Celebrating the life of Orbra Toliver, the great carpenter behind Thomas Chapel United Methodist Church restoration
By Ann Meador
Contributing writer
Houston Chronicle
Dec 4, 2025
When the History Taskforce decided in 2021 that we wanted to try to restore the Thomas Chapel United Methodist Church in Willis, we knew we needed a carpenter who knew a lot about old historic wooden church buildings.
Because it was a Recorded Texas Landmark Building from 1899, it would have to be reconstructed with the same methods and same materials that were used by the sons of the slaves on the Greenwood Plantation in Danville when they built it. We soon discovered that there are not a lot of people who still know how to do that.
I started by talking to pastors across this area who had churches of a similar age to see who they got to make repairs on their own churches.
After talking to several elderly pastors in New Waverly, Crockett, Lufkin and numerous rural churches, one name kept coming up in these conversations…..Orbra Toliver…..in fact, the Rev. Orbra Toliver of the Toliver Memorial Church of God in Christ, right there in Willis. I called him to explain the project and he suggested that we meet at the church on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
We walked around the building looking at all the things that needed to be fixed. I had to confess to him that right at that moment I wasn’t sure where I would get the money to pay for this work. He just said that he would help with the work. I appreciate your offer but this is a different denomination from your church, I said.
God doesn’t live in any one church, he said. We are all brothers and sisters in God’s family and we should help each other. And so we did.
For the next three years, Rev. Toliver worked daily on that building, taking out rotted boards, rebuilding subfloors where raccoons had gnawed through to get inside, and building handrails on handicapped ramps with such skill that it is difficult to see where the boards were joined to each other. And he always took time to teach his skills to whatever volunteers we could find to help him.
To satisfy the architects at the Texas Historical Commission in Austin, he rebuilt windows from scratch to match the original ones and reproduced doors exactly like the ones that were original to the structure in 1899. Then he took out the pine slab that served as a threshold, likely found in the scrap pile at a local sawmill, and reset the door.
He often pointed out that the boards of different widths and lengths that made up the wall and ceiling of the 1952 community room addition probably came from the same scrap pile. Sawmills were a major employer of church members in those days. And since they did not have money, they had to make do with whatever they could find to use, he explained.
He was always careful to preserve this part of the story of the old building.
Sometimes when his cellphone rang, he would take a break from his work to speak to a church member or neighbor. He would sit on the steps of the church to pray with them, counsel them or read scripture with them from the Bible he kept in his work truck. In a little while he would come back inside, pick up his tools and go back to the repair he was working on.
After three long years of work on Thomas Chapel, it was as complete as we could make it with the money we had. Rev. Toliver seemed pleased with the results and returned to helping his neighbors and church members with repairs that they could not pay for. He always was there to help those who needed his skills as a carpenter and as a pastor.
Last January he was doing exactly that when he was called out to help someone in the community who needed help with damage caused by Hurricane Beryl.
During that work, something went wrong and he fell from the roof, suffering a head injury. He never fully regained consciousness.
From his bed in a Houston treatment center after nearly a year, in the early hours of Dec.1, he was again called out - called Home to be a helper to the Great Carpenter.
We will all miss him.
Contributing writer
Houston Chronicle
Dec 4, 2025
When the History Taskforce decided in 2021 that we wanted to try to restore the Thomas Chapel United Methodist Church in Willis, we knew we needed a carpenter who knew a lot about old historic wooden church buildings.
Because it was a Recorded Texas Landmark Building from 1899, it would have to be reconstructed with the same methods and same materials that were used by the sons of the slaves on the Greenwood Plantation in Danville when they built it. We soon discovered that there are not a lot of people who still know how to do that.
I started by talking to pastors across this area who had churches of a similar age to see who they got to make repairs on their own churches.
After talking to several elderly pastors in New Waverly, Crockett, Lufkin and numerous rural churches, one name kept coming up in these conversations…..Orbra Toliver…..in fact, the Rev. Orbra Toliver of the Toliver Memorial Church of God in Christ, right there in Willis. I called him to explain the project and he suggested that we meet at the church on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
We walked around the building looking at all the things that needed to be fixed. I had to confess to him that right at that moment I wasn’t sure where I would get the money to pay for this work. He just said that he would help with the work. I appreciate your offer but this is a different denomination from your church, I said.
God doesn’t live in any one church, he said. We are all brothers and sisters in God’s family and we should help each other. And so we did.
For the next three years, Rev. Toliver worked daily on that building, taking out rotted boards, rebuilding subfloors where raccoons had gnawed through to get inside, and building handrails on handicapped ramps with such skill that it is difficult to see where the boards were joined to each other. And he always took time to teach his skills to whatever volunteers we could find to help him.
To satisfy the architects at the Texas Historical Commission in Austin, he rebuilt windows from scratch to match the original ones and reproduced doors exactly like the ones that were original to the structure in 1899. Then he took out the pine slab that served as a threshold, likely found in the scrap pile at a local sawmill, and reset the door.
He often pointed out that the boards of different widths and lengths that made up the wall and ceiling of the 1952 community room addition probably came from the same scrap pile. Sawmills were a major employer of church members in those days. And since they did not have money, they had to make do with whatever they could find to use, he explained.
He was always careful to preserve this part of the story of the old building.
Sometimes when his cellphone rang, he would take a break from his work to speak to a church member or neighbor. He would sit on the steps of the church to pray with them, counsel them or read scripture with them from the Bible he kept in his work truck. In a little while he would come back inside, pick up his tools and go back to the repair he was working on.
After three long years of work on Thomas Chapel, it was as complete as we could make it with the money we had. Rev. Toliver seemed pleased with the results and returned to helping his neighbors and church members with repairs that they could not pay for. He always was there to help those who needed his skills as a carpenter and as a pastor.
Last January he was doing exactly that when he was called out to help someone in the community who needed help with damage caused by Hurricane Beryl.
During that work, something went wrong and he fell from the roof, suffering a head injury. He never fully regained consciousness.
From his bed in a Houston treatment center after nearly a year, in the early hours of Dec.1, he was again called out - called Home to be a helper to the Great Carpenter.
We will all miss him.
