College Women from 1904 to 2010.

Wesleyan College, at Macon, Georgia was the first college chartered to award degrees to women. It was a Methodist school chartered in 1836 as the Georgia Female College.

The present name of Wesleyan College was adopted in 1919.

These pictures of our Cousin Blance Burch Harp's 1904 Wesleyan College graduation and pictures of other Wesleyan College's 1904 students.

Blance Burch Harp in her Graduation Dress at her graduation from Wesleyan College in 1904.

How does Blance Burch Harp graduation from Wesleyan College in Macon Georgia in 1904 compare with College women graduating this year?

My granddaughter, Lillian Matthews Shaw graduated from Mercer University, Macon Georgia on May 29, 2010.

I do not know the history of the change from women wearing evening dress for Graduation to the beginning of todays Cap and Gown attire?

Lillian's graduation took place in the same city, just a few miles across town and 108 years after the 1902 graduation of her cousin, Blance Burch Harpe.

Fresh off the Farm

Mama always said that the boll weevil ran them off the farm. 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. Cotton was then king in the South! (Picture of one of our school buildings in Porterdale)

When the boll weevil infested the cotton plants, it wiped out cotton as the major crop and as the farmers' profits. Many farmers lost their whole years wages.

My father, Wilson Baird was in failing health when he got a job in one of the three mills in Porterdale and moved his family "fresh off the farm" into that model mill town in the fall of 1922.

I was born soon after the move to Porterdale, on February 19, 1923 and was only 6 weeks old when my family faced the sadness of the death of my three year old brother, James Leon Baird who died of measles complicated by pneumonia. Leon is buried in the Liberty Methodist Cemetery in Porterdale where Mama and Papa are also buried.

Liberty Cemetery, I am told, was near Porterdale's first Methodist church building (Liberty) had been. I vaguely remember seeing the small white frame building which was burned down in 1935 after being vacant for several years

I am told my father, Wilson Baird worked in the Old Porterdale Mill located on the Yellow River (picture above) as long as he was able. My father died in 1932, when I was nine. My mother also told me that my father walked with his hoe in hand, the long distance to Liberty Cemetary every week to make sure no weeds were growing on Leon's grave and it was kept up properly.

My mother continued to work in the Cord Weave Shop in Osprey Mill until after World war II. The Cord Weave Shop wove heavy cloth for items like army tents and tank tires and ran three eight-hour shifts all all during the war. Ieula Baird, my mother was proficient 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 (1) would send a car to her home to take my mother back to Osprey Mill to teach the skill to others while she threaded up the looms for a new batch of the heavy cloth.

In the early 1920's the thriving Textile industry moved South looking for cheaper labor. They found plenty of hungry workers needing jobs among the White and Colored people in the Civil War torn part of the United States.

After the hour and wage labor laws in the mid 1940's, the industry closed down most of their "looms and twisters" and moved farther South outside the United States.

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. My brothers came home from the war, but Carroll Adams, Neal "Red" Cole, Homer Cook and J.W. Rye, my friends and classmates, were among those who did not live to come back home from World War II.

With no jobs in their hometown, my brothers and others had to look elsewhere. My brother, Tom worked briefly as a policeman in Porterdale after WW II and later was a State Patrol trooper. Tom lived with his family in Cedartown as a Sergeant in the Georgia State Patrol until his death in 1998.

My youngest brother, Jack Baird worked as short-order cook in a restaurant in Savanah for a time, as a pipe -fitter and later as the supervisor of pipe fitters at large Mall construction sites in South Carolina until his death in 1989.


However, my brothers and schoolmates thought and so did I that Porterdale was a great place to grow up in the 1920s and 30’s. Our school teachers were the best.


I has started to school at five, skipped a half grade and was the youngest in my class from the Fifth grade on. (2) We had to pay tuition and find transportation to go to high school. The ninth was the last grade in Porterdale School in the late thirties. (The picture of Porterdale School had classrooms for First Grade through Grade Nine. There was also a Home Economics classroom with sewing machine and stove and a Music Room.) I tell in another post about my high school and other experiences


In Porterdale, I loved being a member of the Girl Reserves, (more details in another post) a civic club provided by Bibb Manufacturing Company for all the girls in town.

The Girl Reserves 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 and the Parnells more often than the others. 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.

