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(1) Introduction to Mary Christine DeBardeleben

by Dale | Nov 30, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

‘my my a dy that we knew as Miss Dee was born in 1881—in a rural community in Macon County, Alabama, that was named La Place. That was the same year that Booker T. Washington came from Hampton Virginia to nearby Tuskegee, also in Macon County, Alabama, to establish Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). Her birth on January 23 was less than16 years after Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. All of the adult Negroes who lived nearby—and there would have been a lot of them in predominantly black Macon County—were former slaves. The Federal government under Andrew Jackson had removed Native Americans from the place in Alabama where she was born only slightly more than forty years before her birth. She was born on what she sometimes called a plantation, located on the Old Federal Road. The Old Federal Road was the Road over which many Alabama settlers traveled from Georgia to become residents of the Alabama. General Lafayette, the French general who had assisted in the American Revolution travelled the Old Federal Road on his tour of America, making one wonder if he was involved in naming La Place, the community where Miss Dee was born. That road, established in 1811, only 70 years before Miss Dee’s birth, had been one of the precipitating causes of the Creek Indian War that gave Andrew Jackson the pretext for the removal of the Indians.

The life of Mary Christine De Bardeleben, whom we called Miss Dee extended over 89 years until she was laid to rest near her mother and father in 1970 in the cemetery in Tuskegee, only 12 miles from the place of her birth. My life overlapped with hers. Her final 28 years were my first 28. She was first a teacher, and then librarian, in a small, rural Macon County public school at Shorter, Alabama, that I attended for twelve years. It was small indeed: less than one hundred students in grades one through twelve. Everybody, knew everybody, and I knew who she was, by sight, from the time I started school in 1948. She taught in the High School, but by the time I reached High School, she was no longer teaching, but was the librarian.

Let me tell of an event that stands out in my memories about her. I was a 7^th grader at the Shorter public school in Macon County, Alabama. She was the wrinkled old librarian. The event is unforgettable. I do not recall what led up to it. Perhaps she had substituted for one of our regular teachers, as sometimes happened. But Miss Dee singled me out. She put the palms of her hands on my cheeks, and with my face between her palms, her gentle, joyful gray blue eyes peered into my face and with one of her big, sort of crooked smiles she said, “You have the face of a college man.” Out of the blue! Just like that! I had no idea what could have prompted such a comment, but now I know that words of encouragement were part of her way of life.

To fully appreciate her comment, you will need a little more background. She was quite elderly: in her final year of educational work. I was an awkward, gangly 7^th grader self-consciously feeling my way toward the challenging teenage years, and probably not everyone’s idea of a college prospect. No one in Daddy’s family had ever attended college. College was not the main thing that I was thinking about at the time.

I had awakened that morning in a country home on a dirt road, with no running water, and no vehicle in our yard. That’s where the school bus picked me up. Although my family was poor, we never noticed, because most of the people we knew were poor—some not quite as poor as we were, but some ever poorer. I caught the Milstead bus to the Shorter public school that morning, as I did every morning. Miss Dee probably knew a lot more about all of that background than I realized at the time. She would have known instinctively the distinction, between what Auburn University historian Wayne Flynt described in his eulogy for Nelle Harper Lee as “white trailer trash” (the Ewells) and “poor but proud” (the Cunninghams), although she would not have applied such labels to anyone. In Flynt’s eulogy, which was an analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird, Flynt does not discuss another important class of southern whites—the one to which Harper Lee herself belonged—but that is the class to which Miss Dee belonged. Universal sainthood is not necessarily an attribute of that class, with its strong consciousness of class differences, but nevertheless, Miss Dee reached out to me, very personally, with a strongly encouraging challenge. And in her case, sainthood seems to me a possibility!

