The Holland Press

Many summer Friday afternoons, Papa hitched the team to the wagon, drove up by the well and left Russell in the seat to hold the horses while he went inside to help Mama carry out the picnic supper that we wolfed down after we had been swimming for an hour, or two or three, or four! Grace could swim when she was four, but I think I was eight or nine years old before I could swim. But I had to show off and dive even before I could swim, by diving into the eight foot "pool” in Flint Creek, and Papa catching me. I didn't realize how cold Flint Creek was in those days; years later we went back and I waded into it, and I wondered how we could have enjoyed the really cold water. It is fed by springs out of the mountains its entire length, and it was a lovely Little stream, clear and free of pollution. We had never heard of "pollution" in those days, although we did take the precaution to go up above where we were swimming (and the horses were drinking) to get a drink of water for ourselves! ,

Sometimes we'd stay in the water until we were blue with the cold and Mama would say, "You girls get out for a while now, find a patch of sun to sit ine" She always allowed us to go back in later. Before we started for home, mother handed us clean towels, clean and dry clothes, a comb and brush for our hair, and told us to get dressed. We had our favorite dressing room behind some trees and bushes where we hurried fast as fast to get into clothing, comb and brush wet hair and hurry back to the picnic spread on a cloth on the ground.

Buns, fried chicken, pickles, sliced tomatoes, boiled and deviled eggs, and potato salad sometimes, but mostly finger food, so no saucers and forks would have to be looked after and carried home in the empty lunch basket. Fruit we had, too, in season, red apples, peaches and cold watermelon, chilled in the cold stream. The only one that could eat more of that than I, was Papa, and of course we always had cookies. (Mama was famous for her cookies and I have a funny story to tell about that!) (Later!)

Often we would sing on the way home and I am sure all the neighbors and friends along the way knew well when the "Maxson bunch" had been picnicking at the creek. Papa would lead us all in his rich baritone, singing Swanee River, Old Kentucky Home, Old Black Joe; and always, of course, our favorite hymns Old Rugged Cross, There is a Fountain Filled with Blood, Will there Be Any Stars in My Crown, Sunshine In My Soul Today, I Surrender All, etc; today I thank God for those days, that enrichment of spirit that we gathered from our parents; and for those nights that we gathered around the organ, with Mother playing (she had been a music teacher before she married, and played beautifully), and all of us singing as Dad led out; besides the hymns mentioned earlier, we sang Down at the Cross, Rescue the Perishing, No Not One, Brighten the Corner Where You Are", I'll go Where You Want Me to Go, Gladly the Cross I'd Bear (tho when I was really young, four years old or so, I was sure Dad was singing about a little cross-eyed bear named "Gladly").

Friday night was always prayer meeting. Mother, tired, no doubt and probably pregnant, didn't always go with us. (When she was pregnant with Paul, I noticed how fat she was, but was not curious enough perhaps to ask why. When she was pregnant with Carl, I knew she was pregnant and wondered. Mother found it hard to talk to her daughters about such things. Papa explained somewhat after we were older and urged us to ask him any questions we wondered about; I wanted to, for I wondered plenty! But I was too shy I guess, and most of my sex education came from older cousins and Aunt Myrtle and Aunt Ethel, only ten years older than Grace and I; and they said not to let a boy kiss you, ever, for he'd want to go further (and by that I supposed he'd want to give you a baby, but I had not the faintest how he'd go about that!!!)

After prayer meetings, walking home on summer nights, Ruth, Grace and I would walk with Papa, through the woods (a virgin forest of oak trees, moss, and, in the rainy season, a little stream. It was always quiet and cool. I walked alone sometimes, in front, and sometimes behind the others, and coming home it was DARK. I would suddenly run up beside Papa and reach for his huge, warm hand. As soon as we were out of the woods, I would drop his hand and run on alone. One night he said: "See, Sister, that's often the way we treat God. When things are dark, or there's trouble, and we are afraid, we call on Him; then when the way is lighter, we forget Him." A little lesson I never forgot.

Nor have I forgotten Mama's hand, reaching out to hold mine when I had a bad dream. The first nightmare I remember having, I thought I was running from the front porch, around the side of the house to the back porch where mama was, screaming because a snake was fastened to the calf of my leg. I was very young at that time, but Mother awakened me, talked soothingly and sat there holding my hand until I could sleep again.

How wonderful are God's plans, to give us mothers and fathers who Love so much, and do the very best they can to give the children a good foundation of Faith in the Heavenly Father.

I didn't thank my parents I suppose, but oh, how many times I've thanked God for letting me be born into a Christian home with Darwin and Eunice, my very own papa and mama.