Our house seemed to be the gathering place where neighbors would sit on the porch swing that hung from the ceiling and seat 3 people and the big porch rocking chairs that mama had made cushions for comfortable seating.

Neighbors (mostly the men and children) sat the steps after the swing and all the chairs were filled. Sometimes the visits lasted late into the evening; the adults sitting on the front porch to rest after a long day of work. Always much talking tok place on our front porch 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, business, churches...the whole town. We had three large churches that were filled every Sunday for church and Sunday School and prayer meeting on Wednesday nights. We even had a community doctor, nurse and social worker. People rarely locked their doors, even at night.

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.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday, it seems, I started life as the youngest of eleven. It was the roaring twenties and Mama was sometimes known to call her youngest, "Sarah Ruth" and sometimes, "Baby Ruth."

Today I am the oldest and the only one of my siblings still living. My three sisters and five brothers are all gone.

But I am often told, "Ruth you are so lucky to have all those children..."how many are they? Is it five or six?" Seven!

"How are all those grandchildren? How do you keep up with so many? Countless?"

Not countless? Counted!

Seven children, seven children-in law. Eighteen grandchildren. Nine grandchildren -in-law. Twenty great-grandchildren, counting the one who is the way, due to arrive in August (and she counts) as of June 11, 2012

Sixty. Each one counted! All counted! Counted!
(Pictures of the youngest four great grandchildren in our family below:
Emma Hearn, (4-24-2009) daughter of my grandson Joshua and Michaela Hearn and granddaughter of my daughter Beth. Evey Johnston,(3-12-2010) Daughter of my grandson, Joey and Meleah Johnston and granddaughter of Carol. Alex Rogers (4-6-2010) Son of my granddaughter Jessica and her husband Philip Rogers and grandson of my son David. Liam Elisha Hearn( 3-8-2012), Son of my grandson, Joshua and Michaela Hearn, grandson of Beth.

Fishing in the Yellow River

FISHING IN THE YELLOW RIVER.

All four of my grandparents died before my birth. However, my maternal grandmother {Elizabeth Ann Mask Dick (1845 - 7-3-1921)} lived into old age and died only a few years before my birth.

My mother told me a few stories about how hard her widowed mother worked to provide for her eight children after their father's untimely death when Mama was only 18 months old and her mother was pregnant with 8th child, a son, Irvin Dick. (Charles Dick, her father had gone hunting on Christmas afternoon. His "bad cold" turned into influenza and death in 1887 ). Elizabeth Mask Dick never remarried. She and her children lived in a house on the large farm land of her father Rev. Bogan Mask (10-27-1821 - 8-28-1898).

My sister Vera told me about Grandma Dick, in her old age, visiting on occasion and how much Grandma loved fishing. Grandma would tell Vera and Mary to be good and help Mama with the housework and kitchen chores and she would take them fishing after dinner.

Vera told how she and Mary would do as Grandma asked and help get all the household chores done. To quote Vera, "As soon as we cleaned up after dinner, Grandma would turn to Mama and say, 'Eula, I believe I will take the girls down to the river. They want to go fishing so bad!'" Vera added, “Grandma sure liked to fish."

Mama sure liked to fish, also! Perhaps she learned the secret of catching fish from her mother. Mama usually came home with a long string of fish. We either cooked the fish she caught or gave them to others to cook.

Many afternoons, when the weather permitted, Mama (Ieula Ann Dick Baird 3-6-1885 - 12-6-1973) would finish up the housework; and she and a neighbor, Mrs. Parnell, would head for the Yellow River with Mamie (Mrs. Parnell's daughter) and me in tow. Mamie and I sometimes fished, but more often, we just explored the woods, picked wild flowers or dug worms. We had learned to talk quietly so as not to " scare away the fish."

I never missed an opportunity to go with Mama on one of these fishing expeditions. (The photo to the left is the Yellow River dam at Milstead near Georgia Hwy 20 in Rockdate County)

My husband Charles Shaw told me stories about growing up swimming in that area of the river 16 miles by road travel from where my mother was fishing in the same yellow River in Porterdale Georgia) .

There was one problem with me going fishing with Mama, Mrs. Parnell and Mamie in the Yellow River? Poison Oak? Among the lush vegetation near the Yellow River bank where my mother and Mamie's mother fished was an abundance of poison oak. I had long since learned not to touch the "three leaf " poison plant.

