Reclaimed Memories

t was time to move again, after the September Conference of the United Brethren Church. Like most other parsonage families on large circuits we were anxious to move up, so that we would eventually be serving a one church charge. This move seemed a step in that direction.

At that time no pastor knew for sure where he was going, until the stationing committee's report. This was the last item of business, before the conference adjourned for another year. We had been approached by the lay delegate from the Weston, West Virginia, Broad Street Church to come there. This was one of the smaller station churches in the conference, but we would have only the one church. We were elated! Troy and the delegate from the church went together before the stationing committee, which consisted of the Superintendent of the denomination in our state and the bishop. The bishop was the supervisor over several state conferences of the denomination. This arrangement was fine with both of them, and Troy's name was placed on their report to go to that church. We were sitting with the delegate from the Broad Street Church when the stationing committee report was read. Three people almost fainted when the superintendent read, "Freemansburg Charge, Troy R. Brady."

Troy and the delegate went to Dr. Capehart as soon as the benediction was over. Troy was very disappointed and the delegate was very angry. The superintendent said, "Fred Slaughter says he will not accept the Broad Street Church. According to the discipline (laws) we had to assign him to a church. As soon as he hands in his resignation we will assign you there." Troy and the delegate went away happy.

But Dr. Fred Slaughter did not resign!! Everyone knew that his doctor's degree had come from a diploma mill, but it made him feel very important. He was almost of retirement age, but probably was not financially able to retire. Social Security had not come into being and the retirement was small.

We moved to the Freemansburg Circuit, with its five churches. The salary there was two or three hundred more than it had been at Union, but the parsonage was not as nice. It had only two bedrooms and a very small room, leading directly across the hall from the dining room, which Troy used for his study. All the other rooms were of nice size. The house set on a rather steep slope, with a long enough flight of steps leading to the front porch, to allow for a garage under the front of the house. A cellar was under the back of the house, with a flight of steps leading down to it. The steps to it were on one end of the large back porch. There was a connecting door between the cellar and the garage, which enabled us to get to or from the car in bad weather.

The water supply was much more satisfactory than at Union. There was a large pump on the end of the back porch, which drew water directly from the well beneath. This area of the state is "gas well" country and we could taste and smell the gas when we pumped a bucket of the water. We soon got used to that and thought it was the best water we had ever had. I still think that! It was as soft as rainwater, cold when first pumped, and as clear as crystal.

As usual, there was no bathroom; in fact no modern convenience, except electricity. We moved our icebox, which we had from our Vienna home, each move that we made. Here, for the first time in our ministry we had a chance to use it. The "iceman" would bring in the amount indicated when we placed our card in the front window. We bought, on time, a Westinghouse refrigerator which had been reclaimed for lack of payment, in 1941. It was like new and I was as happy as a new bride! It cost us the $97.00, which was still owing on it. That refrigerator was still in good condition when we retired to Singers Glen, in 1971. We gave it to the daughter of our next door neighbor, who was getting married.

We found a dog on a mountain road miles from any residence, while we were at Cairo. She was the first dog Marion ever had and we called her Queenie, but she disappeared after several months. Someone at Union gave the boys a cute, little, longhaired dog, which we called Cricket. Cricket died trying to give birth. When we knew she was in difficulty we took her to the veterinary, where she gave birth to a dead puppy. The vet called and said he could not save her; that gangrene had set in and we asked him to put her to sleep. Troy picked up her body and he buried her at the upper end of our garden. We were so attached to that little dog, that we were heartbroken. A few days later Howard said to me, "Mother, would you cry if Daddy died?" I replied, "Of course I would cry, Honey." Then he asked "You wouldn't cry as much as you did when Cricket died, would you?" I guess I had cried copiously and he thought I could not have that many tears left for his dad.

After the death of Cricket, Peg White brought Howard a little short haired puppy, just weaned from his mother. Howard stood him in one of his galoshes and just his little head stuck up. One day we gave him as much milk as he seemed to want. He ate so much his short, little legs could not hold him up and his fat little belly dragged on the floor. We were careful not to overfeed him after that. He just did not know when enough was enough!

Tags was probably rat terrier and spitz. He loved the snow and would tunnel through it when it was deep. But he too came to a bad end, after we moved to Ohio. He got with a pack of dogs and they were chasing sheep and the farmer shot him. He managed to get home, but was so badly wounded that Troy shot him. We never got another dog.

The parsonage on the Freemansburg Circuit was located in Pricetown, which was about two miles from Weston. Weston was a good shopping area and where Marion went to high school for three years. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile to the Pricetown Church and another two or three miles, on the same highway, to the church in the small settlement of Camden. Northwest of Camden two or three miles, was the little village of Churchville. The church attendance at this church was larger than at any of the others on the circuit. There were a lot of children and young people in this community and the church had a choir. The Valley Chapel Church building was the nicest one on the circuit. The store at Valley Chapel was where my Aunt Mollie Allman had bought my doll, when I was five years old. The Freemansburg Church was two miles from the village of Valley Chapel.

The other church on the circuit was the Walnut Fork Church. This church reminded me of the ones on the Cairo Circuit. It was just a small, plain rectangular building and most of the people who attended there were from the poorer mountain farms in the locality.

Troy tried to have a communion service every three months at each church. To have communion at Walnut Church we had to borrow the communion service from one of the other churches. At the first communion he held there, he asked one of the ladies if she would prepare the elements for the next preaching service in the church. She consented and he gave her the service from the Churchville Church. He explained that she was to put grape juice in the communion glasses and cut the bread in very small cubes for the plate. She had the communion table all prepared when he returned for the next preaching service. She said to him as soon as he arrived, "Preacher, I have something much better than grape juice for communion. I have real dandelion wine!" I thought of Walnut Fork when I took communion in a Lutheran Church in South San Francisco recently. (July 28, 1991) In all my years of taking communion that was my second experience of having the real thing.

Howard was subject to colds and once in a while to asthma attacks. We started him to school at Pricetown, but after a week or so we took him to the doctor. She said he should not go to school because of the danger of flu and other infections in a crowded school room, so we took him out. I taught him at home because I did not want him to feel that he was behind children his age. When we went to Ohio the next year I wanted the teacher to start him in the second grade. But she felt since he had not been in public school, that he would not be up on all his skills. It only took her a week to learn that he did not belong in the first grade and she placed him in the second. I always loved to read to the children and I did that every night, with Howard on my lap.

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