His Last Easter on Earth

Easter of 1949 at the Belford Community Sunday School

                Easter is a fun, yet serious holiday to observe. Part of the excitement of the first spring celebration involves glorious egg colors, secretive egg hiding and hunting with beautifully decorated or theme baskets. My maternal grandpa, Calvin Callcayah Smith, always questioned my sister and me about our “Easter frocks” since he thought we should have new, usually pastel, fashionable spring dresses for that special Sunday. He knew Grandma designed and created unique outfits for us to wear to church on Easter Sunday almost every year.

                Since the Sunday on which Christ arose, the first observance of the spring season superseded all other events of the spring season. This was no different in the 1930s and 1940s on the east side of the Big Bend in the Belford community.

                My mother recalled the joyous celebration of Easter in 1949, at the Belford Community Sunday School. Many families attended the Easter service on Sunday, April 17, of that year at the Belford Grade School. George Megee, a teacher who lived at Little Chief, served as the preacher for the Belford community.
                 In the Belford column of The Fairfax Chief, my grandmother, Gladys Rainey Smith, wrote “the service was well attended, with one conversion and one confession.” My mother recalled her uncle, Ernest Rice, made "public" the confession he had made privately earlier in the year.  That Easter morning Harold Grimm, the husband of Thelma Hutchison Grimm and the father of Roy Grimm, Norma Grimm Hopper, and Donnis Grimm Morris, was converted -repented of his sins, turned to Jesus, and chose to follow Him.

The Teacher of Belford School along with the school board members:
Parris Dooley, Elmer Rogers, Ernest E. Rice, and Harold Grimm. Mr.
Rogers and his wife served as teachers.

                 Mother’s extended family realized her uncle was ill, but no one knew this would be his last Easter. Daisy Rainey Rice, along with her children, Orlean, Hazel, Elmer, Virgil, and Dean, on June 18 of that same year, were forced to say good-bye to their husband and father. Less than two months after the joyous celebration of Easter at the Belford Grade School, Mother’s Uncle Ernest Rice died of cancer. As her aunt and cousins grieved, they also recalled the Easter Sunday service. Ernest Rice and Harold Grimm made public professions of their faith in Christ. The two men let the people of the community know that morning of their commitment to trust Jesus to forgive their sins and in turn, give Him their lives.

                In one of the Belford columns that appeared in a June issue of The Fairfax Chief, Grandma began the community news with a personalized obituary of her brother-in-law, Ernest Elias Rice. She commented on his spiritual state at his death with these statements:

          In January 1949, Ernest accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal Saviour, realizing that nothing but faith in the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ could save man from his sins. Ernest’s one desire was that sinners would accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, while there was yet time.

                One of Ernest’s descendents reacted recently to the death of a friend with this profound statement after mentioning how hard we humans work to acquire “stuff” and how brief life is and the only way the friend prepared for his death.

His  trust in God is everlasting and all that matters in the end.

                This Easter provides an opportunity to self-evaluate our own spiritual condition. Each of us have chosen our own way instead of God’s way. That is sin. Jesus came to die for our sins. Only He had the power to resurrect. He is the only one who can transform our lives as He did in 1949, for Ernest Rice and Harold Grimm, hard-working men who loved their families, gave back to their communities, provided leadership in their local school, and modeled the only way to eternal life through Jesus.

Harold Forbes, Edmund Gates, Jr.,and Gilbert
Morris, Jr.enjoying ice cream on Easter 1949.

Ice Cream Almost 70 Years Ago

The women of the community concocted their favorite homemade ice cream. Most families kept their own milk cow. The cream-ladened milk from each family’s cow, usually a Jersey, provided the basis for rich ice cream unrivaled by any created today. The Easter services for the Belford Community culminated with a sweet treat for all. Dad always associated ice cream with a special occasion. Sugary confections like candy or ice cream were a rare delicacy in those days. Barbara Walker, the author of The Little House Cookbook, commented that old recipes for desserts were not as sweet as most 21st century palates desire.

Good Friday Revisited as a Tribute to the Senior Class of 2016

I've had input from readers about reposting previous blog posts I've written. This week seemed a good time to do that. As we approach one of the most significant observances of the year, Good Friday, I frequently recall this memory of the Woodland High School class of 2016. May it touch each reader's heart as we reflect on the magnitude of Jesus' sacrifice for us and our response to it.

