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Little church in Bokeelia shaping lives since 1940

By PAULETTE LeBLANC / pleblanc@breezenewspapers.com - | Jan 11, 2023

The Church of God of Prophecy today. Photo provided by Nellie Price

According to Nellie Price, the Church of God of Prophecy Pentecostal Church in Bokeelia began in 1940, by holding services inside people’s homes.

Eventually, the people asked Lee County officials for permission to meet in the local school building, which was granted, providing nothing about the church interfered with the school. In 1944, the county decided the children should be bused to North Fort Myers for school and put the building and property up for sale. The building was originally purchased for $1,305 when Price’s father, Jimmie Howard, put a sealed bid in to the county and then found out it was the highest bid. The former school has been owned by the church ever since and still stands on Stringfellow Road today.

An integral part of her whole life, Price still finds herself making the chicken dinners the church offers for take-out, which began when her parents helped run the church, and continue as a financial resource to this day.

“Mom and Dad got the chicken dinners started. Back then, it was in the old building, which is the parsonage. The boys would get the sawhorse and put plywood across it to make tables. We didn’t have chairs, we had wood benches that we sat on in church. We would stretch them out and people would come in and sit on them to eat their dinner. I believe back then, we got $2 a plate. You could have fried chicken or fried mullet, potato salad, green beans and Mama made all the desserts on the wood stove,” Price said.

Her mother’s homemade desserts included coconut cakes, from fresh coconuts; lemon pies, with fresh lemons they grew; and once even a watermelon pie, for a wise cracking gentleman who wasn’t expecting Price’s mother to actually make one. Price said the man thought the watermelon pie was so good he ended up buying the whole thing.

The church is housed in a building that had been a school in Bokeelia. Photo provided by Nellie Price

Often, her mother, Lillie, would make cactus apple jelly from cactus apples she found on the beach in Bokeelia, which is now private property.

“She would make fresh orange marmalade, from fresh oranges, and put fresh ground coconut in it — a lot of times that’s what she would put on her cake, instead of putting regular frosting on it.

“She would can the mullet Daddy caught and you could use it like you can with canned salmon,” Price said.

The church’s take-out chicken dinners began long ago, in Price’s parents’ day. People had their choice of eating in the church, taking it out or, Price recalls, when she was young, they would deliver the dinners to islanders’ homes, even going as far as St. James City, until the pandemic, when the dinners became take-out only.

In addition to the dinners, Price said, the congregant’s regular Sunday giving, as well as occasional generous donations, are how the church survives financially on the whole. The church also provides a take-out Turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, for the same fee.

The Howard family on Pine Island. Mother Lillie is pictured in the back row holding Nellie. At right holding another young Howard is Nellie’s father, Jimmie. Photo provided by Nellie Price

Although the number of congregants varies throughout the year, Hurricane Ian has made this a particularly rough season financially on many who count on the patronage of northerners and snowbirds, Price said. This church, she admits, has provided her with guidance for the way of living each day of her life. A constant and steadying force, rich in history, Price’s family has had a hand on this little church since it began. Even in the face of a terrible hurricane, her faith has given her inner peace, she said.

“God is watching over and protecting me, sometimes when I’m not even aware of it,” Price said. “When I went to the doctor in 2016, they said I was knocking on death’s door. My thyroid had completely quit working. The ball of my hip was completely out of the socket and the doctor said I was a walking miracle, because I should not have been able to walk and I had been walking like that and helping with the chicken dinners and doing my daily housework.

“Before they could do a hip replacement, I had to have three stents put in my heart. The last stent wouldn’t go in and my friends were praying, without the doctor knowing it — while they were praying the stent went right in. So that’s teaching me that with God, all things are possible.”

The Church of God of Prophecy if located at 15146 Stringfellow Road, Bokeelia. For additional information about the church, call 239-283-2128.