Unnamed Congregants at Goodyhay's Church

The congregants in Goodyhay's church are mostly ex-soldiers and their wives or mistresses; one of the men wears a "barracks cap still showing where the officer's badge had been removed" (305), and another refers to the group as "ex-drafted sons of bitches" (300). But the group also includes "the moms and pops of soldiers that got killed" (295) as well as the men who help to build at the two church sites. Mink later observes "the two oldish couples, man and wife of course, farmers obviously, without doubt tenant-farmers come up from the mortgaged bank- or syndicate-owned cotton plantation from which the son had been drafted" (310). "A dozen" of the men in this group appear working to build a meeting house for the sect (304), and as a group they have clearly been alienated from more conventional society by their experiences of World War II. The group also includes "a big Negro woman" and a former "Catalpa Street" prostitute (305) - they have their own entries.