I was always astounded as to how few students had any idea or understanding about why Good Friday was a holiday. Probably there are many adults as well that see Good Friday as just an extra day to be off for the Easter weekend, perhaps an additional shopping day, or another day to plan and prepare Easter baskets or Sunday’s family get together. It seemed imperative when I taught third graders that I make an effort to “educate” the third graders as to the reason for Good Friday. The piece below entitled Cultural Literacy, Good Friday, and My Faith that I wrote explaining how I accomplished this was published in the periodical, Teachers of Vision several years ago.

Cultural Literacy, Good Friday, and My Faith

            Often spring provided an opportunity for holiday education in my third grade classroom.   Seldom did students arrive in my classroom with an intelligent grasp of why Good Friday was labeled as a holiday on the school calendar. Each year I casually asked why we were scheduled to be out of school the Friday before Easter and usually received very few knowledgeable responses. This lack of understanding of the reason for Good Friday always presented itself as a teachable moment for what Hirsch, Kett, and Trefil refer to as “cultural literacy” in their work, The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.^* My students needed a cognizance of the significance of Good Friday being designated as a holiday in the same way a well-rounded person has a working knowledge of the Jewish holiday of Purim or the origin of Saint Patrick’s Day.

            Our rural community embraced Christianity, yet as a whole my students were predictably and woefully uninformed as to so many of its tenets, such as Good Friday. My approach to imparting needed cultural literacy about this spring holiday was a brief introductory presentation of the crucifixion of Christ as a fact of history. I then read aloud a book in our classroom collection entitled Easter Women by Carol Green.^** This book in rhyme simply acquainted the young reader with the events leading to the first Easter. 

            An added boon was the discovery of an Accelerated Reading quiz for the book.  Our school was immersed in the use of Accelerated Reading, one of the Renaissance Learning programs, designed to create lifelong readers and establish a love of leisure reading in the lives of our elementary students.^*** Our school acquired access to all the quizzes available from Accelerated Reader, so my students were always eager to check their comprehension of the selections that have been read aloud to them as well as the books they read themselves.  

            Following our completion of the book, just before we filed to the computer lab to take the Accelerated Reading quiz over it, a student commented, ‘But why is it called “Good Friday” since it was such a bad day for Jesus?’ A rather shy, but well-versed student quietly responded, “He took our sins on the cross so it was a good day for us.” This exchange left little for me to say as an educator. My students had wrapped up the lesson for me in their brief dialogue. How better could the very heart of my faith have been shared without me speaking a word!

 *E. D. Hirsch, Joseph Kett, James Trefil.  The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy Third Edition.  (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002)

**Carol Green.  The Easter Women (St. Louis: Concordia, 1987).

***www.renlearn.com/ar



This class of third graders inspired the above article.
Photograph by Blunck's.

Grandpa Could Pull 'Em In Right and Left!

The Bassmaster Classic Tournament of 2016 brought world competition and fevered fishing excitement to our Sooner state. It seemed appropriate to post these vintage photos since March 13 is the birthday of my grandfather, Calvin Callcayah Smith.

Grandpa and Fishing and More

Angie proudly holding the reel Grandpa used to catch the
 wide-mouth bass he had caught on their fishing trip. She 
wasn't big enough to hold the bass or she would have!

                Grandpa loved the outdoors. Whether gathering wild fruit, fishing in a pond, hunting in the timber, or just relaxing under the Chinese elm tree in the yard of the our farmhouse, my grandpa, Calvin Callcayah Smith, preferred the peaceful serenity of the outdoors. The scent of the blossoms of the apricot trees in the spring, the delicious plum butter made from the tree plums gathered in the summer, or the splashing and thrashing sounds of a “nice size” fish trying to escape his fishing line appealed to his senses.
               Both of my grandmothers would choose a day of fishing over shopping any time. Grandma Smith relied heavily on the moon’s phases or “signs.” She based her angling on this information as it appeared in The Farmer’s Almanac. In contrast, no one ever knew what affected his fishing excursions, since Grandpa was a man who spoke few words.   

                Even though my parents, my sister, and I always lived in the same home with my maternal grandparents, a day could pass with hardly any words spoken between my grandpa and me. My cousin, Ron Bledsoe, related recently, “Oh yes, I remember Calvin. When I was a kid in the 1950s, your grandpa went coon hunting with us. He said very little, but when he said something - it was funny!”

