Calming and Welcoming

        

        Is that Landee, our neighbor, worshiping with a kitten? Her mother, the photographer, explained their family arrived at church. When the car motor was shut off, a kitten's meow was heard under the hood. Landee found the frightened kitten but it was so terrified it ran under the car. 

        Eventually, The Kitten Whisperer, as my sister dubbed Landee, calmed the quivery, little ball of fur. Her pastor was surprised but seemingly, the tiny feline didn't disturb the worship of the Lord.

        Just as Jesus found the lost sheep, Landee rescued the misplaced kitten. In Luke 15:5, the parable of the lost sheep is recorded. Jesus told of the joyful shepherd placing the lost sheep on his shoulders as soon as it was found.

        Close contact provided security to the fearful sheep and kitten. In assuring the Israelites of the need to not fear, Moses recalled God's care of them in Deuteronomy 1:31: In the wilderness...the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son...

        As the Lord calms and comfort us, may we comfort others. We can live out our faith as we comfort others by following these words written by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

        This week comfort someone with the comfort the Lord has shown to you. Landee comforted the kitten; the good shepherd transported joyfully the wayward, but recently found sheep; and God carried the Israelites like a father carries his son. Modeling God, the good shepherd, and Landee may we express empathy, comfort, and the assurance of the love of the Lord to whomever God brings along your way.

Summer Memories of Nine Decades Ago

          This summer found Mother, Bernyce Smith Gates, recalling snippets of the Dust Bowl Era of the 1930s. She enjoyed her entire childhood during this dire time but affirmed readily that she was sheltered from the worst of it, especially the emotional and mental stress of the heat, drought, and financial despair.

          We discussed hot summers in the early 1910s and how Grandma Gladys Rainey Smith remembered her father, William Marion Rainey, awakened her and her siblings at 4 a.m. (5 a.m. according to our Daylight Savings time). They trudged to the field and waited for the sun to rise so they could beat the sweltering summer heat of the afternoon. Then Great-Grandpa Rainey and his children of an age old enough to use a hoe began the back-breaking work in the corn or cotton field.

          I clicked the photo below of the grasshopper. Upon showing the photo to Mother, she remarked, “I’ve seen a line of them, just like an army of soldiers, crossing the road!” She doesn't remember the devastation, but recalls being warned against trying to catch grasshoppers because of the poison used to eradicate them. She observed the phenomena of the grasshopper army just east of the twin bridges, on what is now Big Bend Road south of their home. At that time, her parents leased Lora Kirk Betts' place so Mother could walk to the Belford School and her maternal grandma's home. 

          Mother mentioned she vaguely recalls serious discussions about feeding the livestock. They never baled hay but planned to have stalks for winter forage. On a rare few years, her parents left corn stalks in the field after harvesting the corn, preserving the corn stalk field for livestock grazing during winter. More often, they cut the corn stalks and shocked them (bundling them together) and rationed them out to the cattle during the cold winter months.

          Much to Mother’s delight, she spent two summers with her much-loved aunt and uncle, Emma and Bill Buckley. They had no children, and Mother had no siblings. My father always described my mother as “quiet.” She sounded like the perfect child to have for a month, especially if the couple was unaccustomed to having a child in the house.

Mother around age 8

           Since her uncle managed the theater in Vinita, Oklahoma, Mother was treated to one or two of the latest "talkies" each summer. With Mother's musical talent, it is understandable that the most memorable ones were "Follies-type" extravaganzas - lots of singing and dancing. The beautiful  costuming and sets captured her attention even though they had been produced only in black and white.

          Uncle Bill set up a reward system for little Bernyce. She had certain chores to do during the week to get points. She earned a brand, new pair of shoes each summer. What a big deal for a little girl living during the Great Depression!

According to Mother, her Uncle Bill loved to tease her about not making his requirements to earn the new shoes and many other boons with which they gifted her. The quiet little girl from the Bend always hit the mark to be rewarded by her dear uncle.

          Lest someone think my mother borders on perfect, she tattled on herself concerning one of the summer days with Aunt Emma. Aunt Emma had cut a watermelon which was more than the three of them could consume. She fixed a beautiful plate of the ripe melon and sent little Bernyce across the street to share with the neighbors. Mother retold it using these words, “I don’t know what possessed me, but I took a bite out of it!”

          Fortunately, Aunt Emma observed her naughty behavior from the window and called her back. I asked what Aunt Emma said. Mother said Aunt Emma’s reply was, “I thought you might do that.”

          Don’t we all have a “watermelon bite moment” like Mother? Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, wrote in Ecclesiastes 7:20:

For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.

As the previous verse states, all people sin, and for this reason, Peter ended his message recorded in Acts 10:43 with this appeal to his hearers:

All the prophets testify to this: everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through His name.”

