Christmas During the Great Depression.

People keep asking about growing up during the Great Depression. Specifically, “how was Christmas celebrated? "

Today we see Christmas decorations in stores before labor Day. When I was a child in the 1920's and 30's, we did not start decorating for Christmas in September. Neither we nor our neighbors had the time nor money to decorate for Christmas until Christmas week. Usually it was done on Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas tree was a pine tree brought in from a nearby wooded area between our house and the Yellow River. In my earliest memories of our Christimas trees,(late 1920's) we decorated the tree with strings of popped corn, red and green roping from the store and home made roping made of colored paper rings as in the picture above.

I remember at least one Christmas when we had the red and green roping from corner to corner across the ceiling, coming down into a swag with a large Christmas green paper bell attached in the center! It was the kind of bell that folded up and made a round bell when spread open.

I remember as a child, lying in bed on Christmas Eve, trying to go to sleep so it would be Christmas when I woke up. Christmas was Christmas Day.

Children in my day didn't have as much reason to be excited about Christmas presents as children do today. Or perhaps they had more reason?

When I woke up, there would be a stocking (one of my knee stockings left on a chair beside my bed) filled with candy and raisins (dried on the stems), a large red apple and an orange. There would also be some stick candy and chocolate drops and nuts, walnuts, pecans and large Brazil nuts.

I might also receive a pair of warm gloves, a scarf or cap and a pair of roller skates. I loved skating and skating up and down the paved sidewalks was a common activity for children and youth. We had paved walkways as everyone walked. The first paved roads in my town are in my memory bank as the South began to recover enough to prepare roads for the a few cars that were appearing in the mid thirties.

We did not have bowls of fresh fruit and/or nuts on the table or in the fridge all the time as now. Of course, we had peaches, pears and country apples in season. But not large red "store bought" apples. Not oranges.

Oranges had to be shipped from Florida so were expensive and rare in the late twenties and early 30's. My mother (3-6-1885 - 12-07-1973) told me how she and her little sisters would sit and eat their once - a -year orange and excitedly swap slices with one another.

Bishop Arthur J. Moore, a prominant Methodist Bishop of my mother's generation told "if one fell madly in love with a girl, he might share one piece of his Christmas orange with her".

Cooking and sharing cakes was one of the special Christmas traditions in our area. Mama always cooked a Japanese Fruit Cake. I do not have the recipe but the three cake layers of the JFC would be put together with two fruit and nut layers.

Mama's chocolate cake (still the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted) with her homemade fudge icing was my favorite. She made favorites for family members and friends including a coconut layer cake, an applesauce raisin cake, and several other kinds. Cakes were ready to be served when neighbors and friend dropped by for a Christmas visit.

Mama always cooked a hen with dressing and a ham for Christmas also. Mama cooked only one turkey that I can remember. She bought the turkey alive (chickens were also bought alive in those days.) I remember that after Mama got the turkey prepared (it's head chopped off, plucked, cleaned, dressed, and cooked), she had lost her appetite for turkey.

I hate to say it, as some of you may be on your way to a Turkey Dinner, but Mama never wanted to eat turkey again. I think the ordeal of preparing a smaller bird was not quite as traumatic as preparing a big turkey.

I have seen Mama wring the neck to kill a chicken, then pour boiling water over the limp bird and pluck the feathers off a few at a time. Smelly! Then she would singe the smaller feathers and hairs off with a burning piece of newspaper, scrub the skin, and finally take the insides out.

Mama would never have been so "wasteful" as to skin the chicken, as I soon learned to do. This would delete the "singe the hairs off" step.

Also, being a city girl, I could never wring the chicken’s neck but found it easier (and I thought more humane) to chop the neck off with an ax. Just thinking of this has helped to make me more and more vegetarian.

Santa Claus Is Alive and Well

" There is no Santa Claus. " My big sister dropped the bomb, "even dummies know that."

I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit Grandma.

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns.

I knew her cinnamon rolls were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true. Grandma was home, and the rolls were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus?" she said...."Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let's go." "Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through it's doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only nine years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping.

For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, and the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-4 class.

Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he just had no coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. Yes, ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby." The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper. A little tag fell out of the coat, but Grandma said it was okay and just tucked it in her Bible. We finished wrapping the coat and tied the package with pretty ribbon, then wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever, officially one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk.Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going." I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

Grandma has long since passed on, but I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside. ....It says, $19.95

Remembering the Goosebumps

On a summer bicycle tour of Hawaii, a friend and his companion pedaled up a hill as a rainbow arched across the horizon. Then, to make the scene even more awesome, a cooling rain began to fall while the sun was still shining! In awe, he turned to his friend and said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could bottle this up and bring it out some dreary November day?” The friend replied, “You need to do what my father taught me. My father told me to remember my goosebumps.”