Have you heard the lines:

"Leaves of three...Let it be!

.Leaves of five...Let it thrive!"

Although I avoided the plants touching my skin, wore long sleeved shirts and overalls and came home to bathe in Clorox water, I often broke out into a painful, itchy rash from being in the vicinity of the poison plant.

In Loving memory of Charles Shaw 5-21-19-12--3-86

Today would have been my husband, Charles Columbus Shaw 93rd birthday. I thought it might be a good way to honor Charles today by following the lead of my daughter Joan , (Daddy's Roses ) , Joan helped me set up the Ruthlace Blog moniker back in 2005 and is the family expert in all thing English and Spanish. Recently on Daddys' Roses, she wrote a great post , citing 13 differences in her and her DH. (Darling Husband). In honor of my DH, here are mine:

1…. Movies. Charles loved movies, especially the old cowboy movies. I am not much of a movie fan. I have seen probably less than a half a dozen in a theater in the last 26 years and not many more on Television.

2.... Seafood. Charles and I both liked sea food. We both grew up eating fish caught fresh from the Yellow River.

3.... Sunday School. Like many pastors, he was not a regular in one Sunday School Class. I enjoyed very much being a part of a Sunday School Class from childhood on and have taught classes in all the churches where DH was pastor.

4.... Pets. Neither of us had much time for pets. We did have Hercules, a chihuahua when the children were small and later a German Shepherd who "followed David home" from school. David named the big dog "Rex" (the name of his Dad's childhood dog) as soon as they arrived home. Rex loved to swim in the large lake in the neighborhood in East Point. He was David's dog.

5.... Vacation Spots. We both enjoyed camping and family gatherings. Charles also loved fishing and hunting and once caught an 18 inch Brown Trout in an Ellijay mountain stream much to the delight of our children and some of the neighbor children who were splashing in the water. He had the fish mounted by Rev. Bob Cagle, who had answered the call to preach as a teen ager during Charles ministry in Ellijay.

6.... Temperature. I am the one who now wears long sleeves even in the Summer. This may be an old age thing. I do not remember either one of us complaining about the house temperature.

7.... Time of Day. He was a night owl; I am an early bird. When he was in Seminary at Candler, he would stay up all night writing papers or studying for an exam. On the other hand, I went to Seminary after his death and would go to bed early and get up at 4 to write any paper that required creativity.

8.... Food. We both enjoyed a dinner of fresh turnip greens and cornbread with a glass of buttermilk as a complete meal after all our children were out of the nest. A meal with dried beans cooked from scratch as the main course was also a welcomed meal to both of us. We failed in passing along the love of fresh greens and those wonderful dried beans protein source to our children?

9.... Family of Origin. I am the youngest of nine and the only one still living. Charles was the oldest of five boys. The last of his four brothers died in January of this year at age 85. My father died when I was 9 but Charles and I both had strong family ties with parents and siblings.

10.... TV Shows. He enjoyed the old cowboy and war movies or shows like Gunsmoke and M.A.S.H. I prefer a situation comedy like Designing Women or Matlock. In recent years, I have lost interest in most of the TV offerings.

11.... Health. He had serious hearing and ear problem from World War II experiences. His first heart attack and by -pass surgery was at age 59 and his final one at age 67. Most of my health issues, except for painful TriGeminal neuralgia episodes from 1990 on have been after age 82.

12.... Religion. Both of us very serious, some might say "overly serious" Christians.

13.... Blog. I enjoy all forms of writing and still write as I live! I doubt that he would have gotten into blogging as he left much of the family writing (Christmas letters etc.) up to me. He was an outgoing and charismatic extrovert. I am more introverted. He would sometimes have me edit pastoral reports and letters while he made sick calls. However he read widely books of Theology and the Bible , was good in New Testament Greek and was gifted in Biblical preaching.

Childhood Cancer Research

Every school day in America, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer, the #1 disease killer of children ages 0-15.

When my great-granddaughter, Lily, was in second grade, she began experiencing excruciating back pain. After three trips to the ER and many visits to the pediatrician, Lily was diagnosed with leukemia (Pre-B ALL) on December 1, 2008.