The cultural chasm between Miss Dee and me was not about money. Acquisition of material wealth was not what her life had been about. So, it was not like she was wealthy, and me poor. At the time of that incident, during her “twilight years” in the Shorter public school, Miss Dee lived in a small concrete block house that Mr. Parrish, the science teacher had built for her. He built two houses, side by side, almost identical: one for himself and Mrs. Parrish, who taught English, and one for Miss Dee. Both were on land owned by Dr. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot, a country doctor whose father before him had been a country doctor in the same rural community. Dr. Lightfoot was a member of the Macon County Board of Education. His public mindedness no doubt had a lot to do with a high school science teacher building the two houses on his place for people connected to the school. He was the husband of one of Miss Dee’s first cousins.

Mr. Parrish, who built the houses, seemed to be impressed with my abilities as a student in his 7^th grade science class. His wife, Mrs. Parrish taught me English, and she also probably thought I was a good student. Maybe the two of them had talked to their neighbor, Miss Dee, about me. Who knows? As I said before, the school was extremely small. All the teachers knew each other and all the students very well. That probably contributed to the strong success of the school.

That was in 1954 or 1955. Miss Dee had been born in 1881, so she was at least 73 or 74 years old at that time! She had taught English and history in the Shorter School when she first returned to Shorter in 1945 or 46, but by 1954-55 her only job was librarian. But she had been part of the school for at least eight or ten years, and having now dug into her history, I am quite sure that her influence in the school was very significant. The 1950 Shorter School “year book,” called “The Cricket,” was “In dedication to our own beloved ‘Miss Dee.’” We called it a “annual” although it was usually published only every two years.

As a seventh grader in 1955, I only knew that Miss Dee was the librarian at the Shorter public school. I knew nothing of her life and career. In those carefree days in a small, segregated, country school in predominantly black Macon County, Alabama, we entertained ourselves with rumors that Miss Dee tried to train her little cocker spaniel, “Patsy,” to use a commode.

And there was talk about books that she would not allow in the library, like Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road.” And she did not approve books by Mickey Spillane. I don’t know why I remember those details over sixty years later, and I may be the only living human being who remembers them, so you will have to take my word for it! Naturally, in those days we assumed that she disapproved those books because of the language used in the books: there were some “ugly words.” But now I believe that there were deeper, more personal issues that concerned her. She had spent several years working at Paine College in Augusta Georgia, and established the Bethlehem House in Augusta. Tobacco Road is very close to Augusta. I will provide more about her work at Paine College and The Bethlehem house in other essays. With regard to The Grapes of Wrath, she spent many years teaching at the University of Oklahoma. She was there when the events in the background of The Grapes of Wrath were occurring. I don’t know if she just thought high school students should not read these books, or felt they were not fair portrayals of matters with which she was personally familiar, or if she disapproved them generally. But I suspect that it was because she thought the books disrespectful of people she had known and loved, and that the portrayals were not helpful in the social milieu.

Historical perspective can grow and improve with the passage of time. When I started to school in 1948, I just accepted the Shorter public school as a part of eternal reality, as if it had always been there, and would always be there. But when Miss Dee returned to Shorter in about 1945, that little brick country school building had only been in existence for 7 years. It was practically new, having replaced an old frame building. The school was the community center for the white population in that part of the predominantly Black county. Macon County schools were gradually progressing from small, one-room schools that provided all the education offered to the poor white country people (mostly “Cunningham’s”, perhaps a few “Ewells,” and a few from the “cut above.” Wayne Flynt tactfully omitted any reference to that “higher class” from his eulogy of Harper Lee, (she being a part of it), although I had heard him describe it in a talk to Judges about To Kill a Mockingbird at an earlier time. Miss Dee had seen a lot of progress in the public education in Macon County over her lifetime, and returned in her retirement to be a part of it. I describe the Shorter School in more detail in my personal story on this website. I am now convinced that the role that Miss Dee played in the excellence of the school was significant.