Remember the good times? We should look back to recall those moments that brought sunshine in our lives; the “goosebump” moments are the rainbows in the storms of our life.

Someone has named the season we are now in “Hallow-thank-mas." The so-called “holiday season” begins earlier and lasts longer than ever. Now, it begins before Halloween (with increasingly elaborate Halloween decorations) and continues through the many festivities of Christmas. Sometimes it seems Thanksgiving gets overlooked and forgotten, but it is one of our more important celebrations as a nation –– a time when we pull away from our work and spend time with family to acknowledge all the blessings that have come our way.

Thanksgiving Day as a holiday began in the fall of 1621when the Pilgrims in America who had survived their first winter in America were facing the uncertainty of their second winter. The wheat and the peas they had brought with them failed to germinate. At one point their daily rations were 5 grains of corn. In the fall of 1622, there was enough food and shelter for the survivors to last a second winter. While they still had problems; they were filled with gratitude to God; that level of gratitude is credited with getting them through subsequent winters and the numerous future challenges and problems that they faced in establishing their roots in this new land.

Back in the fifties when my husband was a student pastor, he drove about 90 miles every weekend to preach at a small country church. The children and I usually went with him and stayed in a non-furnished five room “parsonage with a path.” But Thanksgiving Sunday, 1952 I stayed home in our small college campus apartment with a sick baby. I was exhausted from losing sleep and it was a cold and dreary day. After finally getting the baby to sleep, a little after eleven, I turned on the radio (no TV) while washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen.

A preacher was in the midst of sermon about things for which to be thankful. He said, “Have you ever thanked God for dirty dishes.” And as tired as I was, I smiled and looked down at the sink full of dishes that I was tackling. And I realized: “If one has dirty dishes, there’s been food to eat. People with no food do not have dishes to wash.” Have you ever thought that the beggar out on the street has no dishes to wash, no floors to mop or furniture to dust?

The preacher read a poem that I have never seen in print but remember it as something like this:

“Thank God for the dirty dishes
For they’ve a story to tell
And from the stack I have to wash
We’ve eaten very well.
While folks in other lands,
Are glad for just a crust
From this stack of evidence
God’s mighty good to us.”

Thanking God for the things we usually take for granted is a step in the right direction on Thanksgiving Day and every day. In our own time, too many of us seem to have an “Archie Bunker” attitude saying “I do not say grace at the table…because I buy the food and Edith cooks it." A good place to start, then, is to begin with zero and move up to the level of being grateful for ordinary things of life, food to eat, a clean bed, a warm house, fresh apples, turnips greens and cornbread, the smell of flowers, a Christmas tree, a church. And freedom! I think I may have gotten a new idea of what “zero” means when I saw some women from Afghanistan, a few years ago, expressing their thanks for being able to uncover their faces and the Afghan men being free to shave or grow a bread as they wished.

One of my favorite stories is about an immigrant shopkeeper whose son came to see him on day and complained, “Dad, I don’t understand how you run this store. You keep your accounts payable in a shoe box, your accounts receivable on a spindle, and your cash is in the register. How do you ever know where your profits are?”

The father replied, “Son, when I came to this country, all I owned was on my back. Now your sister is an art teacher, your brother is a doctor, you are a CPA. Your mother and I own a house and a car and this small store. Add all of that up and subtract the clothes on my back and there is your profit.

I suspect that many of us could give similar testimonies.

Helen Keller, blind and deaf, said, “I thank God for my handicaps. Through them I have found myself, my work, my God.”

Whatever it takes in our hectic world, we need to find God.

Some of us rarely think about God and the blessings he pours out on us. One source of ingratitude is lack of thought! “Think” in the Anglo-Saxon is related to “Thank.” A “thank” is a “thought.” To “think” is to “thank.” The Psalmist tells us to remember, to think, and to thank. “Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all His benefits.” Forget not…remember. Thoughtful people are thankful people.

Trick or Treat; Happy Halloween! !

Halloween Trick or Treat beauties at my house last year! Little Red Riding Hood, Beautiful Witch , Flapper Girl and Boxing Champ!

Wilberforce Signing!

On the evening of December 10, 2008, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act was passed by both houses of Congress. The White House invited 10 representatives from non-government organizations to be present at the Wilberforce signing in the Oval office (December 2008). They also invited 4 political appointees in various offices that deal with anti-trafficking efforts.

Pictured above is our daughter , Dr. Janice Crouse, who was one of those chosen for this historical signing in the Oval office (slighly to the right of President George W. Bush ) The Wilberforce signing was part of the Battle to Pass the
William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act . (1)

These chosen for the signing were people who have worked on the front lines of the policy battles over the anti-trafficking efforts.