In February 2011, she completed over two years of treatment - including daily chemo. It has been a long road and one that has had its ups and downs. During treatment she was hospitalized numerous times for treatment and infections. She has also been diagnosed with AVN, or bone death, one of the side-effects of the high dose steroids that are part of the protocol for treatment. She missed an entire year of school, but she's now in fifth grade and able to attend school full time again.

Lily is dedicated to raising money to support childhood cancer research because, as she says, "no kid should have to be sick like this." Her long-range goal is to raise a million dollars for childhood cancer research. Picture of Lily and Sophie modeling in a recent Fund Raising Event for Childhood Cancer Research

Lily likes acting, swimming and dancing. She also likes riding horses and playing with her three dogs, Rosie, Bogey and Yogi. She has a younger sister, Sophie, who has been a big support during her treatment. They are truly best friends.

Moo-nure

As I wrote in an earlier post, I started to school in 1929, the year of the "Stock Market Crash." It was also a time of "Class" divisions.

We were taught in school about three classes of people as far as finances is concerned; the Lower classs, the Middle class and the Upper Class. But "bad language " was considered ignorant and "low class'' even if you were high class financially.

I thought of that yesterday when I read about the bags of cow manure being sold for garden fertilizer now being renamed "moo-nure. It is absolutely amazing how much one learns when one has a large family face booking and blogging.

My daughter, Carol wrote on facebook, " So we bought some "Moo-nure" for our garden. They have written on the outside of the bags, "We're number 1 in the Number 2 business." Then my great-nephew Jared wrote back " They stole that motto from my Dad." And I thought, "how clever of Jared's Dad, Warren to come up with that name."

My grandddaughter Larisa replied on facebook, "That must be the standard poop logo. My doggie poop patrol uses that too." So it is not just "cow poop" but all "poop" that are renamed "moo-nure." Note: they have a Doggie Poop Patrol" business in Tennessee.

Those of us who had wanted to have "class" in the 1920-30's did not call them bags of "manure" but bags of "compost" to fertilize our gardens. Manure in my Webster's is defined as "animal encrement or other substance for fertilizer. Compost is a mixture of deposing vegetable and manure.

President Harry Truman became President when Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945 in his fourth term as President of the United States( 1933-1945.)

Truman was known to slip into fowl language at times. He is said to have referred to fertilizer as manure one time and received negative press for his use of English. His wife Bess is said to have replied, "It took me a long time to get him up to the refinement of saying "manure."

Kirstie Alley is said to have dropped "an S-Bomb " when she was on 'Dancing with the Stars' some time ago. It was discussed with the casual remark, "that is what we have bleep folks for. They are to listen and bleeped. Anyone can make a 'slip up' like that...it can be " bleeped out."

Anyone?
The happy picture of Kirstie with her hand over her mouth is above. Perhaps we can educate Kirstie to give up the S-bomb for an M-bomb?

Love Thy Neighbor

Neighbors were an important part of life in the twenties and thirties. Our neighbors were in and out of our home all the time. Sometimes it was to borrow a cup of sugar or an egg to finish out a recipe. Sometimes a neighbor would stop in to share vegetables or cookies.

But often the visits were just to sit and talk. It was not uncommon for several neighbor women to visit with my mother on our front porch late afternoons after a long day of work.

On evenings our front porch seemed to also be the gathering place for men, women and children after the evening meal (referred to as "supper") at night. The porch had several inviting rocking chairs as well as a swing with space enough to seat three adults.

While the adults were talking, the children played "hide and seek" or "kick the can" out in the front yard or on the unpaved road in front of our house.

I have fond memories as a child of being in and out of the homes of the Finchers, the Parnells, the Moores, the Hornings. And they visited with us daily.

Then there was a quaint lady from out of town, who, with her children, would visit us overnight and sometimes for two or three days several times a year. I remember sitting on our front porch (along with various friends and neighbors) near sundown one afternoon.

We looked down the street and saw this lady and her children coming toward our house. I said to Mama, "Here comes Mrs. Johnson (I'll call her)."

Someone asked Mama why Mrs. Johnson and her children often came to our house. They lived miles away. The answer seemed simply enough to Mama. "We were neighbor to them on the farm," Mama said.

As I have told in another post, Papa made the difficult decision to move off their farm into a nearby Textile community after the onslaught of boll weevils that all but destroyed their annual cotton profits as the South was trying to recover from the devastation of the Civil war.

