Document text
Approximately 1,800 words.
262.
TITLE:
SOUTH CAROLINA. ARITI1RS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
LIVING BY FAITH
Date of First Writing January 26, 1939
Name of Person Interviewed W. A. and Suite Credo
Fictitious Names W. A. and Susie Holmes
Street Address 240 Augusta Street
Place West Columbia, South Carolina
Occupation Mill Worker
Name of Writer
Name of Revisor
Helen Shuler
State Office
"Now, for the land's sake, who told you that I'm interesting? Mrs.
Holmes exclaimed. There ain't nothing interesting about my. But do come
on in the house. I'm tired and I want to rest. I've been over in town all
morning, waiting on that doctor. There was such a crowd ahead of me.
"My, it sure seems good to ease myself in this rocking chair. It don't
seem possible that I could get so tired, I'm such a scrap."
"Sammy, come to me this minute. 'jet no a rag, Minnie, to wipe this
child's nose. he's zot such a cold it's dripping clear down on his ohin."
Ma, I just don t know where I'll find anything. Oh, just use
his apron. I'll Have to wash today anyway."
"I-ao onjoy doing what littlo 7 on :or to sick," I. o1x oons.
tinuod, "and sharing the little I have with those who are needy. You know
our Mester says, 'In as mudh as you have done it unto the loast of those,
yon have done it unto Me.' Sometimes the neighbors oomo for mewl= I've
got the next meal 000ldng, but I just leave it. Will says I have spoiled
I ote of good rations by going to help the other fellow."
"Ulm& doesn't care," chimed in Minnie," the dinner burns up or it
the fire goes out. Oho thinks it is her duty to go. Ghe goes wherever she
hears of any one being sick, and then she eomes home tired and nervous and
quarrels with us."
"I go whenever I an able to go. But I an sic& most of the tine. Dr.
nab000k treated me for a long tine. nnt he just patched no up. !le smi4 I
had pellagra inside and outside. Nomad° no drink lots of nilk and oat veg..
otahlos. nut the doctors can't cure us all the time. The Lord has to take
a hand in it. And !eill do it -when we ask him, but we must have bath. At
that tine, I bolongod to the Southside Baptist church, but I wasn't a citric—
tie:me I hadn't been saved.
"Ono night I ums awful stoic. I was in a dreadful fix. Couldn't hardly
walk. Just hobbled along with some one holding on to no. My feet wero t%rned
over on their sides. The doctor cisme that night and told no I'd die before
morning. There wasn't another thing ho could do. Than the preaoher, Dr. Der.
rick, °ems to pm for no, so I could go to heaven. After they let no, I
thought about some passages I had read in my Bibles 'Is aey sick among you?
Let him call the elders or the church; and lot tlui pray for him.' And another,
'And the prayer of faith shall 'MVO the stoic, and the Lord shall raise him up.'
Then I remembored about the mooting going on over at the Free Will Holiness
church. I called my husband and told him I was going there to get then to
s.
pray for me."
'Tau can go if you want to,' he told me, 'but I'm not going to help
you get there. I don't believe in suoh foolishness.'
"Then I called the old Negro woman I had to take care of me. She put
a few clothes on me and picked me up in her arms and carried me over to the
chureh. When I got there, I asked the preacher to pray for ma. During the
meeting I realised what a sinner I had been, and I knew that if I did die
that night I'd go to hell. I knew then that I'd never been a Christian and
that my faith had been weak. When we got through praying and I got up off
my knees, my feet had been straightened. I could walk the sane as anybody.
On that Monday night the Lard healed me, and that's the night I was saved.
I had been mired by prayer. Now, all the relief I got, I got from the Lord.
I live by faith.
"When I got back hone that night, the old bogey man, that's what I call
him, tempted me. I found my baby awful sick. I told her pa not to send for
a doctor, and I just got down an my knees and prayed. I asked the Lord to
oure her. By morning, the was as well as ever. The Lord had answered my
prayer and cured her.
"Sometime later, my married daughter was sick, and the doctor said she
had double pneumonia. 2e was giving her all kinds of medicine, but she wasn't
getting any better. One night I went over there, and the doctor had just told
the family that Annie couldn't live out the night. They were going on some-
thing terrible. I quieted taen the best I could. Then I went in the closet
and got down on my knees, like the Master said, and I prayed and prayed. When
I came out of the closet, my daughter was much easier and had fallen asleep.