                Grandpa was friends with the Jefferson family since he had leased for many years their land south across the road from our farm. Frequently, in the summer, I would glance out the window and catch a glimpse of Grandpa, with his fishing rod and small tackle box, walking through the Jefferson pasture to the secluded pond.

                Even though Grandpa milked the milk cow, fed and watered between 200-500 chickens, gathered the hen eggs, and stored them in the cellar until selling them to the hatchery, he took a little bit of time to relax. Soon he returned to work with my grandma in the enormous garden or cleared, by hand, the fence lines, repairing any breaches in the fence. My sister, and I never knew Grandpa kept the fences cleared until just months before our father suffered his first stroke, and we asked him how he managed to build houses and keep the fence lines from becoming overgrown. Dad replied, “Calvin kept them cleared.”      

                Yet Grandpa found time to fish. Angie went on more fishing jaunts with Grandpa than I did since she was five years younger than I was. While I was off to school, they had many trips to one of the three ponds on my parents’ farm. Angie, at a quite young age, could speak fluently, was focused, and obedient. (When I was in second grade, Angie, at age seven, memorized a poem I was learning for a school program and could recite it word perfect!). Her calm and compliant demeanor made her the perfect fishing partner even as a preschooler.

As much as Grandpa enjoyed fishing, he received much more joy at
seeing Angie's excitement over his catch. 

                Grandpa usually caught something worth keeping. My grandma, Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith, intimated that Grandpa’s Cherokee DNA contributed to his understanding of everything from weather prediction to finding wild edibles to discerning  where and when the fish were biting.
                 Mother recalled her father's impeccable ability to cast precisely, with laser precision, wherever he aimed in the water. Grandpa never used a stringer. Instead he always had a "gunny sack", a burlap bag, to hold his caught fish. He had constructed his own fish-cleaning table that he placed north of the garage. Upon returning from an afternoon of fishing, he immediately began scaling and preparing the fish so Mother could freeze them.

                Mother recalled a time when Grandpa went fishing alone at the Community Lake near Ralston early one morning with the wind blowing from the north. He left before Mother and Grandma could get around to go.

                Grandpa returned soon with three large catfish. He told them excitedly, that just as soon as he got one off his hook and threw his line back into the water, another fish struck it again. Grandpa’s excitement prompted him to be more verbal than he usually was.

Mother passed on to us this little rhyme about fishing. That time the little rhyme about the wind direction and the predicted results didn’t work.

Wind from the east,

Fishing is least.

Wind from the west,

Fishing is best.

Wind from the north,

Fisherman, go not forth.

Wind from the south

Blows in the fish’s mouth.

                My father jokingly said that Grandpa would move fast if a fishing trip were on the horizon. Grandpa spent time preparing his tackle box, making and repairing his lures, and even creating his own. Grandpa found a sturdy limb and made it into a fishing “pole.” I always liked to use it, especially after his death, even though it required extra muscle to hold it. One could be sure no fish would break the pole!

                Grandpa loved to fish. I think a fisherman must be an optimist – he’ll reel in the next one. A committed fisher always expects the best – the next  big one won’t get away. A serious angler puts all his effort into achieving a goal – he will land the next fish that bites.

                Just weeks before Grandpa’s death, Harold and Gertrude Forbes Goad came to our home to visit Grandpa. He had faithfully taught the adult men’s Sunday School class at Ralston Baptist Church in the late 1970s. Harold commented that the class attendance had diminished and expressed some discouragement. Grandpa, in a weakened condition and dangerously thin, responded to Harold with conviction and optimism, “Harold, I’ll get back over there, and we’ll get it built back up.”

                Grandpa’s determination and commitment provides a model for carrying through a responsibility to the very end. May those of us who knew and loved him honor him on his birthday with our own pledge to live courageously, doing the right thing with an infectious spirit that impacts those around us for the good.          