The former neighbor lady, Mrs Johnson was short and heavy. Her dark hair was pulled straight back in a bun. Her only daughter and older child was "Mae." Mae was thin and very subdued. She was even more shy than I! Mae walked just a little behind her mother on the sidewalk as they made their way down our street. The three little brothers followed their mother and sister in a procession.

I can visualize them now as they walked toward our house. Mama welcomed them, gave them supper, found a bed for the lady, and put pallets of folded quilts and a feather pillow each on the floor for Mae (and me). Mrs. Johnson sleep in my bed. Mama also put a comfortable pallet of quilts on the floor for the three little boys.

I do not remember what, if anything, Mae and I talked about before we fell asleep side by side on the floor. The lady had a husband but we never saw him. I overheard someone say her husband was "sorry’ and "no account".

Children were "seen and not heard " in those days. So, of course, I did not ask. But I learned by listening. In these days before Television, this was a mystery somewhat like a soap opera.

While visiting with us, Mrs. Johnson would always get up early, and she would come to the place where Mae and I were sleeping on the floor and say, "Rise, Mae." I thought this was "funny."

Incidentally, we sometimes referred to mentally ill people as someone who "acted funny" or had "gone crazy." I thought the Johnsons "acted funny" and we both laughed at some of their ways and cried for them.

Looking back it may have been wife and/or child abuse that caused them to leave their home so suddenly, walk five or six miles and show up at our house. As far as I know they came and went without explanation. If Mama knew, she kept her own counsel and always treated Mrs. Johnson and her children with respect, preparing food and bedding for them as respectfully as she did when her own sisters visited.

After all, we had been "neighbor to them" on the farm.

How I became a Preacher

How I became a Preacher? I started "blogging " in 2005 and now have over 350 posts on http://www.ruthlace.blogspot.com/. Even so, some of my readers say, "More...why don't you write something more! "

Last night in flipping through the television stations, I ran across, Joel , who told how God used the death of his father, an event he and his family and friends had earnestly prayed would not happen, It put him in the pulpit. His father's ministry had been the forerunner of even greater and unexpected blessings for their Christian ministry.

In my post, One Sunday Morning, I tell in more detail how I became the pastor of the church my husband, Charles Shaw had been supplying as pastor after he had retired on disability.

Charles preached his last sermon, suffering a fatal heart attack three days later. Two weeks after my husband's death, I was told the Rico congregation had made a request to the church cabinet that I be appointed as their pastor. So I stood there to preach my first sermon as a pastor only three Sundays after my husband had stood in that same pulpit to preach his last.

Even though I had been on the periphery of ministry a long time, the role of pastor was a new one! When Rev. Marion Pierson, called and asked me to take on the pastorate; First, I was surprised the people would call a woman pastor. Second, I knew I would continue in ministry in some way as long as I lived because of my strong sense of calling. (My husband an I had recognized my call to preach earlier. He had asked me to preach a couple of Sundays when he was not able) Third, this was the open door the Lord was calling me to walk through!I learned also that the Lord does enable those whom He calls.

The Lord blessed us richly as I continued to serve the Lord in that place nearly four years while I enrolled and finished seminary, (Emory's Candler School of Theology in Atlanta). I drove back and forth the 30 or so miles three days a week for three years to earn the Master of Divinity degree and enjoyed the classes and the learning opportunity. But my love and top priority was preaching and serving Christ and the people in the Rico community.