A little background may promote an understanding of the role that public education was playing in the lives of the poor whites in Shorter, Alabama, in those difficult times. Mrs. Steele Bibb, who would later become the school principal, was listed in the 1926 school year book as a senior. Her daddy was Dr. Lightfoot. She had been born in 1909, the same year that my Daddy, was born. But Daddy was listed as a 7^th grader in the 1926 year book. The mergers that had set the stage for the Shorter school had occurred about 1920. In 1926, my Daddy may not have been in school at all since 1920, when the Bradford’s Chapel School merged into the Shorter School. My whole point is that tremendous educational progress had been made in this poor county between 1926, when my Daddy as a gangling, overgrown student attended the 7^th grade at age 17, the when I started to school in 1948. But the schools that the State and County provided for blacks had not been upgraded as much as the white schools. Even in the 1950’s, although there had been some consolidations of the one room Black schools, I remember that the Black school at Bethel Grove, only a quarter mile from where the Bradford’s Chapel School had been, was still there and in operation, over thirty years after the Bradford’s Chapel School in the same community had been merged into the Shorter School.

But the quality of education in the little Shorter School was excellent. I believe that Miss Dee’s return to the little school in about 1945, even at age 64, had a significant beneficial impact on the quality of public education offered in the rural district that the little Shorter School served. So, let me return to her story. Somewhere during in the many years that have slipped by since Miss Dee suggested that I had the face of a college man, I learned that Miss Dee had been one of the first female graduates of the University of Alabama, in 1901. In my own meandering career, I acquired and read a copy of Kathryn Windham Tucker’s one actor play about the life of Julia Tutwiler, who was one of the most outstanding women in the history of Alabama.

One of Julia Tutwiler’s many accomplishments was that she convinced the president of University of Alabama that the University should admit women students and that the University should provide housing for women. Julia Tutwiler was president of Livingston State Normal School at the time, and that first class of female admittees with housing at the University, , all graduates of Livingston, was called “Miss Jule’s Girls.” Curiosity led me to the internet a few years ago, where I confirmed that Miss Dee was, indeed, one of Miss Jule’s girls who graduated from the University in 1901. And I had also heard that Miss Dee had worked in Oklahoma. Most of us thought that she had gone to Oklahoma to do missionary work with Native Americans. That might have happened. But that does not appear to be her main activity in Oklahoma: she taught religion at the University of Oklahoma at Norman.

So, over the years, my knowledge and understanding of who Miss Dee was had gradually expanded. But her story is actually much bigger, and more remarkable than these pieces of significant information caused me to realize. But let me explain what brought me to write these essays about Miss Dee.

My brother, Wade Segrest, married Becky Bibb, who was the daughter of Mrs. Steele Bibb. Mrs Bibb had served as our principal at the Shorter School. Mrs. Bibb’s father, Philip Malcolm Lightfoot, was the country Doctor in Shorter mentioned above. He delivered me into this world, and that is where I got my first name, “Philip,” although he was known by his middle name, “Malcolm,” and I am known by my middle name “Dale.” Mrs. Bibb’s grandfather, Dr. John Lightfoot, the father of Malcolm, was also a country Doctor in Shorter. Dr. Malcolm Lightfoot wife, Mamie Ross Pinkston, was a Miss Dee’s first cousin, and they were very close friends.

Wade and Becky still live in the old home that had been the home of those Doctors Lightfoot. Mrs. Bibb’s brother, Robert (Bunk) Lightfoot, was also a Doctor. And all three of Dr. Robert Lightfoot’s sons, Bill, John and Dick, pursued careers in medicine. Both Bill and Dick became medical doctors, and John an orthodontist. The three of them are Becky’s first cousins, and almost every year, all of the Lightfoot family returns to the old Lightfoot home place bringing spouses, children and grandchildren and all the connections, for a family reunion. The actual old building that served as a Doctor’s office for 3 generations is still standing! And most of the Lightfoot forebears rest in the nearby Calebee Cemetery.

I love to cook BBQ, and for many years I have cooked for the Lightfoot reunion: Boston Butts, pork ribs, briskets and camp stew. On October 27, 2018, I again cooked for the Lightfoot reunion. At the reunion, the family often examines family memorabilia. Becky gets out old documents and pictures for the occasion. On the non-Lightfoot side of her family, she is descended from Judge Benajah Smith Bibb, brother of the first two governors of the State of Alabama. The mother of Judge Bibb and the governors was a first cousin of Martha Washington. Believe me, there are lots of documents and pictures, as well as antiques in that house!

