Before thermostats and humming vents took over the sanctuary, comfort depended on cardboard, wood, and ritual. Those notches carved into the backs of pews weren’t damage; they were deliberate cradles for hand fans that waited like silent ushers for the congregation to arrive. Each fan promised a small mercy—a printed portrait of Jesus, a sunset over distant hills, or an ad for the local funeral home—held tightly in the same hands that folded in prayer. When the preacher’s voice rose and the summer air thickened, an entire congregation lifted those fans at once, a rustling chorus of survival and devotion.
Now, the slots remain like half-erased memories in polished oak, puzzling to anyone who never sweated through a July revival. The air is cooler, the services shorter, the technology quieter. But that simple rhythm—reach back, take a fan, share the heat together—lingers as a tender reminder that once, staying in church meant literally weathering the storm, side by side, with nothing but faith and a scrap of cardboard.