Dad often printed Bible verses on cardboard and tacked them up where we could all see them; then he gave Grace and I, and perhaps Ruth, too, whole chapters of the Bible to learn. Although I can't repeat them word for word anymore, they are so familiar as I read them over again. Especially several of the Psalms and the 13th Chapter of First Corinthians.

And if I have a creed in Life, or perhaps I should say, my philosophy is Phil. 4:8. One of Dad's printed-out verses was Psalms 139:23-24. I do love the Psalms very much. They express the feelings of all humanity from deep depression to highest joy.

But please pardon me! You are a preacher's family and I'm glad for that. Praise the Lord, and I'm very pleased and proud you are also teachers. How we do need Christian teachers. My own family seems to be nurse inclined. Four of my seven granddaughters are already RNs and three of my great granddaughters are now in nurses training in Little Rock and Memphis; one of my grandchildren is a qualified teacher, (Shirley, Helen's oldest girl) and she only taught one year and decided not to teach any more.

She had been working part- time ever since she started high school and buying a home and saving her money for trips. She's been all over Europe and to Africa and just before Christmas had a chance to go to China, Japan and the Philippines. She did work for the government in Washington D.C. for a year and then in Bonn, Germany for two years. Now she is in Dallas, Texas, working for a Japanese firm that makes components for telephones (Nippon Electronics Corp.) She has been there for several years and is the Benefits Administrator for that company. It has over 500 employees, so she's busy.

Sorry I "branched off"! Didn't mean to, and if I ramble and my story comes out in bits and pieces perhaps you'll be able to form a coherent picture of the childhoods of Darwin's and Sunice's children anyway!

I couldn't have been more than six or seven years old when I started school in the game grade with Grace. Aunt Ora Maxson was the first grade teacher. My early memories of school are tied in with the arrival in our home of a strange and fascinating invention. Early in my school memories is the memory of coming home to find a wooden box, golden oak in color, high up on the south wall of our dining room.

How excited we were when Mama explained it was a telephone, and showed us how, when it rang, she could take the ‘receiver’ down from the hook and actually hear some real person talking (from miles away) and she could answer back to them. "Why doesn't it ring so we can see you do that?" we asked, "Why doesn't it ring? Why doesn't it ring???" We kept on pestering her so that she said, "Pull a chair up there by the phone and stand on it and let you ring it, and talk, if you must!" So ring it I did, and a voice said "Central", and Mother said, "Please connect me to Red. Maxson's residence."

That was done, a moment later Grandmother (Annie Crandall Maxson) came on the line in her pleasant voice, and thus I was introduced to the modern mode of communication. Our telephone was on a party line, and we were to answer only when it rang two long rings. Some rings were two shorts and a long; a long and a short, etc.

Nobody had telephone numbers then, one had only to ask "Central", (the main switchboard operator) for the residence or store to which they wanted to talk.

Another time, probably in 1910 or 1911, as Grace and I walked home from school we saw a tall silvery looking frame sticking up higher than the maple trees around our houses. Our ever adventuresome papa had bought us a windmill. Now no more hand pumping of water for the stock or chickens, or household. For a long time, after the erection of the windmill was completed, he left the bottom ladder off, so his adventuresome children wouldn't be tempted to climb 60 feet into the sky. When I was older I did climb to the top, sat there and sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee" to all the world,

I can't remember the time we didn't have gas lights at the church, but I do remember when Gentry got electricity, and the church deacons voted to have the church wired, so then we had the electric lights.

And I remember, oh, so well, when there were Sabbath Days and that church would be full. I can see the families coming in, walking down the aisles, taking their places, the Lindalls, Mr. and Mrs., and three children; the Knights, Saunders", Oches', Zaglesfields, etc; also the Van Horns, Richmonds, and our Grandpa R. J. Maxson, and all his family--Aunt Myrtle, Aunt Ora, Aunt Sylvia--I often went up to sit beside Grandma Maxson, for she always had a white, round peppermint for me when I got restless and squirming, and she didn't give me severe looks when my attention wandered from the preacher's words.

Oh, I often had to leave my seat to go to the outhouse during services, but this was most often so that I could see what was going on in the little ante-room. Once I went out, and, coming in the back door, met Mr. Richmond as he came in; later he told dad that he had asked a little black-haired girl who she was, and the child had said, “Oh, I'm just one of the Maxson gang, Geneva."