The Bibb family is quite interesting, but this story has to do with Becky’s maternal line of ancestors, the Lightfoot family. As mentioned above, the grandmother of the present Drs. Lightfoot and Becky, Mamie Ross Pinkston Lightfoot, was a first cousin of Miss Dee, and the two of them were very close friends. Miss Dee dedicated one of her books, Songs in the Night, “To M.P.L., Cousin-Sister-Friend, A “Martha” in Loving Thought and Ministry. Although Miss Dee moved about a quite a bit in her career, she apparently always considered Shorter (which now includes the La Place community where she was born) her “home.” It appears that she may have been living and teaching in Shorter in 1935-36, when the book that she dedicated to Mrs. Lightfoot was published, but I have not been able to confirm that yet. Family tradition has it that Dr. and Mrs. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot, Becky’s grandparents, maintained a room (in the house where the Lightfoot reunions now occur) especially for Miss Dee, and during her long and interesting career, she often spent summers with the Lightfoot family. And finally, in 1945 or 1946, at age 64 or 65, she returned to Shorter to teach at the Shorter Public School during her retirement years. She likely lived in the Lightfoot house, until Mr. Parish built a small house for her on Lightfoot property in the early 1950’s. Initially she taught English and history. But by the time she told me that I had the face of a college man, her only job was librarian. She never stopped encouraging students! Before Mr. Parish built a house for her in the 1950’s, she probably lived in the Lightfoot House.

Dr. Robert (Bunk) Lightfoot, who passed away in 1982, father of Bill, John and Dick Lightfoot, who have attended the reunions, had helped take care of Miss Dee during her final years. She had attended his graduation from medical school, along with his family, and by that time had retired to Shorter.

After Miss Dee died, Dr. Robert Lightfoot and his wife Alice (Bill’s parents) came into possession of some of Miss Dee’s documents. Daria, Dr. Bill Lightfoot’s wife, brought those documents about Miss Dee to the 2018 reunion. When Becky saw those documents about Miss Dee, she remembered that she had a plastic box there in the Lightfoot house in which some of Miss Dee’s memorabilia were stored, and she dug it out.

The box was not very large, but contained a treasure of Miss Dee’s “stuff”: pictures, letters, records of her education and other memorabilia that Miss Dee had collected over a lifetime! All in a state of complete disarray, 48 years after Miss Dee’s death, of course. I was totally fascinated by the material! Awestruck! My brother Wade had recently received University of Alabama Alumni magazine identifying and discussing the early female graduates of the University. It featured a picture of the first graduating class that included women, and there was Miss Dee, although she was not mentioned by name. My curiosity was thoroughly piqued! Glancing through the disorganized information in the box, I immediately realized that there was a story here that needed to be told. And because she had believed that I had the face of a college man, and now I had access to this information, I felt compelled undertake to tell the task of telling her story!

I suspect that almost everyone has a box or drawer where they keep their treasured personal “stuff.” I have one. Mine is a wornout Baby Ruth Candy Box from the 1950’s! You know what I mean: a box or drawer full of stuff that means little to anyone else, but everything to the owner! I immediately seized upon the idea of examining Miss Dee’s stuff, researching the leads, and writing her story. I had retired as a Circuit Judge 18 years earlier, and re-entered the practice of law. But just days before the 2018 Lightfoot reunion I had announced my (almost complete) retirement from law practice. In the material that I found in Miss Dee’s box, I saw the perfect opportunity to fulfill one of my retirement goals. I had always wanted to write about the Shorter School, and a way of life that it represented, but that is now poorly understood. And here was the opportunity to tell the story of a woman who started out in that community, always considered it “home,” watched it develop, and returned to it to teach in that school, and lived to see its short history conclude under the stresses of the Civil Rights Movement.