The Rico United Methodist Church (photo above) is located in the beautiful open countryside and is only a hundred yards or so from Providence Baptist Church, (photo to the right).When I first went to Rico, I was interested to learn that the Baptist and Methodist congregations join together for worship services at least three times a year and also cooperate with each other in other ways.For example, each has an annual homecoming and both congregations come together for the fellowship dinner after the Worship Service. They attend the weddings and “showers” and other special services at both churches. Why so much fellowship across denominational lines? When I read the Rico Church History I found at least one answer.In 1902 when a man by the name of Shannon gave an acre of land adjoining the new Baptist church to build the Methodist Church he said, “The Baptist and Methodists should cooperate on earth as well as in heaven.” Then in Methodists and Baptists cooperate mor between this Baptist and Methodist congregation is a service at the Masonic Hall on the third Sunday of each September. I have not polled “the whole world” but I sus “place on earth” where Baptists and Methodists unite for a Sunday Worship Service in a Masonic Hall.This includes the two pastors preaching on the triangle. The Masonic structure is a little nearer the Methodist than the Baptist, a fact that I understood was pleasing to some of the Baptists who considered the Masonic movement a work of the devil.It was Sunday morning and my turn to preach. I had been a pastor less than a year and was a student in seminary. I had put all the time I could in preparation and felt it was not enough. The Baptist preacher would lead the singing and the pastoral prayer. After Sunday school both congregations walked the few yards to gather for this service. All of our Methodist people were present.One family had even postponed a vacation to “support Ruth” in my first attempt to preach to the Baptists. We had about an equal number from each of the two congregations. They were seated in clusters in what could be described as a “theater-in-the -round.” I do not know if this arena style is typical of Masonic structures.Rev. Glenn Dow, the Baptist minister, was seated on my left on the slightly raised stage at the wall in front of the entrance.We were into the service and our Methodist Children’s Choir was singing. (Yes. We did have a Children's Choir by this time...thanks to Judy Henderson, who with her husband Ernie had joined Rico Church, bringing their three children and also neighborhood children)A man came to the door of the Masonic Building and motioned. Rev. Dow went to the door. It seemed like an eternity before he returned to the platform visibly shaken. He walked to the podium and said, "I have a very sad announcement to make. I wish it could wait until after the service. But in my judgment it needs to be told now. There has been a terrible accident out on Garrett’s Ferry Road. It was Charlene Lewis (a member of Providence Baptist) and her children on the way to church. The children were rushed to Grady...Charlene is dead...it is time for prayer and they need prayer . . .we all need prayer. Let us pray.”There were audible gasps and cries all over the building. I found myself in tears. I had met Charlene and her two young daughters just eight days earlier at a wedding shower at our Methodist church for a Baptist friend. She was young and very much alive.The shock of sudden death is staggering. We were all reeling. My mind was in turmoil as I was bowed low listening to Dow and silently praying for the grieving congregation and for myself. What in the world could I say?Painfully I struggled to remember some of the sermon notes folded in my Bible. Would it be appropriate? The scripture I had asked Dow to read was Paul’s account in Romans 4:1-11 of Abram’s life of faith and a few verses in Luke 15:3-7 about God’s love for one lost sheep. I was to tie them together with the thought that God loves us and has a place and a plan for each of us. God’s laws are not just written in the Bible, but are also written in our bodies and our psyche. When we come home to God we are coming home to Truth.Should I try to explain why an “all powerful" and “all loving God” would allow a young mother to be killed on the way to church? We did not know at the time that the only child of a neighbor had also been in the car and killed. A drunken man had driven his car on the wrong side of this peaceful and picturesque country road.I do not remember Dow’s prayer. I do remember thinking he was handling it well. I had and still have great respect for this man of God. His pastoral care and concern was evident. Rev. Dow finished the prayer and sat down like a man whose sentence was served and looked expectantly toward me.It was all too soon my turn to speak. I could not just “be with the people.” I knew if there were to be any ultimates to be spoken by a human being, for God’s sake and for ours it must be said. I was not adequate but I knew the Eternal God was with me in a powerful way.It was not a funeral. It was a Sunday Morning Worship Service.

But we were crying for Charlene and for our own humanness. I said something like this; “I met Charlene at the shower for Linda last week. I remember her as vivacious and friendly.” I turned to my right where several persons were sobbing. “I grieve with you. I am so sorry…so very sorry. I grieve for all of us in trying to understand how a loving, all powerful God would allow a young mother to be killed on the way to church.“We know, of course, thousands of persons drove to church safely today and every Sunday drive to church without accident, but that does not make it easier today. And in our humanness, we take our safety, our life for granted. We only stop to question God when an accident or sudden death occurs.God has given us freedom. We are in a highly mechanized, fallen world and it seems to me many persons' lives are cut short needlessly. I remember a few lines I read some time ago: “The grass withers, the flowers fade…you and I die. How I wish it were n

Cooking From Scratch in the 1930's

Cooking From Scratch in the 1930's. When one "cooked from scratch" in the thirties, it was from the first "scratch" of a match. We had a large iron cookstove in our kitchen when I was a child. The iron cookstove burned wood. (The picture to the left looks much like the stove in our kitchen in the late 1920's and early 30'except our stove had white metal on the oven door and warming closet doors)

Wood had to be cut in "stove wood" lengths, brought from the backyard into the house and stacked in wood boxes behind the stove. A fire had to be started with crumpled up newspaper and kindling wood. Then the fire was kept burning by the constant additon of larger pieces of "stove wood."