The next morning when the doctor oame and found her so much better, he was sur-
prised and wanted to know What I had done. I told him the Lord had cured her.
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I had Nat prayed and asked His help.
*Minnie have faith? Good gracious me, that child ham more faith than
I do. I wish mine ems as strong am hers. But she ain't no Christian. She
used to be a Christian before she started going to pisture Shows. You remem-
ber what the Mister told the rich young ruler, 'One thing thou lacketh.'
Minnie will go to moving pioture shows, and I think any one that goes
to picture show* can't be a Christian.
"No, indeed, I don't go to suoh things. Deliver me from them. Picture
shoes are not of God, and I won't tolerate anything that is not of God."
*Sametimes I tell Ma I'm going uptown to buy a pattern or something,"
Minnie interrupted, *but, instead, I go to the show. After I've been in
there a while, I'll see Ma coming dawn the aisle looking for 3144 Then
duck my head down to hide. But she usually finds me and pulls me out."
"Taft MOM,' Mrs. Holmes added, *that's the only time I over go in the
picture place.
*About three "ears ago I was real sick again. I was in a dreadful fix.
Py faith must not have been as strong as it had been, beoause I let than per-
suade me to go to the hospital. The doctors said I had ulcer of the stmnaoh,
or maybe cancer. I stayed there three weeks. When I was able to come back
home, they told me I had to eat something or drink milk every two hours. But
I couldn't do that. I got so tired of the milk, and, anyway, I'm not always
where I can eat that often. My stomach worries me something terrible. There's
such a hollow feeling and misery right here.
"Same of the women here in the village use snuff or smoke cigarettes.
But not me. No indeed,* pounding the arms of her chair. "I hate the stuff.
That's just filthiness of the flesh. Before Ives saved and became a Chris-
tian, I used snuff. But the Lord has cleansed me from that filthiness of the
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flesh and from all other filthiness.
*14y husband tips the filthy stuff and has for twenty-five years. That
is a sin he must answer for when he goes to meet his God. He hasn't yet been
saved and is not a Christian. I can't get him to go to ohureh nor read his
Bible. All he vante to do on Sunday is sit around the house and rest. When
I get down on my knees to pray, he thinks it's all foolishness and won't even
stay in the house. Goes out on the steps and sits in the sun. He says I spend
more time at chursh and visiting the sick than I spend at hone. I *onset the
children in the neighborhood and along the road to ehureh and take then to Sun-
day School. Some days I can borrow a oar or hire a truck to take them. I can
get other people to go to church, but I can't persuade my own husband to go with
me. I don't read nothing but the Bible. There ain't nothing good but the Bi-
ble.
*Before I MUM sick all the time, we got along Fret -Viral. Will, that's
my husband, had a good job in the mill, and we saved some money. 14 bought a
home out in Shandon for $2,500. We paid $500 cash. That was all we had saved.
Then we put a mortgage on for the rest. We were making the payments of twenty
dollars regularly every month until I took sick and the will shut down to part
time.
*Men we couldn't make the payments, we sold the place and came book here
to the villa7;e. We got five hundred dollars for our portion, but it didn't
stay with us long. There was too many hospital and doctor bills. Then, too,
had to have a Negro woman to help take care of me. It took everything we
could rake and scrape.
*For a while we had a pretty hard time to get along. But we are doing
fairly well right now. Will has kept his job in the mill and is getting
twenty dollars a week. Jim, our boy, is working there, too, and pays me
a.
some board. Then Minnie and her husband live with us and help with the go-
penses•
*Will eamplains whenever I give away groceries. He says we can't afford
it. I don't always have them at home, and I don't always have the money to
pay for them. But I just run down to the grooery and oharge what I want un-
til pay day. Sometimes the folks need a pie.* of furniture. Then I give it
to thus. Will says I have given away enough furniture to fill two or three
houses as big as this one. But I feel that they need it more than I do.
'Blessed is he that oonsidereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time
of trouble.'
"Bee tell me what ohurah you belong to. Oh, you de. I'm so glad, for
I just levy the Lutherans. They are so good. I know Mr. Smith from St.
Paul's. He Goose down here to see ms real often, and he prays with me. I
tell you he is a good man* and I sure love him.
If it hadn't been for my faith in the Lord, I wouldn't be living today.
'The just shall lire by his faith.'