Her story is the fascinating story of a devoted Southern Christian Missionary/Teacher. Her life was deeply embedded in the work of the Methodist Church, most of it in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, before the merger. The Methodist Church has also been an important part of my life. I think Miss Dee would have been proud to know that the guy with the “face of a college man” graduated from Huntingdon College (affiliated with the United Methodist Church), served as Lay Leader of the Alabama West Florida Conference, attended a number of General and Jurisdictional Conferences of the United Methodist Church, and eventually chaired the board of trustees of Huntingdon College. I tell about all these things in my own memoirs on this website, but mention them her to explain my reasons for researching and writing about Miss Dee. Against this background, I found the prospect of writing about a Miss Dee and her Methodist work very exciting. The successes and new roles that women have achieved in recent year did not just happen. There were important pioneers like Miss Dee who blazed the trails. Here is an opportunity to look at the life of a true pioneer in the advancement of women!

Everyone liked the idea that I should examine Miss Dee’s box! So, I began the examination. The box was not organized. It was not an index of Miss Dee’s activities. It was a hodgepodge of miscellany. The clues to story were there, but had to be extracted! I suspect that during the many years since Miss Dee’s death in 1970, it had been thoroughly shuffled. No doubt, Miss Dee could have lovingly identified every picture and every document, but no one else ever can or ever will! But it contained personal memorabilia that would have been priceless to her. It contained scraps and hints of the life work of a truly exceptional woman! It included poetry and writings on which her mind and spirit had fed. Digging into it, I experienced the excitement that an archeologist might feel, examining a new archeological find. But going through the box was not like reading a book! Organization was necessary. Hours of meditation about significance were necessary. Additional research into many sources was necessary. But these scraps of paper reluctantly revealed clues to a magnificent story.

Wow! I had no idea what a career Miss Dee had led: she was a precursor of the currently developing role of women on the planet earth! My journey of exploration and examination of the story of an all but forgotten avant garde woman has been an unforgettable experience. The material in the box provided clues that led to other information, and ultimately to discovery of many details of the beautiful life of a woman ahead of her times. In the box—at two separate places—I found two cards approximately 3×5, one printed front and back, all with very small print: 1901 Commencement Week! Graduation with the first females to graduate from the University of Alabama was not the end of Miss Dee’s story. True to the real meaning of the word commencement, that was the commencement—the beginning—of a magnificent career of service.

1) Introduction to Little House Stories

by Dale | Nov 30, 2020 | The Little House

The Little House essays are just one of series of essays that collectively tell my personal story. I introduced the whole life story in an introduction to the entire series that include the series on the Shorter School, Huntingdon College, Marriage and Family, Law School, Law Practice, Work as a Judge, Judicial Education, Return to Law Practice, Alabama Politics, Church Work, Civic Work, and Retirement ant Gardening.

The earliest years are some of most formative. I lived the first eight years of my life at the Little House. They were good years. Some of my fondest memories take me back to that simple life in a very rural setting. We were very poor, but almost everyone that we knew was poor. It was a very different way of life. It deserves recollection.

I will describe the Little House in some detail in the second essay that tells of my birth there. In this introduction, I am more interested in pointing to the way of life that it involved, and that I will try to describe, both directly and indirectly in these essays. These essays are but one part of my story, but in many ways, it is the most important part. As I said in the main introduction to these essays, I will present my evidence of a way of life that I feel was important in short essays, descriptions and anecdotes. The path that I have followed in life has led through fascinating landscape, and has always been interesting. The essays, descriptions and anecdotes are snapshots depicting the view from the path. The landscape may be familiar to some, but I believe that my particular vantage points will create new and different impressions. and it starts at the Little House.

On this website, I also tell the story of Mary Christine DeBardeleben, who was also born in Macon County. She was a remarkable person, in the first graduating class from the University of Alabama that included females who lived on campus. She was truly a missionary, trained as a missionary and chose to do missionary work to Blacks in the south. Her career with Methodist missionary work continued until her retirement years, when she returned to Macon County to teach at the Shorter Public School that I attended. I now realize that she was still engaged in missionary work to her own home area. The way of life described in these Little House essays is the exact way of life that she returned to minister to in 1945, when I was three years old.