The widespread and increasing use of rape as a systematic weapon of war, even of genocide, the international trafficking in persons, mainly women and children, has also risen alarmingly. Children are sold and women are lured or kidnapped and then sold into sexual slavery.

William Wilberforce 1759-1833
William Wilberforce came from a prosperous merchant family of Kingston-upon-Hull, a North Sea port. At twenty-one, elected to Parliament for his native town. A conversion to evangelical Christianity in 1785 changed his approach to politics. In 1787 he became, the parliamentary leader of the slavery abolition movement. William Willberforce labored ceaselessly for the abolition of slavery.

John Wesley, on the 24th of February, 1793 at age eighty-eight year, a week before his death, wrote the last letter he would ever write. The letter was to Wilberforce ,urging him to continue the fight for the Abolition of Slavery. Wesley said, "...Oh, be not weary in well-doing. Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall be banished away..."

It was under John Wesley's preaching and work among the poor in England that a revival of Christan faith and care for the poor spread thoughout England. At the time of the American Revolution it swept across the ocean to American with the great evangelistic preaching and work by George Whitfield, Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury.

It was Christians, like Wilberforce and Wesley who fought against the evil of slavery. As far as we know, no one of the Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Secularist, Atheist or other religion ever fought to end the worldwide system of slavery.

1.Other invited quests for the signing in the picture above include L to R, Michael Chertoff- former Secretary of Homelan Security, Michael Horowitz-Hudson Institute, Rachel Lloyd- Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS). New York City, NYC. Gary Haugen- International Justice Mission, Brad Miles-Polarius Project, Kevin Bales- Author of Disposal People, Directly behind Janice Shaw Crouse is Richard Land, head of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for Southern Baptists

Autumn Wisdom

The Prophet Isaiah (55:12) talks about mountains and hills breaking forth into singing and trees clapping their hands.

It seems to me the mountains are singing clearer and louder in Autumn. It is in the Fall of the year that the mountains call us to see and hear and experience the beauty of the mountains!

John Muer made some interesting comments about trees, not just about trees singing but also preaching! He wrote: "Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish." -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

A few years ago, Ken Cook, a meteorologist, spoke to our Retired Pastors group at Simpsonwod United Methodist Center about his flower business in North Georgia. He told us that his Dahlias bloom in the Spring and in the Fall. He said that when they bloom again in the Fall, the colors are more vibrant and sparkling than when they bloomed in the Spring.

More vibrant, more sparkling in the Fall? (The photo above is a small vase of the Amazingly beautiful Autumn blooming Dahlias from the garden of Terrell and Sheila Shaw (October 17, 2009) On the right is a dahlia blooming in a pot near my driveway now in October 2010. (photo by Joan)

What about the Autumn of life? I wrote a poem! The last verse of my poem is for all of us who are “old” and for the rest of us who are planning on getting a “whole lot older.”

Autumn Wisdom

I walked into October
And lifted up my ears to hear
The very mountains singing
Choir-robed for praise . . .
in Autumn . . . clear . . .

Sunset yellows, burning bush reds.
My heart . . . in awe . . . took off its shoes
And stood on Holy ground to view
Creation's God in Autumn hue . . .

For every tree was clapping
The Doxology . . . lifted high
I think some unseen maestro
Was pointing to the sky!

I heard the mountains singing
With concert voices raised
When every hill pulled out the stops,
Adorned in breathless Autumn praise!.

I shall long remember this:
The mountains grandest notes are sung
Not in springtime's newness .
But in Autumn’s aging tongue.

by R.B.S. copyright 1989

Five Get-To-Know-You Questions

Five Get-to-Know-You Questions


1. What was your favorite game as a child? Hop Scotch, Jack's.

2. What's the best thing about being you? I am blessed by my children and their children. I had the love of my husband, a good man. My parents were loving and good people. But finally and forever, my relationship with Christ.

3. What's your favorite meal of the day, and why? Breakfast. I do not know why...but it is the start of a new day.

4. Would you rather be exceptionally smart or exceptionally good-looking? Who in the world made up these questions? It is a difficult one in that most of us, it seems to me, want to be as smart and also as good looking as possible? My generation of women felt they were judged by the their appearance. So perhaps put too much importance on "looks." I always thought it would be nice to be a petite blond. But not a dumb one.

I taught a Senior Citizens Sunday School Class a few days ago. The lesson was about Paul writing to Timothy to instruct the church to take special care of the older men and women and especially the widows in the church. One of the women said, it is intersting how people pass by older women as if they do not see them. So we all agreed that losing one's "good looks" is about as difficult as losing one's mind. In which case I thank God to still have a good sense of humor.

5. How would you describe your underwear drawer? Unfortunately I have my own lonely bedroom so I have double the space I used to have. So everythng is fairly neat.

