A fourth “Get Right With God” cross was recently erected on Ohio 49 between Antwerp and Hicksville thanks to the work of Jeff Hahn, Ken Hahn, Dan Hahn, Kenny Hahn and Nick Bragg. Also the land owners, Gary Derck and Brian Roemke, who donated the land site of the cross.
“Get Right With God.”
Over the years, how many people in northwest Ohio have seen the cross made of wood and corrugated steel in Paulding County with those words on it?
What started as one cross on what was U.S. 24 (now County Road 424) in Emerald Township near Vagabond Village, has grown into four crosses with that same message. The fourth cross was recently erected on Ohio 49 between Antwerp and Hicksville, near where Paulding and Defiance counties meet.
According to Jack Fetter, the former Defiance Area Youth for Christ executive director who cared for the original cross with youth from Youth for Christ for more than 25 years, the message “Get Right With God” took on a deeper meaning when the American Sign Museum of Cincinnati tried to purchase the sign in 2015.
“In 2015, a young lady was driving to Bryan when she saw the cross and thought she would try to purchase it for her boyfriend, who worked at the sign museum in Cincinnati,” began Fetter. “The young lady went to the Chamber of Commerce in Paulding and asked to buy it, so when word got out that someone was trying to take the cross, the people of Paulding County let it be known on social media that they had an emotional attachment to it.
“The day that a truck was supposed to come from Cincinnati to pick up the cross to take it to the museum the boyfriend of the young lady called me and said, “I’m not going to take the cross, because I’ve come to learn how much it means to the people there,” continued Fetter. “Thinking that the cross was going to be taken, I put together a committee (Get Right with God Cross) to erect a new sign with that same message.”
The first cross was eventually erected north of Paulding on U.S. 127 near U.S. 24, but Fetter’s work wasn’t done. He went to work to preserve the old cross of 50 years and was able to transport it to the John Paulding Historical Society Museum where it now is on display in front of the chapel in Building One.
The history of the original cross in Paulding County can be traced back to a man named Harrison Mayes (1898 – 1986). A Kentucky coal miner, Mayes dedicated his life to Christ at the age of 18 after nearly dying in a coal-mining accident. During his life, Mayes planted crosses in 46 states and 45 foreign countries in a 68-year period beginning in 1918, including erecting the cross in Paulding County in 1966.
We had enough donated funds from the first cross so we built a second cross which is on new U.S. 24 between Paulding and Fort Wayne. Then a gentleman from Van Wert ask us to build a third cross which is located on U.S. 30 between Van Wert and Fort Wayne.
“Fred Merritt (a Get Right with God Cross committee member) is the man who has done the construction of all the new crosses that have been erected,” said Fetter. “He’s the first one I picked to be on the committee (in 2015 when they thought the original cross was going to be sold to the sign museum). I realized that if that original cross was going to be taken to Cincinnati, we needed to do something to replace it. That’s why I formed the committee.
“Fred has been so amaizing to work with on these projects, I can’t say enough about the work he’s done…I really can’t,” added Fetter.
Other members of the committee include Kenny Simpson, Jeremy Moore and Tony Gonzales III.
“What looked bad (in 2015), turned out to be a blessing,” Fetter said.
Any Antwerp area church that would like to have a bulletin insert entitled, “A Legend with a Message” for your congregation contact Jack Fetter at jkfetter@tds.net.
