Texas home of college co-founder will rest at Hyles-Anderson.
By Diane Krieger Spivak / The Hammond Times, November 6, 2001
CROWN POINT -- The Rev. Jack Hyles, spiritual leader of more than 100,000 local Baptists, was born in 1926 in the back bedroom of a simple one-story white frame house in Italy, Texas, about 35 miles south of Dallas.
Thanks to the efforts of Hyles' close personal friend and colleague, the Rev. Ray Young, that home will become a permanent monument to Hyles, who passed away in February, on the grounds of the school he co-founded, Hyles-Anderson College, located in unincorporated Center Township.
"We're very excited about the possibility of being able to do this," said Young, the church's assistant pastor and executive vice president of Hyles-Anderson College.
The Lake County Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously approved a special exception that will allow the house to be rebuilt on college grounds. The 16-by-24-foot home, which was brought to Indiana from Italy, Texas, in September, is sitting in pieces on the campus, said John Rice of Rice Construction in Crown Point.
Young bought the house for $5,000 and brought it back to Indiana in pieces about a month ago. Young, who worked closely with Hyles for 26 years, said he first encountered the building about 15 years ago when he talked Hyles into taking a group of church members to Italy to tour the town Hyles called home.
"On the tour we stopped at this house where he was born," Young said.
Young went on 17 more of the tours through the years, 12 of them with Hyles.
"After he passed away, I took one more group in August," Young said.
The home, which has a small living room, kitchen and three very small bedrooms, will join the first church Hyles preached in, which was moved to the campus in 1995.
Young said he is not yet sure what the home will be used for.
"We haven't gotten that far yet," Young said, adding that it will not be used as a part-time classroom as is the relocated church. "We'll take it one step at a time."
"Our students and out-of-town guests will find it interesting to tour the house," he said. "The church is very, very loved by our church members and students and thousands of Baptists from across the nation," Young said. "We have a small museum already with artifacts from his life that may wind up in the house."
First Baptist Church has been at its current location at 523 Sibley St. for more than 100 years, Young said. Hyles was pastor of the church from 1959 until February.
"He was still active senior pastor when he passed away," Young said.
Thousands attended Hyles' funeral.
"The church members and college students loved Brother Hyles very deeply," Young said.
Rice said his company is responsible for reconstructing the small home, and the project will be completed sometime this winter.
"(The Rev. Hyles) lived in poverty," Rice said of the house, which had no plumbing or electricity.
Hyles lived in the house through his toddler years.
Rice Construction also was responsible for reconstructing on the campus Hyles' first church, which also was moved to the campus from Texas.
Rice and his wife, Debi, are parishioners at First Baptist Church and said they knew Hyles, who married them in 1976.
He said the museum is a fitting tribute to the local religious leader.
"(Hyles-Anderson College) is doing a lot of things so that his memory will not die," he said.
Times staff writer Marti Trgovich contributed to this report.