Ministers of Portland Avenue Church of Christ (5):
Oliver Waldron Jennings (September 1884 – April 1885)
Hans Rollmann
After the departure of “Weeping Joe” Harding, a distinguished-looking young preacher filled briefly the pulpit at Portland Avenue. Oliver Waldron Jennings was born in Keokuk, Iowa, as the son of Thomas W. Jennings of New York and Helen S. Kirkpatrick from Virginia. After attending public schools in Kentucky and Indiana, he entered the Presbyterian Hanover College, from which he graduated in 1882. While studying at this oldest private college in Indiana that overlooked the Ohio River, he belonged to the Sigma Chi Fraternity.
Little is known about his subsequent preaching career, except that he preached at Portland Avenue Christian Church in Louisville; at West Point, Kentucky; Columbia, Tennessee; in Clark County, Indiana as well as Indianapolis. We have no specifics about his Louisville ministry, except that he preached there on Sundays and received on average $ 10.00 per week, commencing in September 1884 and ending in April of 1885. Shortly thereafter he attended Kentucky University, from which graduated in 1887.
Jennings appears to have been a restless person vocationally. After abandoning the ministry, he held for a while a position with a publishing house in Louisville and later became the field manager for the International Publishing Company, operating out of West Port, Kentucky. He is also said to have studied law and in 1900 obtained a degree in alternative medicine, a D.M.T. from the Louisville School of Psycho-Magnetic Healing, followed, in 1901, by a doctorate from the International School of Osteopathy.
In 1913, however, he was preaching for the Second Christian Church in St. Louis. The church was organized in 1862 in a downtown manufacturing section and located at the corner of Eleventh and Tyler streets. Shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, 325 people found a spiritual home with this congregation. Under the ministry of Jennings, 65 people had been added to the church and, according to a note from 1913 in the Christian Standard, the church was “making progress under the leadership of Oliver W. Jennings.”
After his retirement from the ministry, Jennings remained in St. Louis until his death from medical complications associated with diabetes on 8 June 1920. “During his last days,” his obituary states, “he was surrounded by near relatives and a number of his friends, all of whom exercised themselves to the utmost, on his behalf and in their sympathy for Sister Jennings. His forbearance under suffering and in the presence of death was in perfect harmony with his life-long faith.” His mortal remains were taken to his childhood home in Westport, Kentucky, where his aged mother still lived at the point of O. W. Jennings death.
Bibliography:
Many thanks go again to Don Haymes, who helped me with materials and comments.
1.“Cash Book,” Portland Avenue Church of Christ; kindly made available by Alex Wilson.
2. Kentucky University Alumni Book: 1861-1896, edited by George Whitefield Kemper (Lexington, Kentucky: Transylvania Printing, 1896), 102.
3. Residence Directory of the Sigma Chi Fraternity (Chicago: The Sigma Chi Fraternity, 1902), 196.
4. John T. Brown, Churches of Christ (Louisville, Kentucky: John P. Morton, 1904), 348.
“Our Churches and Forces in St. Louis,” The Christian-Evangelist 51, no. 14 (2 April 1914): 438-439.
5. Oliver W. Jennings, Arkansas Souvenirs (East St. Louis, Illinois: The Call Printing Co., 1915).
6. Death Certificate: Missouri State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistic, File no. 23097, Reg. No. 6395 (online).
7. “Death of Oliver W. Jennings,” The Christian-Evangelist 57, no. 25 (17 June 1920): 608.
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