For reading the post about Grandpa's World War I experience, click:

http://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-spanish-flu-pandemic-of-1918.html

To access the blog posted on Grandpa's  birthday two years ago with a portrait of him in his youth, click:

http://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-legacy.html

Keeping a Big Family Connected

The South Dakota Connection of the Gates Family

             Claudia Rae Gates Lentz, the oldest daughter of Jim and Lou Dixon Gates, was born on March 7. Her father was serving in the Air Force and stationed in Rapid City, South Dakota, at Rapid City Air Base where the B-36 Peacemaker was based. During Jim’s stint there, President Dwight W. Eisenhower came for the dedication and renaming of the base. It became Ellsworth Air Base, in honor of the commander of the base who had been killed along with a crew of over 20 airmen on a training mission.*

                Ron Bledsoe, my eldest cousin on the Gates side, recalled a trip his family took to South Dakota when he was around 11 years old. His father, Harry Bledsoe drove from Oklahoma City to Grand Rapids. Ella Gates Bledsoe, Ron’s mother, spearheaded the trip to see her baby brother, Jim and his family. Ron’s seven-year-old sister, Mary Beth, anticipated meeting a new cousin.

                Jim and Lou had established a loving home on his enlistment salary in a tiny apartment for little Claudia. Lou worked for Buckingham Trucking Company as a keypunch operator. (She worked until Claudia’s birth. The company requested she return after her maternity leave, but she and Jim were already Oklahoma bound!)

What a wonderful example of thriftiness, creativity, and commitment on Lou’s part to take a challenging budgeting situation and as my father would say, “make a go of it.” Lou was only nineteen years old and living three states away from home and any family support!

                Ron remembered transversing the Mount Rushmore state to visit another of his mother’s brothers, Jess. Jess, Vesta, his wife, and four of their children also lived in South Dakota on their farm. Ron and Mary Beth anticipated seeing their cousins – Lynda, age 8, Phillip, age 6, Brenda, age 3, and the baby at the time, Debbie.

                Claudia’s parents recalled their move to Oklahoma from South Dakota with Claudia. They had converted the back seat of their car into a play area for little Claudia as they traveled back to Oklahoma. Jim and Lou strategically stacked and packed their luggage level, draping a sheet over it to make a playpen for her. The seven-month old cutie stayed entertained during most of the lengthy trip.

Jim, Lou, and Claudia Gates - taken soon
after they moved to the Big Bend. (photo
from the collection of Bernyce Gates)

Jim’s older brother, Herb with his wife, Billie, and their little son, Steve, came to help them move. Herb had a new pickup that he was itching to use to haul Jim and Lou’s furniture.

Lou, Jim, and Claudia settled on a place owned by Reid Morris west of the Woodland School in the Big Bend. Jim kept Mr. Morris’s cattle watered as payment for their rent. (Descendents of Reid and Opal Morris continue to live in the area with one of their great grandsons serving Pawnee County as sheriff.)
Herb, Billie, and Steve, age 2, stayed with them for a short time after their second son, Mark, was born in 1954. Dr. Spaulding even made a house call to see Billie during those days. Lou recalled the fun of watching Steve pull Claudia’s little red wagon around the yard.

                Family ties were important to Ella, Jim, Jess, and Herb. Claudia grew up to become the driving force in keeping the Gates family connections strong for over 27 years with her organization of the annual summer reunion.

                Several years ago Claudia created a written history of births, marriages, and deaths of each descendent of my grandparents, Edmund, Sr. and Mamie Irene. Her collection of this valuable information has been a “go-to” document when verifying information I have heard or been given. How often I have been grateful for her commitment to record vital family facts.

                My father used frequently the phrase “time marches on.” I have discovered memories dim, recollections are revised, and unforgettable photograph information fades “as time marches on” unless documentation is done. Every family needs to engage in some form of recording family memories – whether videos of family storytelling, handwritten remembrances, or simply photographs with brief explanations – and the sooner the better. If it is a multi-generational endeavor, the benefits reaped from the time spent together will prove to be priceless.

Some of  the grandchildren of Edmund, Sr. and Mamie Gates taken at a reunion
in the 1980s. Seated on the floor: Mark Gates, Janie Gates, Tim Gates, Lynda
Gates, and Steve Gates. Seated - 2nd Row - Stacey Gates, Angie Gates, Mamie
Tripp Gates, Mary Beth Bledsoe, Bernadean Gates, Debbie Gates, Brenda Gates.
Standing: Ron Bledsoe, Tracey Gates, Jim Gates, Bernie Mastagni, Patsy
Mastagni, Claudia Gates, Phillip Gates, and Daniel Edmund Newland.

Happy birthday, Claudia!

*Source:

http://blackhillsknowledgenetwork.org/black-hills/community-history/9602-ellsworth-air-force-base-story-spans-flying-fortresses-nuclear-missiles-and-drones#.VtI_dH0rKt8