Joseph was somewhere between 10 and 13 years of age when he ran away from home due to his parents not feeding him or his brothers and sisters. He awoke in the middle of the night and smelled bacon frying after being told by his parents, Joseph and Mary Ann Jackson Jeffries that there was nothing to eat. He climbed out of an upstairs window and went west.
Joseph became an old west cowboy. He was known for his fast draw with a six-gun. He came back to Missouri as an adult and married Mary Susan Pace who lived near Pacetown.
She went to church at the Pacetown church, but Joseph refused to go. Mary Susan would take the children and go to church anyway. Finally, Ike Pace, Mary Susan’s brother convinced Joseph that the preacher at the Pacetown church was lying. He told Joseph that the man told lies from the pulpit. Joseph was angry about the thought and said he would go and catch the man in a lie and prove he was a liar. Joseph went to church with Mary Susan the next service. He listened closely to the preacher, got under conviction, fell in the alter and was saved that night.
He never missed a service after that and was one of their best members. He was the beginning of the Jeffries family Missionary Baptist believers. I thank the Lord he got this family on the right path. There are many many descendents who have been saved since.
By Dawn London, facebook, March 29, 2011
Testimony of Joseph Filmore Jeffries as handed down in the family. Saved at Pacetown Missionary Baptist Church in the latter 1800s.