Just as Aunt Emma forgave Mother of her egregious bite from the watermelon plate, so God forgives us. I never recall Aunt Emma mentioning Mother's mischievous behavior as a child during her summer visit. Neither does God. What a wonderful final thought from the writer of Hebrews in chapter 10, verse 17 as we read these words of God:

“Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

Why would anyone not respond to that love and acceptance?

The August Birthdays of My Grandmothers

Our maternal grandparents - Calvin Callcayah and
Gladys Smith with Angie, my sister, and me.

          With Grandma Smith's birthday being last Thursday, August 11, and Grandma Gates' birthday upcoming on Tuesday, August 16, this week seemed the perfect time to recognize two women who gave so much of themselves to those they loved. Brenda Gates provided the last three photos of this blog post. Thank you so much, Brenda!

        On August 11, 1900, Gladys Vivian Rainey was born in a tent in the fledgling town of Shawnee in Oklahoma Territory to her parents, William Marion and Mary Rosetta Rainey. She lived to be 82 years old. She taught herself to read music and play the family’s old pump organ after working in the hot fields.

My maternal grandma attended the old Woodland school and “took” the eighth grade several times after the school ceased giving a high school diploma. She then trained for one summer at Oklahoma A & M, receiving certification as a schoolteacher but never taught. The school she was offered had a reputation of students beating up teachers!

            Grandma found her true passion when she trained at the Fairfax Hospital in 1922-1923 as a nurse. Even though she left her nursing training to marry Grandpa, Calvin Callcayah Smith, the love of nursing never left her. The need for health care in the Great Depression in the Bend demanded she resume her nursing. At age 7, my mother learned to cook as Grandma went into service as a volunteer nurse to her neighbors. Often Dr. Spaulding from Ralston would stop and pick her up on his way to a house call in the Bend. Grandma accepted the mission of providing free healthcare to her community members. She lived by 3 John 2 as she went about caring for the ailing. She sought to do all within her power to restore them to health and even felt a greater compulsion to make sure each patient had a prosperous soul by having a relationship with Jesus.

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.  3 John 2

Mamie Irene Tripp entered the world on August 16, 1895, in Cowley County, Kansas to Nettie Ann Venator Tripp and Rufus Tripp. Grandma lived to be 92 years old, even though her much-loved father died when Grandma was only five years old. Shortly after his death, her mother married Robert Black who proved to be a loving father to her and her sisters.

Grandma completed her education through eighth grade at the Belford Grade School, which is a portion of Greg and Vonda Goad’s home. By age 16, Grandma had married my grandfather, who many thought was a confirmed bachelor. He handled all their financial business, and Grandma related to me in her last months, “He did all the banking business. I still get so nervous when I go into the bank in Fairfax.” Yet Grandma proved to be a stellar money manager.

Grandma Mamie Gates and Ella, her oldest 
daughter

        Grandma, a sensitive woman, according to Aunt Ella Gates Bledsoe, most enjoyed drawing and making music. However, she spent most of her life having twelve children, raising nine of them to adulthood, and cherishing each of them for their own uniqueness. 

Even though Grandma was tenderhearted and artistic, her strong character was revealed in this early day story my father, Edmund Gates, Jr., related to me about the time before his birth when his mother set his dad straight. 

Mary, the second born daughter, and Grandma
Mamie Gates

According to Dad, my grandpa, Edmund Gates, Sr., regularly had liquor shipped to him from Kansas City. Grandpa was a proud Kansan, having been born there. One evening he had consumed some of his shipped “potent potable.” Dad related that he was told (probably by Grandma) that Grandpa came into the little two-room house “staggering drunk.” Grandma immediately told him, “You’re not going to do this again. I won’t stay and have you staggering and falling down over these two little girls.” The two little girls playing on the kitchen floor oblivious to their father’s condition were Ella and Mary, the two oldest daughters of my grandparents. To Dad’s knowledge, that was the last time Grandpa “threw a big drunk.”

Ella and Mary Gates on Fancy  - much as they looked when riding to Woodland
 School in the early 1920s. To read another blog post about Fancy go to:
https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2015/02/no-helicopter-parenting-here.html

As I reflect on women who raised children in the early 20^th century, many like my paternal grandma raised their children with Biblical principles. Even though she experienced the hardship of raising children during the Great Depression, coupled with the loss of three sons, she held to her principles. 

The scripture has numerous verses about drunkenness. Grandma did not want drunkenness exhibited before her or her children. She knew abuse, destruction, and irresponsible behavior resulting in harm and sorrow could ruin her home and family.

What sorrow for those who are heroes at drinking wine and boast about all the alcohol they can hold.   Isaiah 5:22

What a blessing to descend from women like these two!

A Little Bender Starting Kindergarten Over 100 Years Ago

             This week, our local school district, Woodland, begins classes for the 2022/2023 school term. The little Bender from the blog post's title, my Aunt Ella, graduated from Fairfax High School. She was appalled at the name change upon consolidation. "Woodland was just a little country school! I can't believe my high school's name was changed to that!" Perspective makes such a difference.

