SOWELL, Felix Cicero, Sr., 20 Nov 1859 - 1 Aug 1951. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." (Son W. J. & Emily J. Sowell; h/o Mary Evans Sowell; well known Church of Christ preacher.) Block "K"
Gospel preacher listed on
Ligon's Portraiture of Preachers of 1899. He was one of "Larimore's Boys" who
baptized over 3,500 souls.
F. C. Sowell was born November 20, 1859, in Maury County, Tenn., near Columbia.
His father and mother built their home in the bend of Duck River and reared
their boys to work its fertile fields and brought them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord, and the Lord's day found the family worshiping God "as
it is written" at old Antioch Church, the mother and children always sitting in
the "amen corner," and the father was the head of the house and one of the
leaders of the church. He went to the little country schools three months in the
year, and at the age of sixteen obeyed the gospel under the preaching of J. M.
F. Smithson, and was buried with his Lord in baptism by his uncle, Davey Sowell,
in Duck River. He wanted to become a preacher, and his good father, wishing to
help him in this laudable ambition, sent him to school in Williamson County to
the brother of David Lipscomb, William Lipscomb, and then later to Mars Hill,
Ala., where he was very happy with "Larimore and his boys." At the age of twenty
he began to preach the gospel, and on June 18, 1884, he married Miss Mary Evans,
of Hickman County, a godly, consecrated, Christian woman, who was the mother of
his eight children. They lived together almost fifty years, and she passed on in
1933. Brother Sowell has preached the gospel to thousands of persons in many
States of the Union, but the most of his efforts have been in Tennessee. He has
baptized about thirty-five hundred people and established many congregations
throughout the land. He never made a charge or received a specified salary for
his work, but relied on the freewill offerings of the churches, as did the early
disciples, and owes no man anything. On November 20 he was eighty years young,
is hale and hearty, and attributes his good health to his regular habits. He has
never used tobacco in any form, and is a great lover of the soil, and the early
morning hours of spring and summer find him busily engaged working with his own
hands, as did Paul, in his large garden, which is not only a pleasure, but a
profit as well. He long since exchanged his horse and buggy for an automobile,
and travels hundreds of miles every year performing marriage ceremonies,
preaching funerals for the high and low, the rich and poor. He delights to visit
the schools and tell the children stories from the Bible which they seem eager
to hear. He preaches the gospel every Lord's day, the same old Jerusalem gospel
he has been preaching these sixty years, for he loves to tell the story of Jesus
and his love.- Gospel Advocate, Jan. 11, 1940, 87.