The Arkansas River Photograph

          My maternal grandma, Gladys Rainey Smith, affixed an interesting panoramic-type photograph in her well-worn album. The near 90-year-old visual record of a Depression era occurrence evidenced rough treatment based on the creases, smudges, and other unsightly defacements of it.

           Mother, just a month shy of reaching her 99th year, said the photograph was taken following two weeks of a brush arbor revival in the Bend. Mother would have been 10 years old. She related the location of the services was south of the Hutchens’ home and past the road to David Crabtree’s home. She explained the brush arbor was constructed on the right side of that road a short distance before the road turns sharply back to the west to go where several Bledsoe families live in the southwest corner of the Bend.
            Mother described how trees were felled and logs were cut to provide side supports for the frame of the arbor. Then in the earliest days thinner logs were crisscrossed on the roof section, but in later years she thought wire might have been used. Finally, leafy limbs or brush placed for the roof of the arbor frame leant to its name brush arbor. She added, “It seemed like the arbor frame was left to be used year to year.”
            As Mother and I continued discussing, obviously in the 1930s, there was no electricity so they had to plan services before the sun went down (Mother’s family did not get electricity in their home until 1941). Each service consisted of some singing, sometimes special singing, strong Bible preaching, and always an invitation for anyone to be saved by Jesus from sin.
            A collection called Ralston Oklahoma the Early Years, appeared to have been printed with the authorization of the Ralston Historical Society, but no year of printing is listed. I am greatly indebted to one sentence that says
…1935…the revival in the Big Bend…a huge number of people were baptized in the Arkansas, north of the Belford bridge.
            Marilyn Forbes Moon agreed with Mother that one of the 16 women who were baptismal candidates was Marilyn's mother, Marie Forbes. Mother could identify both her parents on the bank. The pastor from the Ralston Federated Church, Robert Stallings, had preached the nightly services. With the 8 men, the number being baptized totaled 24 Benders.
            Grandma would have never wanted this photo if she had not attended a brush arbor previously held in September 1931. Prior to that revival, Grandma and Grandpa were consumed with making a living in the Bend during the dirty 30s and trying to raise my mother, their only child. Then Grandma's beloved father in his early 60s had been buried on her 31st birthday on August 11. It proved to be a turning point in her life. At the revival held in the Bend, Grandma and her younger sister, Alice, were “converted” at one of the evening meetings preached by Brother Stallings. When Grandma wrote in her little family history booklet of her conversion, she referred to the “change, solely by the power of Jesus, of a dead person into a transformed living person because the death of Jesus makes forgiveness of sin possible. His resurrection empowers one to daily walk in obedience to His Word.” From that point in her life, her foundational mission in life became sharing the good news that Jesus would “remake” sinful lives into a new, purposeful existence.
            Our immediate family was radically affected since within a year Grandpa made a life-altering commitment to Jesus. Their commitments impacted how they changed rearing my mother. Upon my mother’s conversion, she purposed to only marry a committed Christian. Grandma witnessed diligently to my dad for over four years before he chose to follow Jesus himself. Then he and Mother worked to parent Angie and I with principles for life from God’s Word.
            One of the last phone calls I had with Grandma’s niece, Dean Rice LittleStar, clearly identified Grandma as the greatest influence in the Rainey family pointing each member to the Lord. Grandma, with conviction, told Mother that at that point in time, there was no person in the Bend with whom she had not shared the gospel.   

            September 1931, didn’t just alter Grandma’s destiny but many of the rest of us, too. May her conviction to tell the story of the birth, death, resurrection, and soon return of Jesus inspire us to devote our lives to telling the gospel story to family, friends, and neighbors.