Happy Birthday Carol on August 26!

Happy Birthday Carol on August 26!

Carol is our middle child with a brother and two sisters older than she and two sisters and a brother younger. Carol calls herself The Median Sib, but there is nothing middle about her except being the fourth of seven children born to her daddy and me. On a scale of one to ten, she is a ten! Never a four!

Carol was a beautiful baby and a very feminine little girl with blond curly hair, She was as beautiful and wonderfully precocious as her own son and daughter and the three precious little granddaughters she now loves to be with and often writes about.

Carol is more like me in size (four other daughters being short in height as was their paternal grandmother and other women in the family. Carol is about five feet six as am I. Carol also shares my love for cooking. She is a fabulous and innovative cook.

Also, as Joan of Daddy’s Roses fame pointed out, Carol (and Joan) share my reserved nature so they may actually “understand me” somewhat better than their 5 more gregarious siblings.

However as we all know, none of us are limited by being “reserved” or “gregarious” but all of us are a combination of both with unlimited possibilities though the grace of Christ.

All those who have grown children know that they all think (whether they are reserved or gregarious) that they understand their parents only too well.

But I am blessed beyond measure to love and have a good relationship with all seven of my children and my five sons-in-law and two daughters -in -law. The picture on the left is Carol with her 3 younger siblings.

Happy Birthday Carol! Carol is an outstanding teacher and writer and has a great “Erma Bombeck” sense of humor illustrated in many of her articles published in the Nashville paper a few years ago.

The first snapshot on the left above is a current photo of Carol and next is Carol and her husband Ron with grandaughter Lily was diagnosed with Leukemia on December 1, 2009 and is doing well now. The picture on the right is Carol sitting next to me in our parsonage home in Ellijay GA. beside her is her two younger sisters. One her right is her daddy and two brothers.

In 2001 Carol (on the right) took time off to drive me to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore from my home inGeorgia for TriGeminal surgery by Dr Ben Carson. Carol and I spent a few days of recuperation with daughter Janice and her family in Maryland. The picture shows Carol and Janice with me in the hospital.

Hymns












Occupational Hymns

Dentist's Hymn.......................Crown Him with Many Crowns
Weatherman's Hymn...............There Shall Be Showers of Blessings
Contractor's Hymn..................The Church's One Foundation
The Tailor's Hymn...................Holy, Holy, Holy
The Golfer's Hymn..................There's a Green Hill Far Away
The Politician's Hymn..............Standing on the Promises
Optometrist's Hymn.................Open My Eyes That I Might See
The IRS Agent's Hymn.............I Surrender All
The Gossip's Hymn..................Pass It On
The Electrician's Hymn.............Send The Light
The Shopper's Hymn................Sweet Bye and Bye
The Realtor's Hymn..................I've Got a Mansion
Massage Therapists Hymn....... He Touched Me
The Doctor's Hymn..................The Great Physician
Husband's Hymn......................Oh Why Not Tonight

AND for those who speed - a few hymns:

45mph...God Will Take Care of You
65mph...Nearer My God To Thee
85mph...This World Is Not My Home
95mph...Lord, I'm Coming Home
100mph...Precious Memories


Give me a sense of humor Lord,
Give me the grace to see a joke,
To get some humor out of life,
And pass it on to other folk


(copied from email)

Mama as Midwife

Mama as Midwife
My mother was energetic and thoughtful.

After my Father's death, in addition to holding down a responsible job (as a weaver in the Cord Weave Shop, weaving heavy cloth for tents and other such material on massive looms ) in the large Osprey Mill near our home, Mama also did cooking, cleaning and looking after her family and was always ready to assist neighbors during sickness or childbirth

In the 1930's, babies were born at home in small town Georgia. Our neighbors would send for the doctor and often for Mama. I am told Mama was respectful and good at helping the young mother to rest and stay calm between contractions during labor.

Then a new doctor with new methods came to town. One day our neighbor, Mrs. Geneva Johnson had her eighth baby with the help of Mama and the new doctor. It was a boy.

Mrs Johnson, thrilled with her fifth son and eight child said, "I'm going to name him after Dr. William Baxter and Mrs. Baird." The baby was named William Baird Johnson. One reason Mrs. Johnson was so delighted with the baby and the people who delivered him was the "new" birth technique.

Dr. Baxley actually was able to "put Mrs. Johnson to sleep" before he delivered the baby.

Prior to Dr. Baxley's arrival in town, Mrs Johnson and other women in our area had their babies the old fashioned way...work (long and hard labor.) In other words "natural childbirth" without so much as a aspirin and without a coach. Well, the mid-wife was the coach. The husband-father had been banished from the room.

