ERNEST REGINALD SAMS
Researched and submitted by
Dr. Dennis Brewer
Rev. E. R. Sans was born at Great Crossings in Scott County near Georgetown, Kentucky, October 10, 1884. He was the fourth child in a family of eleven born to Nancy Emerine and William Sams; three died in infancy. His father died when he was ten years old. He completed elementary school then dropped out of school and worked to help support the family and send his younger sisters to school. Later he returned to school and attended Georgetown College. In 1918, when the flu epidemic ran rampant, he had his personal possessions packed, ready to go to the Southern Baptist Seminary. That institution was closed for several months; Brother Sams never got to the seminary.
In 1909 Ernest Reginald Sams married Edna Clara Cart, who worked faithfully by his side and was a great help to him in his work. To this union were born nine children, seven of which attained maturity. The importance of education was stressed in the home and all of the seven children received a college education; six of them were school teachers.
Brother E. R. Sams was ordained to preach by the Great Crossings Baptist Church in 1911 and he pastored a number of churches in the Scott County area. In 1922 he moved to Owen County where he was pastor of Pleasant Ridge Church at Sweet Owen as well as other small churches throughout the area.
E. R. Sans, 0. P. Jackson and Birchett Kemper are listed as ordained ministers present at the First Baptist of Owenton, September 2l, 1924, when the churches from the disbanded Concord and Owen Associations, along with the churches in the Ten Mile Association located in Owen County, met and organized the Owen County Baptist Association.
E. R. Sams started his ministry in Boone’s Creek Association on January 1, 1929, and served as pastor of six different churches over the next twenty years. He was pastor of Providence from March 1, 1929, through 1936; South Irvine from July 1, 1929, through 1933; Calvary from January 1,1929 through 1938; Drowning Creek 1932; Beattyville 1933-1948 and Zion from 1934-1940. In addition to serving as pastor of the Churches, Brother Sams conducted sixteen Bible Schools in 1946, fifteen Bible Schools in 1947, ten Bible Schools in 1948 and nine Bible Schools in 1949.
E. R. Sams was interested in all phases of church work, stressing a fully graded Sunday School, Training Union and Missionary Societies. His personal notes show that he held men’s meetings using W. M. U. material; this was before the organization of Brotherhood. He conducted services at mission points in Lee County and pioneered in Vacation Bible School work, being assisted in this effort by college students and pastors from over the state who donated two weeks of their summer for this effort. Georgetown College students also came on afternoon and conducted services at mission points. Three churches were built as a result of this effort.
E. R. Sams, along with T. P. Edwards and George Grubbs are listed among the state missionaries who spoke briefly of their fields of labor before the General Association at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, November 14, 1944.
After retirement as Pastor of Beattyville Baptist Church and County Missionary for Lee County, E. R. Sams moved to Louisville where he taught a men’s Bible class at the Okolona Baptist Church and also supplied pulpits until his death in 1963 at the age of seventy eight.