            Ella Edith Gates, the oldest daughter of Edmund, Sr. and Mamie Irene Tripp Gates, was born in the Big Bend community west of Ralston, Oklahoma. In Dad’s vintage photograph collection, the first mention I have found of little Ella was on the back of the photographic postcard of Roy Carter pictured below. Roy was the son of Edmund, Sr.’s sister, Ella. His mother wrote on the card “Roy says many times he wants to see Uncle Ed and the baby’s mamma and Baby.” Little Roy said to his mother, “Let’s go to Oklahoma.” According to the back of the postcard postmarked September 10, 1915, the day she wrote the card was Roy’s fourth birthday. The baby's mamma, my grandma, would have not fathomed that within a few years, the Baby would be living in the same home as Little Roy.

Roy Carter, my father's cousin, who later practiced
law in Kansas City. The photo was  taken in the fall
of 1915 when he was four years old.

                  My grandpa, Edmund Gates, Sr. was committed to education for his oldest daughter. (For more insight into Grandpa’s philosophy on the education of women, go to this link: https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-death-of-horse-at-belford-school.html) In the first decade of the 20^th century, in the west Big Bend community where he and Grandma had settled, there was only the Woodland School situated in the timber across the road on the west from Ruth Ann Hightower's home. Grandpa felt strongly Ella Edith should go to kindergarten. He proposed Ella, his daughter, would go live with his sister and her namesake, Ella in Kansas City, to attend kindergarten.

                At the last Gates reunion Ella attended before her death, she sat and visited with me specifically mentioning this time in Kansas City. She intimated that her father had pushed for her attendance of kindergarten. She said, “Mama really didn’t like for Papa to send me to Aunt Ella’s to go to kindergarten.” It is understandable that Grandpa didn’t see a problem with this arrangement since as a preschooler he had been sent to live with his uncle and aunt. (See blog post entitled The Early Days of Edmund Gates, Sr. that was posted on December 1, 2013, for more explanation of the reason that Grandpa was sent to live in Illinois with his relatives at: https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2013/12/early-days-of-edmund-gates-sr.html)

                As we continued visiting at her final reunion, Aunt Ella told me it was a hard time for her to be away from her parents. She also had a four-year-old sister Mary Elizabeth. In Dad’s vintage photograph collection, I found two photographs of Ella. As I researched, I discovered that these two photographs had been taken at Paseo Boulevard in Kansas City. This area of the city had been laid out as a parkway in the early 1900s.

A very serious Ella Edith Gates posing at the base of the bas-relief sculpture of
August Robert Meyer, the first president of the Commission of Parks. He had
 led in the development of the Paseo Boulevard which had been inspired by the
Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City.

                As I studied the photographs that were taken over 100 years ago when little Ella was in the metropolitan area to attend kindergarten, she exudes sadness, appearing to be on the verge of bursting into tears. Even though her father wanted what was best for her, it was a difficult time for a five-year-old to be away from her family for an entire school term.

Ella Edith Gates under the pergola (arbor) covered with wisteria vines. It was
constructed in The Paseo in Kansas City in 1899. The perspective of this photo
conveys the loneliness of a tiny, little girl in a large, unfamiliar city.

                The positive impact from this year spent by Ella Edith with her Aunt Ella laid the foundation for her later graduation from Fairfax High School and completion of Hill’s Business College in Oklahoma City. These accomplishments were not common among young women who grew up in the Big Bend in the 1920s. Her son, Ron Bledsoe told me he always knew how fond his mother was of Aunt Ella Passingfair Gates Carter Meyer. Ella Edith rose above the challenge of being a little girl who missed her mother horribly coupled with the gnawing homesickness for the only home she had ever known. She forged a strong relationship with an aunt who agreed her niece deserved the best education possible and did all she could that year to ensure she received the most progressive instruction of the early 20^th century. (For more photos of these two Ellas, see the blog post entitled The Three Ellas, that appeared on August 24, 2014 at https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-three-ellas.html)

                Ella Edith Gates Bledsoe and her husband, Harry valued education for their son, Ron, and their daughter, Mary Beth. (To view a family photo in the 1950s of Ella’s family see the blog post published on December 29, 2013 with the title 69 Years Ago – “Orange and Black Forever.” at https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2013/12/69-years-ago-orange-and-black-forever.html) Ron earned his degree from Ole Miss – University of Mississippi, while Beth completed her degree in speech pathology from Oklahoma State University.
                Aunt Ella Gates Bledsoe's grappling with kindergarten in Kansas City stands as a striking illustration of adversity's power to build character, develop emotional stamina, and amidst it all, cultivate a lasting bond with a dear loved one. When we find ourselves in a harsh or challenging situation, maybe we will remember the little girl who left the Bend, endured loneliness, but began her journey on the road to being educated. Most of all, when trying ordeals come into our lives, may we pursue quality relationships rather than withdrawing into a cocoon of self pity. The surprising result from difficult predicaments will be unexpected, but incredible personal growth, just as little Ella Edith experienced.