When Mrs. Johnson woke up and realized her baby had been born "while she was asleep", she was incredulous. Mama said Geneva kept saying over and over (still giddy from anesthesia,) "I don't plan on having any more young'uns (short for young ones), but if I do, I'm sure going to have Dr. Baxley here... and you, too, Mrs. Baird."

Saying of Will Rogers

Will Rogers, an American sage in the early part of the 1900's, died in a plane crash With Wylie Post in 1935.

I well remember the "Breaking News " about the death of Will Rogers in 1935. (on the radio and in the newspapers and word of mouth) Some say Rogers was probably the greatest political sage this country has ever known.

Some of his sayings include: :
1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3. There are 2 theories to arguing with a woman...neither works.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the Herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.
8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who ` learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, Take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
13.Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
14. When you're full of bull, keep your Mouth shut.

ABOUT GROWING OLDER.

First ~ Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age
and start bragging about it.

Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

Third ~ Some people try to turn back Their odometers. Not me, I want people
To know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of
the roads weren't paved.

Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.

Fifth ~ You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

Sixth ~ I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it
is such a nice change from being young.

Eighth ~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

Ninth ~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

Tenth ~ Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf

Eleven~ If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have
anything to laugh at when you are old.

CINNAMON and HONEY

WeeklyWorld News, a magazine in Canada, in its January 1995 edition gave a list of diseases that are said to be cured by honey and cinnamon. Whether it is "Fact or Fiction," it is interesting reading?

HEART DISEASES: Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, apply on bread, instead of jellyand jam, and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the patient from heart attack. Also those who have already had an attack, if they do this process daily, they are kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada , various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as you age, the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and veins.

ARTHRITIS: Arthritis patients may take daily, morning, and night, one cup of hot water with two spoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. If taken regularly even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University , it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week,out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain, and within a month, mostly all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis started walking without pain.

BLADDER INFECTIONS:Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder.

TOOTHACHE:Make a paste of one teaspoon of cinnamon powder and five teaspoons of honey and apply on the aching tooth. This may be applied three times a day until the tooth stops aching.

CHOLESTEROL:Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water, given to a cholesterol patient, was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. Asmentioned for arthritic patients, if taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol is cured. According to information received in the said journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.

COLDS:Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and clear the sinuses.

UPSET STOMACH:Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also clears stomach ulcers from the root.

GAS:According to the studies done in India and Japan , it is revealed that ifhoney is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas.

IMMUNE SYSTEM:Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system andprotects the body from bacteria and viral attacks. Scientists have foundthat honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles to fight bacteria and viral diseases.

INDIGESTION: Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food relievesacidity and digests the heaviest of meals.

INFLUENZA: A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural Ingredient which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu.

LONGEVITY: Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests theravages of old age. Take four spoons of honey, one spoon of cinnamon powder and three cups of water and boil to make like tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans also increases and even a 100 year old, starts performing the chores of a 20-year-old.

PIMPLES:Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Applythis paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it next morning withwarm water. If done daily for two weeks, it removes pimples from the root.

SKIN INFECTIONS:Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin infections.

WEIGHT LOSS:Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast on an empty stomachand at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in onecup of water. If taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.

CANCER:Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer ofthe stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder for one monththree times a day.

FATIGUE: Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than! than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Seniorcitizens, who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts, are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M. when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, increases the vitality of the body within a week.

BAD BREATH:People of South America , first thing in the morning, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water, so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.

HEARING LOSS: Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal partsrestore hearing. Remember when we were kids? We had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it! And real honey from combs.

Happy Birthday Dear Janice

Happy Birthday to our Precious daughter, Janice On June 3. Jan1ce was our first baby. No couple could have been happier when our bright and beautiful Janice Dianne was born to Charles and me just ten months after our marriage. We were young and had much to learn, but were idealistic and eager to be good parents. Janice was a beautiful and outgoing child who learned to walk and talk early. Janice at 7 months in baby stroller.

With no children to play with at home, Janice slipped out of the yard to visit and talk to all the neighbors, children as well as the adults (a safe neighborhood).

With her shy mother close behind her, Janice taught me how to make friends with all my neighbors.

My wise mother mentioned to me that she had tired to teach her children many things but found she had also learned much from each of them.

I can say the same because Janice early on taught her young introverted mother how to be neighborly. Janice and my other children and grandchildren are still teaching me in my old age.


In fact today, when people compliment me for being "smart" because I went back to school and earned college and Seminary degrees after my children had already earned theirs, I tell them that if I have any "smarts" it is because I have been taught so much by my wonderful seven children, starting with Janice.

Janice was -- and still is -- a daughter to make her parents proud. She was and still is a loving “big sister" to her younger siblings, setting an example of excellence in school and in life and in her Christ centered career .

Happy Birthday to my precious, daughter...now a wife, mother, grandmother and Christian leader.