The incident where I spanked the preacher I don't actually remember, (I was only three years old at the time) but Mama told me about it later. It seems the children were being bundled into coats and bonnets in the ante-room of the church, preparing for the trip home — after services. The preacher, Burdett Coon, was stooping to tie his child's bonnet strings; I was just close enough and it must have seemed the appropriate thing for me to do, so I reached up and gave his buttocks a resounding smack!

Another preacher I remember quite well was Rev. James Hurley; that's why our brother Russell wasn't a junior to Grandpa Russell John; our brother was named Russell James, to honor Rev. James Hurley. Other preachers we had were Rev. Biggs (Uncle Nathan married his daughter, Daisy), also there was Brother Ernst, a real old fuddy duddy, then Davis (a good one), and T. J. Van Horn.

There is an old song that nags at my memory, and some of the verses I cannot recall accurately, but it goes something like this, and I’ll bet Paul can recall it, too:

"There's a dear and precious book

Tho' its worn and faded now

That recalls the happy days of long ago

When I stood at Mother's knee

With her hand upon my brow

And she talked to me in gentle tones and low.

Blessed Book, precious Book, on thy dear old

tear stained leaves I love to Look;

Thou art sweeter day by day, as I walk the narrow way that leads at last to that bright home above.

Then she told me of His love. . .

How he came from heaven above,

How he suffered, bled and died upon the tree;

and with tears she said it was for me. . .

(these last lines, I feel sure, are not quite right.) And how I loved "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder":

"On that bright and glorious morning when the dead in Christ shall rise,

"And the Glory of His resurrection share;

When the dear ones shall gather over on the other shore, When the roll is called up yonder I'll be there."

One old song that I've tried to find, and haven't been able to. . . I think it was titled: "I've had a glimpse of Jesus". It went like this:

"Back to the cold world I will not go Back to the old life of pain and woe, Back to old ways of sin, Oh, no,

I've had a glimpse of Jesus.

I*ve found a life that is sweeter to me, Fuller of joy than the old life could be, Fuller of love and from unhappiness free, I've had a glimpse of Jesus.”

Uncle Horace and Little Aunt Arlie Whittier were another of the old friends I remember. Aunt Arlie once wrote me a letter and addressed it to "Mip" Geneva Maxson. I asked Mama what the "Mip" meant, and she. replied that was an old fashioned term to address young people. Aunt Arlie used to attend our "Junior (League) " meetings. (I think we always called the meetings simply "Junior". These were on Sabbath afternoons at 4:00, where we sang and had devotionals, etc, sort of like a "Junior" church service. Aunt Arlie came to play the organ for us. They had no children, were older than Mama and Papa and she never could seem to get over the shock that young people were so “active"!! I've wondered if that letter she wrote me had anything to do with my behavior!

She also was my music teacher at one time, trying to teach me to play the organ, but she gave up, and told Mama: "I’m only wasting my time and your money, Eunice, for she is tone deaf and will never learn to play." I could never imagine why I was so tone deaf when I loved so well to try to sing, and sing I did in church, loudly and enthusiastically, and I must have been an awful cross for the whole church to bear! Mrs. T. J. Van Horn sort — of “gentled" me down I think, and I did adore her although I didn't think much of the preacher, T.J.

Amey, their daughter was nice. I wonder what ever became of Leigh?

I was seven years old, in the second grade at Gentry Grammar School, (Hattie Ellerson was my teacher.) That year Papa, seeing I needed shoes, and knowing I was much harder on shoes, dresses and everything else, decided I should have boy's shoes. The only difference in those years was that the girl's shoes had holes all the way up to lace them, and were obviously a bit lighter than the boy's shoes, and the shoes for the boys had metal hooks at the top instead of lacing "holes" all the way up, and were also a little sturdier.

I can't remember that I complained to Papa at the time, for I thought anything he did was always right, but at school, some of the other girls noticed my shoes and giggled and "snickered” behind their hands. Opal Eldridge, one of my friends (I thought! ) derided me about my shoes, and pointed out that I should have had spunk enough to tell my father I wouldn't have them. I was humiliated and hurried home ahead of Grace that afternoon, and I figured out an answer that would certainly have gotten even with her, if I had only had the presence of mind to say it to her at the time! I thought: "I should have. said to her, ‘Yes, Fattie, don't you wish you had some shoes like mine!'" That would have cut her a good one, since she was some ten pounds fatter and more awkward than me. Oh, but I didn't think of it in time and now I had months (at least weeks) to wear the shoes before they could be discarded for new ones!

No wonder I was extra active for the rest of the winter, scuffing and scrubbing away at the shoes, running, jumping, hiking over rocky ground,

just anything to put on some extra wear and tear!