Easter in the Bend 70 Years Ago

This  posting published originally four years ago. Yet on this 70th anniversary of its occurrence, it seemed a timely reminder of how Easter was observed so many years ago in the Big Bend. With all of the changes the 21st century has brought, the eternal truth of the resurrection of Jesus spans the decades, giving as much hope today as it did in 1949.

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               Since that Resurrection Sunday on which Christ arose, Easter, the first observance of the spring season, superseded all other events of the spring season.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 school 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 School Board of the Belford Grade School during this era - Parris
Dooley, Elmer Rogers, the school teacher, Ernest Rice, & Harold Grimm

                 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 Savior, 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 Savior, while there was yet time.

                One of Ernest’s descendants reacted recently to the death of a friend. He mentioned. how hard we humans work to acquire “stuff” and how brief life is. My cousin concluded with this profound statement about the way his friend prepared for his death.

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

                  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 defines 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.
                                                                                                   

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. The photograph on the left features four Benders on the steps of the Belford School during an Easter celebration. Harold Forbes, Edmund Gates, Jr., Gilbert "Jr." Morris, and Rosemary Goad Dilbeck are pictured enjoying ice cream cones.