The Star Spangled Banner

The Star Spangled Banner

Lyrics By Francis Scott Key 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ...O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,

A home and a country, should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave ,O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The Boll Weevil and Peanut Butter.

I have written in another family story about my mother blaming the tiny bug called the "boll weevil" for our family giving up cotton farming.

The farm was in the community of Oak Hill. (Oak Hill is in Newton County near the Henry County line and also near Rockdale County.(about 30 miles Southeast of Atlanta). Cotton was king in the South, and most farmers made their living by raising cotton. When the boll weevil infested the cotton plants, it wiped out the cotton farmers’ profits. Many farmers lost their whole year's wages.

My father got a job in a nearby textile mills in Newton County and moved our family into Porterdale, a “model mill town” in the fall of 1922. I was born the next year
Giving up farming for life in a Textile town was a difficult decision. My father, also in failing health thought this his only option after the boll weevil wiped out his whole years profits.

However, Porterdale became "home sweet home" to my family. It was a great place to grow up with dedicated school teachers, as well as many church and community activities. My brothers, Tom and Jack who served in the Armed Forces during World War II, talked with such nostalgia about Porterdale, all their buddies declared they were looking forward to one day visiting Porterdale.

But Mama, in a time of class as well as race divisions was aware that "mill workers" were considered low class. She said she first thought of Porterdale as "the jumping off place,"a place where she would never have lived had it not been for the pesty, destructive Boll Weevil. Mama loved the farm and she sure had a "green thumb" in growing flowers in our small plot of ground as well as pots of flowers growing on the front porch.

Aunt Cora, Mama's older sister visited from Atlanta a week or so every year in her old age. After breakfast every morning she would say to Mama, "Lets go out and sit in the garden awhile." She and Mama would walk the few feet out the front door, and sit on the porch swing or in one of the comfortable rocking chairs amid the pots of flowers Mama had blooming.

We are told boll weevils first came to the United States from Mexico eating through Texas all the way East into the cotton fields in Alabama and Georgia.
I grew up hearing the boll weevil blamed for much of the continued povety in the South following the Civil War Between The States.

When the Cotton Factory Owners moved South looking for cheap labor, they apparently found plenty of hungry people, both Black and White looking for work. Early on, even children were hired for some of the jobs early on and later as soon as they were old enough. The Cotton Boll Weevil took people out of cotton fields into cotton mills.

So I was amazed to learn that someone actually built a monument to the boll weevil in Enterprise Alabama in 1919. The 13- and- a -half feet tall Boll Weevil Monument consists of a statue of a lady in a flowing white gown, with arms stretch high above her heard to display a big black boll weevil. It is surrounded by a lighted fountain. It seems that two enterprising business men (H.H. Sessions, C.W. Baston) in Enterprise Alabama determined that peanuts would make a good crop to plant where cotton had been grown.

Dr. George Carver of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute also did research to find as many products as possible using peanuts. . Carver did not invent peanut butter but did popularize the use of peanut butter and found hundreds of industrial uses for the peanut plant. It is hard to believe that when cotton was king there was "no such thing" as peanut butter?

I like the story Gregg Lewis , my son-in-law tells about George Washington Carver's conversation with God. In Carver's words: "I said to God, Mr. Creator, I would like to know all about the creation of the world." And God answered, "Little man, your mind is too small to understand creation, ask something more your size. Then I said, Mr. Creator, I would like to know all about the little peanut." Big men like Dr. George Washington Carver are brilliant enough to understand human limitations. Little men like whats-his-name in California who brag about their atheism are too small to ever see more than an inch beyond their nose and beleive in anyone or anything they cannot fully comprehend.

Albert Einstein said, “The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious . It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead.” Einstein’s view is shared by other great scientists like Niels and Bohr, who concluded there is room in a rational universe for incomprehensible wonders.

Fresh off the Farm.

Fresh off the Farm: Hometown Proud! Mama always said that the boll weevil ran us off the farm. The farm where my parents and siblings had lived was in the community of Oak Hill. Oak Hill is in Newton County near the Henry County line and also near Rockdale County. When the boll weevil ate it's way from Mexico through Mississippi and Alabama all the way to Georgia, they found the place here "cotton was king" and took over, infesting a treasure of cotton plants and wipeing out the Georgia farmers' profits. Many farmers, like my father lost their whole year's wages. I found it most interesting when my older cousin. Aubrey Simms told me a few years ago that he remembered the very night, as a boy of 7 , when my father told his father about his decision to sell his farm and get a job in a nearby Textile plant. Aubrey said his Dad replied, "Uncle Wilson, I will go to share cropping before I will raise my children in a mill town." In a "class conscious" society, this was a step down. Apparently, my father, Benjamin Wilson Baird felt this his only option. He was in failing health when he made the difficult decision to get a job in one of the three mills in Porterdale. I am told he got a job and worked in the Old Porterdale Mill located on the Yellow River (picture above). Papa then moved his family "fresh off the farm" into that model mill town in the fall of 1922. I was born the next February.

