until I heard helicopters overhead.

Half an hour after my departure, the man returned and shot the new owner, 29-year-old Alejandro Fernandez, once in the chest, killing him with clippers in hand. Police captured 30-year-old

Charles DeWayne Hooks, who confessed, explaining his distress over not being able to provide for his family.

How did Ramon respond? After grieving and comforting others, he went back the next week to what he had always done: Cutting hair, blessing others, treating people with fairness.

What still jars me today is the contrast between Ramon’s gentle, steady presence and the reality of uncertainty and violence that we all know is closer than we want to believe.

The prophet Micah declared, “O peo-

Worship

BAPTIST

CLIFF TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH / 125 Sunset Ave. / 214.942.8601

Serving Oak Cliff since 1898 / CliffTemple.org / English and Spanish

9 am Contemporary Worship / 10 am Sunday School / 11 am Traditional

ROYAL LANE BAPTIST CHURCH / 6707 Royal Lane / 214.361.2809

Christian Education 9:45 a.m. / Worship Service 10:55 a.m.

Pastor - Rev. Dr. Michael L. Gregg / www.royallane.org

Disciples Of Christ

EAST DALLAS CHRISTIAN CHURCH / 629 N. Peak Street / 214.824.8185

Sunday School 9:30 am / Worship 8:30 am - Chapel

10:50 am - Sanctuary / Rev. Deborah Morgan-Stokes / edcc.org

EPISCOPAL

ST. AUGUSTINE’S /1302 W. Kiest Blvd / staugustinesoakcliff.org

A diverse, liturgical church with deep roots in Oak Cliff and in the ancient faith / Holy Eucharist with Hymns Sunday 10:15 am

METHODIST

GRACE UMC / Diverse, Inclusive, Missional Sunday School for all ages, 9:30 am / Worship, 10:50 am 4105 Junius St. / 214.824.2533 / graceumcdallas.org ple, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: To do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

That describes Ramon. He walked in humility, did what was right and practiced mercy. His life emulated “good,” what many of us long to be. He was a light in the darkness. Eugene Peterson called such a life “a long obedience in the same direction.”

The faithful life is the consistent, trustworthy and reliable life. That’s rare today. Most of us don’t have the vision and stamina for that kind of singular pursuit. Thank God Ramon did. His life made a difference.

Brent McDougal is pastor of Cliff Temple Baptist Church. The Worship section is a regular feature underwritten by Advocate Publishing and by the neighborhood business people and churches listed on these pages. For information about helping support the Worship section, call 214.560.4202.

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KESSLER COMMUNITY CHURCH / 2100 Leander Dr. at Hampton Rd. “Your Hometown Church Near the Heart of the City.”

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Full gospel publishing

The Stamps-Baxter Music Co. produced some of the nation’s most popular gospel songbooks

By RACHEL STONE

An Oak Cliff publisher touched millions of protestant churchgoers in America in the 1930s and ’40s.

The Stamps-Baxter Music Co. published songbooks and hymnals from its headquarters on North Tyler Street for decades, popularizing tunes such as “Farther Along” and “Just a Little Talk with Jesus.”

The company’s influence spread with broadcasts on KRLD and via singing quartets they dispatched to county fairs, churches and revivals all over the country.

“This was like music central of Oak Cliff,” says David Spence, whose com - pany, Good Space, recently renovated the former Stamps-Baxter Music Co. building at 207-209 N. Tyler for retail and office space.

Also on the block were the original Top Ten Records location, Wilkins Music Store, a piano studio and a rival music publisher to Stamps-Baxter.

The building was constructed around 1922, and Stamps-Baxter bought it in 1936.

Virgil O. Stamps and J.R. Baxter Jr. worked for competing gospel-music publishing houses when they became partners in the 1920s. By 1929, they had moved their company to Dallas from Jacksonville, Texas.

Stamps, who lived on North Windomere Avenue, was the face of the company. He was a big guy, standing about 6-foot-4, with a charismatic personality.

“By all accounts, if he had wanted to run for governor of Texas, he would’ve had it in the bag,” Spence says. “He was an entrepreneurial genius and a largerthan-life guy.”

The company published four new songbooks every year, and they sponsored singing quartets to promote them. In its heyday, Stamps-Baxter had 34 quartets traveling the country.

The Stamps-Baxter quartet performed gospel songs inside glass recording booths at the 1936 Texas Centennial, which prompted KRLD to invite them to perform on-air.

The radio station stipulated that the quartets could only sing patriotic and popular songs, no gospel. Stamps agreed, but when the recording light came on, the quartet began singing a gospel number.

“They said something along the lines of, ‘If you like these songs, send KRLD a telegram,’ ” Spence says.

The radio station received thousands of telegrams asking for more gospel music. The Stamps-Baxter quartet was so popular that it helped the radio station increase its reach from 10,000 watts to 50,000 watts, and KRLD became a hub for gospel music up through the 1960s.

Broadcasting rules at the time required the station to keep the signal local, but after midnight, they were allowed to turn up their wattage and broadcast nationwide. Stamps capitalized on this with all-night gospel singing live from Dallas, Texas. In June 1940, he filled the Sportatorium with 7,500 people, who sang along with the Stamps-Baxter quartet from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. He also filled the Cotton Bowl for these “all-night sings.”

Another facet of the Stamps-Baxter marketing was a music school. Church choir leaders and music students came from all over the United States to attend the two-week Stamps-Baxter Music

School in Oak Cliff. The school taught “shape notes,” a less complicated system of reading music that’s designed for community singing. The school cost $6, and room and board cost $7.

In 1927, the same year Stamps-Baxter was founded, was the first year that the U.S. Census reported that more Americans lived in cities than in rural areas.

“Those small-town Southern people who moved to the big city, that was their target market,” Spence says.

Imagine how many baby-faced Christian singers arrived by streetcar in Oak Cliff on their first trip away from home.

V.O. Stamps died in 1941.

His partner took over, and Stamps-

Baxter was run by J.R. “Pap” and his wife, “Ma” Baxter until Pap died in 1968 and Ma in ’72.

The company held on until 1987, but its glory days had ended by the start of the TV era.

Spence, who renovated the Stamps-Baxter building with partner Trey Bartosh, had the company’s old-fashioned logo painted on the side of the building.

The second story is finished out to serve an office tenant, such as a small law firm. But for the ground-floor space, Spence envisions a gallery or perhaps some kind of retail/manufacturer.

Stamps-Baxter had a storefront with a printing press and bookbinding operation on the ground floor, plus offices and music rooms upstairs.

Retail, light manufacturing, artists, entrepreneurs … Some things never change.

Spence notes, “Isn’t that just what everybody is doing in Oak Cliff now?”