We moved from the farm in Dyess to Wilson, a small town inthe same county at midterm of my second year in school. Daddy went to work forone of his hunting friends as a service station attendant and later as nightmanager. My only memory of the events of this year was my new teacher in Wilson, Miss Stuttle. She had had polio and had a very noticeable limp, but Iwas totally unaware of it until I was out her class and in the fourth or fifth grade.
During my third year in school I gained a new friend whowould have a great influence on m y life in later years. He was Harold Perry, a high school student at the time. I lived two blocks from school, and he lived only one, but he always rode me to school on his bicycle. It was also in this year that I made my earliest attempts at drawing, my teacher being my subject.She saved many of my works to show to Mother. My career in music also began
during this tie. I had roles in several operettas produced by our public-school music teacher She also gave private voice lessons. I ‘m sure our recital was a howling success as she assigned “Annie Laurie” as my recital piece and I was a contralto even then.
My fourth and fifth grade years are almost inseparable in my memory since I had the same teacher both years. My best friend and across-the-street neighbor and I always stayed after school and helped her clean up the room. Se thought it was an honor until the first time we had other plans and wanted to go home right after school. Our teacher was very wroth, and we spent the remainder of the year in her bad graces.
My first traumatic experience came the day after my eleventh birthday. I began having menstrual periods and could no longer play football with my brother and the other boys in the neighborhood. Our block was the gathering place for almost every kid in town. We observed rubber-gun season, marble season, football, baseball, snowball throwing, etc. The basketball goal was across the street at the McNabb’s (they had six children of their own) and our back yard with part of the yard next door (if there were cooperative occupants) was the football field. Mother and Mrs. McNabb have probably refereed more games than most professional refs.
After we moved to Wilson Mother and Daddy quit going to church, but Edwin and I attended Sunday School at the Methodist church for awhile and later at the Baptist church. Edwin made a profession of faith and was baptized in the latter. Of course, Daddy was not greatly pleased by this and all but discouraged our going even to Sunday School. Had it not been for Miss Rose Etta Wolf, my Sunday School teacher, and Mrs. Ed Williams, our choir director I probably would have quit altogether. Miss Wolf encouraged me in every way and Mrs. Williams picked me up every Sunday morning.
In school I was elected a Junior High basketball cheerleader. I was pleased until I saw our uniforms—some old tight band pants. I was somewhat overweight and was probably the most self-conscious cheerleader in the history of basketball. I also represented my class as a Princess in the Halloween Carnival. I think I was second runner-up for Queen.
I began to be more interested in church activities, especially when we got a new pastor, Rev. Doyle Bledsoe who had a son my age. We had a youth revival each spring with college ministerial students preaching. More and more of my friends were making professions of faith and I saw a definite change in their lives. I was very much aware of my own spiritual need, but I feared Daddy’s reaction.
However, in the Spring revival of 1951, two of my friends came by one afternoon and told me how simple it had been for them to accept Christ. They pointed out that it was not necessary for me to join the Baptist church to be saved. At that time I did accept Christ and made my decision public in the service that evening. It was not until the next spring that I was baptized. Daddy was not happy, but I think he and Mother were more disappointed that I had not wanted to share my decision with them.
The church became the center of my life and all my close friends were just as closely related to the church as I was. Bro. Bledsoe was very interested in the spiritual development of the many young people who were not in our church. His youth program was more than entertainment and recreation. We conducted services one Sunday afternoon each month at the county penal farm and a street service another Sunday afternoon each month in a church-less town near Wilson.
In the summer of 1952 Harold Perry, my bicycle friend from my third-grade year made public his decision to enter the ministry. Our church called him as a summer youth director and we spent the summer conducting Bible schools and revivals all over Mississippi County.
At the time I thought my parents were opposed to my even being a Christian. However, I now realize that they were disturbed that I neglected my responsibilities at home and often my studies to participate in too many church activities. My attitude almost alienated the whole family. If I happened to come in when they had guests and they happened to be drinking (as they often were) I felt compelled to deliver a temperance sermon right on the spot. They still refer to this period as my “Black Bible” stage.
In the Fall of 1952, I was elected by the football team to serve as a cheerleader. My earlier experiences as a cheerleader didn’t deter me from accepting although I knew I would be required to make at least an appearance at the dances which followed each game.
From the time I accepted Christ I had felt that he was leading me to at least begin thinking about a church related vocation. Several of my closest friends, including Harold, his brother Gerald and his cousin Tommy Bourland, had made decisions to enter the ministry. I had great difficulty in deciding whether I was just following the crowd.
Although I didn’t really date at this time, I went everywhere with Tommy. Everywhere meant every revival service, youth rally or meeting within a fifty-mile radius of Wilson. After many talking and praying sessions with Tommy, I was convinced that I should make some sort of decision. Although I had no idea where God was leading, everyone assumed that it would be missions. This was a natural assumption since we were not aware of any other areas of service open to girls.
It was about this time that our church established two missions. One was at Carson Lake which later became a church. One of the first pastors was Marvin Reynolds who was at that time a student at Southern Baptist college in Walnut Ridge. He and his wife Beth were later appointed to Botswana. Marvin helped me to develop a better attitude about my family and to become more concerned about presenting a more positive witness for Christ to them.
Our other mission was a chapel mission which met in a little rented house in one of the poor sections of town near the levee. One of the first pastors was the Baptist preacher who had preached too long at old Road Fourteen. He preached too long at this group too and we soon had another pastor. He was Jimmy Lee Stevens, a young preacher who was still in college. I help in the Beginner and Primary (children) departments. Jimmy worked some with the young people in our church. His major contribution was in helping us to know how to make our Christianity attractive to our fellow students in high school.
When I was in the eleventh grade I started working in a dry goods store on Saturdays and holidays. It was also in this year that Daddy was injured while working and could no longer do the work required at the service station. The Lee Wilson Company, for whom we both worked, offered him a job managing a liquor store. Daddy probably didn’t want the job any more than we wanted him to take it, because he knew he would have to become an inactive member of his lodge.
In the spring of 1954, the president of our Junior class and one of my close friends, Kyle Teel, was killed in an auto accident. Several other boys were injured in the same accident, and all of them had been drinking. God used this tragedy to help those of us who had been trying to witness for Christ in our high school. I had talked with Kyle many times about his need to totally commit his life to Christ. I thought he had resented it, but after his death I had an opportunity to witness to two of the boys who were in the accident. They said Kyle had told them that what I had said made a lot of sense to him and that he intended to do something about it.