After my father's death, when i was nine, my mother was employed in the Cord Weave Shop in Porterdale's Osprey Mill where heavy cloth for army tents and auto tires was woven.

During World War II, patriotism was high in town and in the mills. With may men away, more women and youth took on the needed jobs. The warps and looms ran 24 hours a day, weaving the heavy cloth that was used for tank tires and other defense materials.

I worked with my mother briefly, as a teen-ager in World War II and saw how proficient my mother was as as a weaver and in handling the massive looms and especially in threading up the looms for new widths of cloth. Long after she retired, mill officials would send a car to her home to take Eula Baird back to Osprey Mill to thread up the looms and to teach others for a new batch of the heavy cloth. (1) Porterdale became " hometown" to my younger brothers and me early on! Two of my brothers, John Thomas (Tom) Baird and Jackson Irvin (Jack) Baird served in World War II. Tom served in the Army in Europe. Jack served in the Air Force in the South Pacific. They both spoke so highly and longed so fervently to get back to their hometown, many of their World War II buddies vowed they would someday visit Porterdale. However, the Textile Industry that had moved South in the early 1900's looking for cheap labor and found plenty of both White and Black people needing jobs moved on in late 1940's. Shortly after World War II the thriving Textile Industry that had hired so many farmers, providing small salaries but also providing adequate housing, schools, churches and clubs, moved farther south all the way out of the United States. In the mid to late 1940's, Bibb Manufacturing Company, Callaway Mills and other Textile Companies closed down most of their textile plants in the Southern United Sates and sold their houses to their employees. Whether a good move or not, there was no longer large numbers of textile jobs available. Times were changing but other opportunities also opened up in the south. My brother, Tom Baird, worked briefly as a policeman in Porterdale after World War II and later qualified as a State Patrol trooper. He lived with his family in Cedartown as a Sergeant in the Georgia State Patrol until his death in 1998. My younger brother Jack worked as the supervisor of pipe fitters at large Mall construction sites in South Carolina until his death in 1989. However, my brothers thought and so did our classmates and I that Porterdale was a great place to grow up in the depression years of 1920s and 30’s. Our school teachers and other leaders were the best. Beyond the low wages from the factory jobs was the community spirit of love and cooperation. Even today, there is a great deal of Porterdale spirit, including happy and successsful former residents returning to Porterdale for an annual Homecoming reunion. I started to Porterdale school at five, skipped a half grade and was the youngest in my class from the Fifth grade on. (2) After the Ninth grade, one had to pay tuition and find transportation to go to the high school in Covington. The Porterdale School had classrooms for First Grade through Grade Nine. There was also a Music Room with piano and band instrumentds and a Home Economics classroom with sewing machine and stove. My brother, James Leon Baird (who died at age 3 of measles complicated by pneumonia) is buried in the Liberty Methodist Cemetery in Porterdale where Mama and Papa are also buried. This, I am told, was where Porterdale's first Methodist church building (Liberty) had been. I joined the Girl Reserves, (more details in another post) a civic club provided by Bibb Manufacturing Company for all the girls in town. It was similar to Girl Scouts in that we had regular meetings and wore uniforms. Our uniforms were white dresses with blue belts and blue scarves and blue dresses with white belts and scarves. The shirtwaist type dresses were made by our mothers or a dressmaker from cotton material woven in one of the mills and sold at a discount. I loved being in the Girl Reserves. One of the advantages of belonging to the Girl Reserves was the opportunity to make a trip each summer. I remember at least two trips to Savannah by train. The first time I saw the ocean and the first time I stayed in a hotel was in Savannah on one of those outings when I was about ten or eleven years old. I especially remember the large formal dining room in the Desoto Hotel in Savannah. It was at the Desoto where, for the first time, we were served fish that still had its head. None of us would eat the fish, and we little girls giggled and whispered into the night about the ridiculous idea of eating a fish while it looked at us. Our neighbors, who were so much a part of my life, included Obie and Grace Moore, Albert and Blanche Fincher, the Hornings, Capes, Moodys, Johnsons, Parnells, Martins, and Loyds. My mother used the term "We were neighbor to..." instead of saying "We lived next door to..." or "We lived near..." so and so. I have fond memories as a child of being in and out of the homes of the Finchers, the Parnells and the Moores. And they visited with us daily. We did not lock our doors - even at night. Neighbors were in and out all the time - often to borrow a cup of sugar or flour or an egg or two to finish out a recipe for a cake. Often they stopped in to share vegetables or cookies or cake. Mama also always had an extra dollar or two to loan to a neighbor who ran out of cash before the next payday. She always found time to take food to a neighbor who was sick or in need. Our house seemed to be the gathering place in the evenings after a long day of work. Neighbors would sit on the swing, the big porch rocking chairs or on the steps after the chairs were filled. Sometimes the visits lasted late into the evening; the adults sitting on the front porch and talking while the children played "hide and seek" or "kick the can" out in the front yard or on the unpaved road in front of the house. (3) Notes. 1. Bibb Manufacturing Company. Built the three large factory buildings, all the housing for employees, the schools, churches...the whole town. 2.My teachers in Porterdale School were: First Grade - Miss Jones; Second Grade - Miss Wright; Third Grade - Miss Webb; 4th Grade - Mrs. Tommie Hood; 5th Grade - Miss Bura Bohanan; 6th Grade - Mrs. Pearl Hacket; 7th Grade - Miss Willie Hayne Hunt; 8th Grade - Mr. John F. Allumns; 9th Grade - Mrs. Willie Hayne Hunt. Miss Ethel Belcher was principal of the school when I started to school. Miss Maud King was principal when I finished at Porterdale and started to Covington High. 3.My Hazel Street playmates included Dorothy, Hazel and Lamar Fincher, Mamie Miller, E. F. Parnell, Obie and Billie Moore. Hazel and Sybil Horning, Jeanette and Betty Martin. Other Hazel Street friends were Julia Sellers, Mildred Yancey and Frank Ingram. I kept in touch with Julia Sellers Smith until her death in 2000 but have not heard from most of the others in many years. I think of them often and would like to hear from them and their family and friends.