The stove had , what we called "a warming closet" near the top. It had two decorative iron doors to open and place cooked food to keep warm until time to set on the table. A large reservoir was built in on the side to heat water. I remember one of my jobs was to keep water in the reservoir. The "eyes" on top of the stove could be removed to build the fire. There was a little iron utensil to fit into a hole in the stove eye to lift it and then put back in place so large pots of beans or potatoes or meat could be cooked on top of the stove. I remember my mother cooking beef roast, pork roast, and chickens on top of the stove in water. We called them "roasts", but they were sometimes boiled or simmered on top of the stove. This was used possibly for tougher cuts of meat than the roasts we cook today.

Chicken, pork chops, and cubed steak was fried in a large iron skillet. I have seen my mother take a hammer to pound steak to tenderize it. She would then flour and fry it in serving size pieces. Meat was not served every day.

Some kind of dried beans (a wonderful sourse of protein) were cooked almost every day - large butter beans, small limas, pinto beans, navy beans, or black-eyed peas. Salt pork was plentiful and added to the dried vegetables for seasoning. Potatoes were boiled with butter and sometimes dumplings...probably bits of leftover dough from the biscuits that were cooked at every meal. The term "low-fat" had never been spoken!

Large pans of sweet potatoes were baked often. Sweet potatoes seemed plentiful and were sometimes fried or made into pies or puddings. In the summer fresh vegetables were cooked in place of or in addition to the dried beans which were a staple and inexpensive proten food nearly every day, Fresh vegetables were seasoned with fat meat (uncured bacon). Thankfully my mother did not add the fat meat to fresh vegetables as lavishly as some cooks did.

My favorite summer vegetable plate was fresh crowder peas with a few tiny pods of okra boiled on top of the peas, corn freshly cut fine off the cob, and sliced tomatoes. On a cold winter day nothing was better than chicken and dumplings, one of Mama's really great dishes. What kind of bread? Cornbread, of course and hot buttered biscuits.



Mama made great vegetable soup from fresh tomatoes and an assortment of vegetables from summer gardens. She also made soup in the winter using canned tomatoes and canned corned beef with potatoes, rice, or macaroni and any vegetables she had. We had canned salmon made into patties fairly often and sometimes fried fish. The fish meal was often fish that Mama caught from the nearby Yellow River. ( My father died when I was nine after being bedridden for a years, so I was reared by a widowed mother. My two older brothers , Grice and William Bogan...whom we called "Willie B "and two older sisters Louise and Vera (whom we called Sis and Vek) were already married when my father died. I was nine and my youngest brother Jack was 14.)


Cheese and macaroni, rice, and rice pudding were common dishes in the 30's. Grits and eggs were often served for breakfast with fried salt pork or streak-o-lean. Sometimes we had ham to go along with biscuits and butter and jelly or jam that had been prepared and put away in jars in quantity during the summer. It was not uncommon to have pork chops or fried chicken for breakfast along with the regular homemade buttered biscuits. Real butter.

The first margarine I saw looked like a hunk of lard, and, for a long time, tasted like lard to me - as it did to anyone who had been raised on country buttered biscuits. The margarine of the late thirties was white and came with a vial of yellow coloring. To make it look more like butter, the margarine had to be left out of the refrigerator to soften at room temperature. The yellow coloring had to be worked in. I suppose the butter lobbyists mandated this. In a few years the margarine people prevailed and they were allowed to make margarine that looked as yellow as butter.

An after dinner speaker named Baldy White was popular when I was young. He was a big man and used to keep his audience laughing with such comments as, "We were so poor when I was a boy, all we had for breakfast was ham, eggs, buttered grits and hot biscuits with an assortment of homemade jellies and preserves. We didn't know there was such a thing as Post Toasties!"

I remember Aunt Cora bringing her two granddaughters my age, Mildred and Allene, down from their home in Atlanta one week-end and how excited they were to have homemade biscuits for breakfast. I was amazed. I would have been more excited to have cereal and milk or toast made with "store bought" bread. Rare!