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Ally 26th 1939
7..R.Glenn (Necro) Minister
309 a.Zleventh
Cherlotto, X.C4,
Cora Lip Bennetts Writer
Dudley ,i. Crawford, Revisor
Origins' Nemen
Panther Greek
Professor Atkias
Winston 'glom Teachers College
Smith Grove Cirouit
North Aakesborr:
Charlotte
Livingsten Collere
Bishop r;rece
Changed res
Painterts Bride
Professor Xenon
Atterburl rormal !.ohoo1
Xoynes Creek Circuit
Doughtonvillo
Riverton
washington ColleGe
nishop Sudsh
A preacher has a mighty hard time =akin' it these days.
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People not studin' much about God or religion and less'n that
about preachers. But I have been a preacher all my life and will
be one as long as I am able. That's one reason why I'm glad I was
raised in the country and know how to farm as well as preach. As
long as I am able I'll always have something for my wife to eat,
like I did when the children were home. These days people expect
preacher a to live on earth and board in Heaven.
Tess I was born in the country and for seven years I
stayed with my uncle to help on his farm. I've known the time he'd
go off and stay three- four weeks at the time and weld hardly have
anything to eat. Many's the daymy aunt would cook nothing but peas
with no seasoning but a little salt. But such hardships as that
make a man out of you if you don't weaken.
I worked for a white man once, got two bushels of corn a
month. Someone went and told Mama what I was doing and she came
and got me and took me home. I didn't stay home very long but
moved to live with. the man who was our preacher then. He bought
me some clothes and helped him work on his farm. He was sendin,
his children to school and I got to go o school till I had
finished the elementary grades, such as it was, I knew my mother
and father had no money to send me so I didn't bother them with
the idea. I just kept on studin, and studin, of some way I could
get to go to school.
A man gave me a little bull calf and I was the proudest
boy you ever saw. I took it how and I agreed to let my little
sister pkay with it if she'd graze him while was working.
Not long after that Professor James, president of what
is now Atterbury Normal School, dame to our church. I asked himm
if he would take a little beef and let me come to school. He said
he would, so I killed my calf, came to fourteen dollars and forty
cents.
Well, I took the money and went to school. I stayed there
till spring but I had been so used to bein' on the farm in the
spring that I just couldn't stay there at school, so went on
home. I went back to school for the other three years. When I
left Professor James gave me a silver dollar. I don't know if
I had worked to the extent that I still had one dollar left from
my fourteen or whether he just liked me and wanted to give ma a
dollar.
As I said, I've been preachin, all my life. I was born to
preach. I'd say I accepted the call to preach when I was eighten
and was ordained as a local preacher in my church in that year.
Then I joined the annual conference the following year, and the
Bishop sent me to the Xoynes Creek Circuit. I stayed there two
years and the following year I got married.
The next eight years of my life I pastors(' in little
country churches in ay home conference. The coneretations were
always small, and the buildinea in bad condition. Everywhere I'd
goi'd do my best to raise money to fix up the buildinfAnd make
the place at least passable. I'd have big truck gardens and make
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enough to feed my family that way. /f I'd been depending on
what I gotm as a salary from those churches we'd all starved.
From Doughtonsville, where I stayed four years, came
here to Riverton. Then the Bishop got hot at me and left me
without an appointment but that didn't bother me one bit. You
see the thing I was most interested in was spreading the gospel,
and I could, and did, always find somewhere to help the buildint
of the Kingdom.
Well, I stayed around here without work for a year. We
had eight children by then. I still had my vegetable garden
and I remember plenty times I'd sell vegetables to get meat.
MY wife was working as a practical nurse and there was hardly
any time she didn't have something to do.
Then I went out to Tennessee to take a church and
Stayed about eighteen months. While I was out there my seeond
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girl home with aLmOilLold-enough to be her father. She VAS
only sixteen and when we heard from her she was in Philadelphia.
Well, she finally came home but she didn't live in any peace.
He had plenty of money all right for he was one of the biggest
bootleggers that ever hit this town. He was crazy Jealous, but
she stayed with him ten years before she got a divorce.
D14 to the time my child married this man I thought
divorce was a sinful thing, but when I saw what that marriage
did to my little girl I knew that a legal separation would be
better tahn life with him, ifs succeeded in wrecking her life
all right. right. She stayed with him long enough for his dirty old
ways to take effect on her. But now she is out from under his
influence and it may be that she'll come back on the right read
yet.
I tried to send all my ohildren to school as long as
they would go. The three oldest ones didn't finish high school
but all the others did. My baby girl went to Washington College
one year and then she got married. My baby boy went to A and
IP College three years and this year would have been his senior
year but I just couldn't afford to send him, Anyway he wants to
take embalming so he's been working this year and will go back
to finish his college work next year.
Another tragic thing that happened in my life when my
favorite boy got killed. He got stabbed trying to separate
two men who were fighting,
Now all the children are married except one boy. One
of my grandchildren stays with me, At present my wife is workin,
as a maid in one of the high schools here. And I still have my
garden, summer and winter. I'm not too proud to put on my old
dlothes and go out there and work, and I bet you've not seen a
prettier garden this spring.
Of course if it wasn't for my wife's help even now I
guess we'd have it pretty tough. I'm a presidia' elder in my
church now but some Sundays when I go to the weaker churches
in my diStrict I hardly make bus fare there and back. But I
bring backm plenty eggs and butter, and the likes ImmaMOMEM1F.
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I sold greens out of my garden to different neighbors and made
a little change. I don't suffer.
Beim' raised in the country I just love to work with
the soil/. I'll tell you another thing I love doint. I go
fishint as often as I can. I love to sit out on the river bank
even all night sometimes. Of course I get a lot of criticism
from crazy christians who think I ought not to go fishint.
But God put this old world down here for everybody to enjoy.
Because I'm a preacher ain't no reason in the world for ms not
to enjoy mysely some, so I just go right on enjoyint myself.
Itts sort of like when I hear people criticizint Bishop
Judah, that preacher who cameo here and cures people. His church
has done good for -ome of our people. You know he's got a class
of people who follow htm who otherwise wouldn't be a bit of good
to themselves and to no one else. The regular churches just don't
reach those people. Now the fault comes in when tho. e people
worship Bishop Zudah instead of God. Now I don't believe he
tells those people he is God. They're just over -emotional and
their emotions gets the best of them, but I wouldn't say it was
all Bishop Xudahts fault. In spite of the criticism he gets I
can still see some good in what he's doint.
my wife is proud as she can be and I like her to be that
way. She's known all over this community as one of the best
housekeepers around here. ;list like you see that house in there
right now is the way she keeps it all the time, and what's
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more I help her keep it that way. All ay girls are good house-
klepors too just like their mother. When I get too old to
preach I expect my ehildren will take oars of ma."