Seven Wonders of the World

The number "seven" is a good and important number to me and was to my husband because we are blessed with seven "wonder" children.

It is interesting how many people will ask a couple, with a laugh, as if no one had thought to ask before; "Are you Catholic or just careless that you had so many children?"

We sometimes just smiled with them but sometimes replied we had hoped for eight children but had stopped with seven because "seven" in the Bible means "perfection" and "completion."

Then one day a college girl asked a more respectful question; "Mrs Shaw, was it your decision or was it your husband's or a joint decision to have seven children?"

Pleiade (PLEE-uhd), a noun meaning a group of (usually seven) brilliant persons or things. It is a word I love!

It reminds me of my husband's poetic words about each of "our seven," He loved to say, "if I had searched the ramparts of heaven, I could not have found a more wonderful baby."

To the left is the photo of the Pleiades Star Cluster. All kinds of myths are written about this seven star formation. "Seven" continues to be an interesting number.

A group of students were asked to list their present "seven wonders of the world."

Though some disagreement, the following got the most votes:

l. Egypt's Great Pyramids
2. Taj Mahal
3. Grand Canyon
4. Panama Canal
5. Empire State Building
6. St. Peter's Basilica
7. China's Great Wall

While gathering the votes the teacher noted that one student hadn't turned in her paper and was still thoughtfully working. She asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list.

The girl replied, "Yes, a little. I couldn't quite make up my mind because there are so many." The teacher said, "Well, tell us what you have and maybe we can help."

The girl hesitated and then read from her paper, "I think the seven wonders of the world are...
l. To Touch
2. To Taste
3. To See
4. To Hear...She hesitated a little and then added...

5. To Feel
6. To Laugh
7. To Love"

The most "wonder filled" things in life are often the things we take for granted.

Life After Life.

Back in the seventies, I heard about the bestseller, "Life After Life" by Raymond Moody, Jr. M.D. "Life After Life" was on the New York times best seller list for several years.

It is about people declared clinically dead, and against expectation, came back alive to tell of an experience of being outside their own physical body, looking down at their physical body and hearing themself pronounced dead by a doctor.

Some tell of being in a bright light, after moving rapidly through a dark tunnel. Some tell of glimpsing the spirits of relatives and friends who have already died.

In the back of my mind, I thought the author must be the same Raymond Moody, a few years older than I, who grew up on the same street as I, who married a girl named Josie, who was a classmate of mine in high school.

I married in my teens and moved away from my hometown but had been told that Raymond Moody went to medical school. So when I heard after the book, I wondered if it was the Raymond Moody I had known as a youth.

My husband and I raised a large family. He served in World War II, went back to school. Every day of my life seemed to have been filled to the full.

Then, A few days ago, I stopped at a Flee Market and among shelf after shelf of used paperbacks for 25 cents each, I picked up Life After Life and read the interesting book. I learned Raymond Moody, Jr. born in 1944 is too young to be the Raymond Moody who grew up in my town and on my street!

So after checking the internet and found page after many pages about the famous doctor. Yes, he was born in my town in Georgia and is the son of the Raymond and Josie I knew as teenagers.