EDITOR’S NOTE: Everyone has a story — some more well-known than others. Across Western North Carolina, so much history is buried below the surface. Six feet under. With this series, we introduce you to some of the people who have left marks big and small on this special place we call home.
Annie Logan Owens (1900-1996) was the daughter of the man who founded New Shiloh and pastored its church. Along with her husband, Rev. Frank Owens Sr. (1899-2001), the couple was partly responsible for the development of the neighborhood. Through their marriage, a new generation of the Shiloh community was raised; nurtured by their leadership both inside and outside of the church they served at.
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Rev. Frank J. Owens, Sr.
Frank J. Owens, who may have been called “Jules” as a child, was born on Jun. 5, 1899, in Union Mills, N.C. After growing up as a farm hand on his family’s land, Owens moved to Shiloh and married the daughter of the pastor there, Ms. Annie Logan.
“In late 1939, the Rev. [Frank] Owens was called to the ministry and was ordained in 1940 at Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church,” the Asheville Citizen-Times reported on Jun. 6, 1999, while announcing Owens’ centennial birthday party. “For the next 43 years, he preached God’s word in churches, hospitals, prisons and to everyone with whom he came in contact. He not only preached the gospel but also has lived his life as an anointed man of God.”
During his decades of expositing the Scriptures, Owens “preached at A.M.E. Zion churches in Shaw Creek, Clear Creek, Montreat, Old Fort and St. Mark in Asheville for an unspecified number of years,” according to Owens’ family historians.
Owens had several jobs besides preaching throughout his life, yet sharing the Gospel was his most precious position. The reverend was a gardener, noted for his beautiful flower beds. He worked for the Biltmore House for some time and for 27 years with American Enka.
About working at the Biltmore, Owens stated, “I was on housekeeping detail,” as reported in the Asheville Citizen on Nov. 29, 1978. “I washed every window in the Biltmore Mansion many a time,” he explained. “I washed a glass door so clean a man walked through the glass. Broke it all to pieces. You should’a seen us over in the corner snickering.”
At the time Owens worked there, American Enka was a Fortune 500 company. As reported in the same Asheville Citizen article, Owens said, “I was never late for work. Not once.”
Frank J. Owens, Sr. died on Jul. 25, 2001, in his home at the age of 102. “As a servant of God, he was a man who not only preached the word but lived the word his entire life,” the Asheville Citizen-Times published in his obituary on Jul. 25, 2001.
Annie Logan Owens
Annie Logan was born on Jun. 9, 1900, in Asheville where she would live her whole life. Logan’s father was the Rev. W.M. Logan, known to the locals as Uncle Billy. His contribution to Shiloh was immense.
When George Vanderbilt came to town looking to build his castle, it was Logan who negotiated with the tycoon for a fair buyout price for the land of Old Shiloh. Every homeowner in Old Shiloh agreed to the amount Logan bargained for. He then helped the community move.
Old Shiloh, where her Mrs. Owens father once lived, is now entirely enveloped by the Biltmore Estate. New Shiloh, where Owens was born, is situated to the east of the estate and north of Biltmore Forest on Highway 25.
“Mr. Vanderbilt was very good to the people,” Annie Owens explained to the Asheville Citizen on Nov. 29, 1978. Vanderbilt had previously invited the inhabitants of Shiloh to attend All Souls Parish in Biltmore Village, but they desired their own house of worship as they had once had in their previous neighborhood. Consenting to their request, the railroad businessman built a meeting space for Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church in their neighborhood.
“They even moved the deceased from the cemetery in Old Shiloh to the one in New Shiloh,” Owens said, praising Vanderbilt. According to her testimony, Vanderbilt also provided pews, stained glass windows and a bell for the new church.
Throughout her lifetime, Owens worked as a laundry woman and cook for private residents. But like her husband, the manual labor jobs were only to help pay for her large family’s bills. Her true passion was for ministry, both in a spiritual sense and as a neighbor. For more than 50 years, Owens served as the pianist for several A.M.E. Zion congregations in the area, including Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church. Not limited to the piano, Owens lead the choirs at these churches too.
Annie Logan Owens died on Dec. 5, 1996, at Hillhaven Rehabilitation Center in Asheville at the age of 96.
Rev. and Mrs. Frank Owens
Frank Owens married Annie Logan on Jul. 19, 1923. While census records cause some confusion, the couple had nine children in all. At least one was adopted from within the family. Seven of the nine survived their parents.
The Owens lived at 954 West Chapel Road for a few years before moving to 956 West Chapel Road in 1935. They lived at the latter residence for the rest of their lives.
When he was ordained, Frank Owens took the pastorship his father-in-law, Rev. Logan, once held at Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church. According to Annie Owens, her father preached until his death in 1921. Frank Owens’ father was also a preacher, reportedly expositing from the pulpit until the age of 95.
Rev. and Mrs. Frank J. Owens Sr. are buried side by side, sharing a single tombstone, in the cemetery of Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church. “Besides their surviving 7 children, 12 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, and 11 great-great-grandchildren, Frank and Annie left a lasting legacy on the Shiloh community and the greater Buncombe and McDowell Counties’ community as a whole,” local historians wrote.
Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church
The congregation of Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church next to the Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center, which is named for a fellow neighborhood leader called “the Mayor of Shiloh.”
The current meeting place for Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church is a replacement building for the one Vanderbilt paid for. “The church was used so much it became old and worn,” Owens told the Asheville Citizen on Nov. 29, 1978. “No one knows what happened to those beautiful stained-glass windows” Vanderbilt gifted them.
Shiloh A.M.E. Zion Church remains a fixture of the Shiloh neighborhood with its doors still open a century later.
Do you enjoy learning about Asheville’s history? Check out these other stories about people who have left a legacy in Western North Carolina: