Reclaimed Memories

hen we attended Bonebrake Seminary, Vacation Bible Schools for children had not come into being. We read about the concept and the materials which had been prepared for use in conducting such a school. We were really eager to try it the second year we were on the Freemansburg Charge. There was a two room elementary school building in Pricetown. We received the proper authorization to use the building for two weeks and proceeded with enthusiasm to prepare for the school. All the children in the neighborhood of elementary age were invited. Troy taught the upper grades in one room and I the lower grades in the other room. We enjoyed it so much and felt the children were benefited. Every year after that we continued the practice until our retirement, but we enlisted the help of the lay people in the church, instead of trying to do all the work ourselves.

The next year the conference was "pushing" for a school to be held on each charge, and a few young people enlisted to help in the endeavor. Ruth Parks, whom we knew from our Cairo ministry and Guy Meehling, whom we knew in connection with state young people's work, came to help us the second year. Ruby Clayton was visiting us, also, at that time. I do not remember how we all managed to sleep, but I do remember that we had a wonderful time together. We probably had already added the small room for Marion, taking in a part of the back porch, which was over the stairs to the cellar. The room had to be small to allow head room for the stairs. The entrance was from one of the bedrooms, but it did free one bedroom to become a guest room. I know we built one bunk in the room.

It was berry picking time while the "gang" was with us, and the fields were loaded with beautiful, big, luscious berries. All of us went picking one afternoon, after the Bible school session was over, and came back with a tub full of berries. That night we all helped and we had them all taken care of before we went to bed. Part of them were in our stomachs in cobbler form.

Marion has remarked about how much he enjoyed listening to his Grandfather Brady tell about his early life. Howard remembers him telling a "Tall Tale," about his dog. It must have been when Dad Brady visited us when we were on the Union Circuit, otherwise Howard would have recognized it as a tall tale he could enjoy but not believe. But he said he believed the story implicitly. This is the way the story goes and his granddad used the personal pronoun "I" in telling it. He really did enjoy fox chasing with his friends.

"I was fox chasing with my friends one night, and my dash-hound got on the trail of the fox. He was just about to catch it when the fox ran around a big stump. My dog decided if he would jump the stump he could get the fox. There was a big, sharp splinter sticking up in the middle of that stump and it cut my hound dog squarely in the middle, from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail. But he was such a good dog. I knew nothing could stop him, so I grabbed the two halves and slapped them back together, and tied them with a couple of hickory switches. That dog started right off again after that fox! But, I had been in such a hurry that I put him back together wrong. I got two legs up and two legs down. That did not bother that dog! He just ran along on two legs and when he got tired he flopped over and ran on the other two. He got the fox."

Beginning on the 6th of January, 1941, Troy went to Elkins, West Virginia, for a two weeks series of revival services. (When I was writing on the decade of the sixties I wrote of our associations with the McQuain family. It was during this series of meetings that we got acquainted with them.) Troy's happy experiences and the friends he made in the church at that time and the next year, when he was called back for their revival, led to his desire later to go to the Elkins Church as pastor. The Freemansburg Charge was very generous in allowing him to hold revivals away. He held a two weeks series in Akron, also, in 1942.

We were assigned back for our fourth year there when the Annual Conference met in September of 1942. Troy's first services of this new year were held on September the 6th. Just before conference the McQuains had asked us to go with them to Westerville, Ohio, to take their elder daughter to enroll in Otterbein College. While there Troy talked to the conference superintendent of the Southeast Ohio Conference about a student charge for the next year. He had decided that he wanted additional education. Troy had a tonsillectomy and could not preach on the next two Sundays. While he was out of "circulation" with his throat the conference superintendent, of Southeast, Ohio, sent word that he had an opening right away, if he was willing to accept it and enter college more than a month late.

Troy notified the Conference Superintendent of his desire for more schooling, and tendered his resignation from the Freemansburg Charge. On October the 4th and the 6th he was able to preach farewell messages to five of the churches. He used as his subject, "Farewell Desires." There was just so much to be done in such a short time that he did not get to Walnut Fork. We left that same week for Harrisburg, Ohio, where the parsonage was located, for this two point work.

Freemansburg Circuit had been a very happy pastorate for us. There was no major strife or friction in any of the churches, as I remember, and we received many lovely gifts from individuals and from the different churches, especially at Christmas time. The inside of the parsonage was more attractive, than when we came on the work. The building was rather cheaply constructed. The walls were sealed with beaver board, with narrow wooden strips covering each joint. We removed those and filled the cracks, then papered each room. Remodeling had been done on the Camden Church. When this was being done one of the young men of the church was in the attic and called down, "Guess what I found up here!" Someone asked, "What?" He replied, "All of Buck's prayers. This was as high as they got." Of course this caused amusement. Buck was the Sunday School superintendent and did not always live as he talked at church.

Marion was a senior in high school, although only just past fifteen years, and it was a shame that he had to change schools his last year. In 1941, shortly after his 14th birthday he persuaded us to let him ride his bike back to see his friends in Mason County. He had been working with his bike, delivering groceries all the previous summer and was in good condition for the long trip of close to one hundred thirty or forty miles. The first day he reached Cairo and stayed all night with our good friend, Ruby Clayton. But the gears on his bike were almost worn out and she knew someone with a truck, who was going to Parkersburg the next day. He delivered Marion and the bike to a shop, where the necessary repairs were made.

He was able to reach the home of a boyfriend before dark that day.  We did not let him ride his bike back. Going for him gave us a good excuse to see some old friends. The lift to Parkersburg cut off about 20 miles that he would have had to pedal his bike. He crossed the Ohio River there and went on the Ohio side to Pomroy, where he crossed back over into West Virginia.

Zylpha got such a kick out of a printed letter she got from Howard, while we were living in Pricetown. He did not go to school until we moved to Ohio, but I had taught him at home and he printed his letter to her. A little kitten appeared at our house one day and Howard played with it. It was around for several days. We finally decided that it was a stray and named it Tuesday, for the day it came. After about a week a neighbor child living about a block away claimed the cat. Howard wrote his Aunt Zylpha about it, telling her what he had named the kitty, and why. He ended his account by writing. "I cry. Your little friend, Howard."

That was not his only encounter with a kitty-cat while we lived there. One day he came in the house all excited and told us there was a black and white kitty in the garage. (Remember, the garage here was under the house.) We went down to see and we left that kitty-cat strictly alone! It was a little skunk.

Troy used to entertain the boys, and other young people, by playing his guitar and singing funny songs to them. I am sure both Marion and Howard remembers the one about a burglar and the one known as, "One More River To Cross," which is particularly repulsive, but the young folks would shudder and ask him to sing it again.

THE BURGLAR BOLD

Oh, I'll sing you a song about a burglar bold
Who tried to rob a house.
He crept in thru' a window, just as quietly as a mouse.
And under the bed that burglar crawled
Right close up to the wall.
Now he didn't know 'twas an old maid's room,
Or he wouldn't gone there at all!


At nine o’clock the old maid came.
"Oh, I'm so tired," she said.
She tho't that night that all was right,
So she didn't look under the bed.
She took out her teeth, and her bum glass eye,
And the hair from off her head,
And the burglar man had seventeen fits,
As he looked from under the bed.

 
Now she didn't cry, and she didn't scream,
She pointed a revolver at him and said,
"You'll marry me, you burglar man,
Or I'll blow off the top of your head."
And the burglar looked all around the room,
And he saw no place to scoot.
Then he looked at the teeth and the bum glass eye,
And said, "Lady for God's sake shoot!"


ONE MORE RIVER TO CROSS

Did you ever think, as the hearse goes by,
That it won't be long before you and I
Will be riding slow, in that big black hack
And we won't be thinking of coming back?

Chorus:

For there's one more river, just one more river to cross,
There's one more river, just one more river to cross.

They'll plant you deep, oh, so very deep,
And you won't wake up from that awful sleep.
You'll be dressed in black, and you'll wear no hat,
And your slats will fall out of you slat by slat.

Chorus:

When you get down in that big, black hole,
You'll wonder where they got all that coal.
As you trudge along on that red hot route,
You'll wish you had worn your old Palm Reach suit.

Chorus:

Oh, the worms'll crawl in, and the worms'll crawl out,
The worms'll play pinochle on your snout.
The worms will crawl out, and the worms'll crawl in,
They'II crawl out of your mouth and down over your chin.