The saga that I want to describe continues with the Shorter Public School essays. It was a very small white school in an overwhelmingly Black county. The need that the school was meeting, the circumstances with which it was dealing, may shed a new and different light on events that occurred. There needs to be a description from a different point of view than any that is currently available. And the understanding starts with the way of life with which the school was dealing very successfully. And I present that way of life in these essays.

As indicated in the general introduction, the essays, descriptions and anecdotes will be presented as free-standing entities. They can be read separately from each other, with meaning. But like a collection of snapshots, they collectively portray a larger reality. They will be factual, and facts always give rise to multiple epiphanies. The descriptions, anecdotes and essays will point to a larger reality. But I will just tell the stories in anecdotes, and present the ideas in essays, and largely leave to the reader the application or selection of the appropriate epiphanies and concepts.

The essays in this Little House series are not presented in any particular order. They all have to do with descriptions of events that occurred and things related to the Little House during the eight years that I lived there. However, I have used the linking capability of the website so that you will have many opportunities to jump from one post to related posts that are not sequential. Also, at the end of each essay is the opportunity to link quickly to the next essay in the sequence that I have presented them. To the extent there is any pattern of organization of it is geographic. I started at the Little House and gradually spread out in the presentations of descriptions. There are a few essays that deal with multiple topics, but for the most part, there is only one “point” to each essay. As for as organization is concerned, you might say that, remembering them from seventy years later, I presented them as they came to mind!

2) Birth At the Little House

by Dale | Nov 29, 2020 | The Little House

Four short months after the “day that will live in infamy” I was born in the Little house. The Little House was a two-room shack near the north edge of Calebee Swamp, close to a branch that led directly to the swamp.

This picture of Daddy, Mama, Wade and me was made on June 20, 1942. I was less than two months old. Wade is in the overalls! It was made in the front yard of the little house. Mr. Frank Pierce’s house or barn is in the distant background. The school bus would later turn around in the area to the left of the drive, just beyond the sweetgum tree, and the small oak tree just beyond the sweetgum. the wysteria–in the trellis–got out of the trellis and engulfed the sweetgum by the time I actually remember it.

Dr. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot delivered me, and my parents named me Philip Dale Segrest (Dale). The Doctor asked if Philip would be spelled with two “l”s or with one, like his name, and of course the response was one. A year later there was a note from the Doctor enclosing his picture. The event occurred on April 25^th, 1942, which happened to be my Granddaddy Mote’s birthday. From the time that I remember, I spent all my birthday nights with him, to the time of his death in 1958.

My older brother, Clinton Wade Segrest, (Wade) had been delivered by the same Doctor in the same shack four years previously, on July 7, 1938. My younger brother, Forrest Chandler Segrest Jr., (Chan) would arrive on the same scene four years later, on August 3, 1946, while I sat in Granddaddy Mote’s car in the yard. They couldn’t make me stay over at Grandma Segrest’s house across the branch to the East. I was a mama’s boy. Wade was eight by then, and he stayed over at Aunt Runie’s with Montez and Zenoma.

Mama and Daddy, pictured above, (possibly their wedding picture) were married by the Macon County probate judge in 1936. They built the Little House, with help from his brothers (he had four brothers and three sisters) in 1936 or 1937. The front room in the Little House was on the north side, a fairly nice sized room with two double beds, a baby bed and a cot. It was also the sitting room with a couple of rocking chairs. The bigger rocking chair had one rocker broken off just where the rocker left the chair to the rear. It occasionally turned over, if anyone sitting in it had something particularly important to say. One such incident involved Vesta, a black lady who occasionally came to help mama do stuff like washing—but I’ll get back to that later.

The fireplace was in the front room, which we actually called the living room. Uncle Buddy had engineered (i.e. laid the bricks) for the fireplace, and everyone thought it was a wonderful fireplace. And it was wonderful—the only heat in the house except for the kerosene stove in the kitchen, which was used for cooking, not for heat! There was a knothole a little bigger than a quarter that went right through the floor right in front of the fireplace. When I got big enough to crawl under the house, I found lots of stuff that I had put through the knothole, including not only marbles and tinkertoys, but also mama’s favorite butcher knife! But, after all right in front of the fireplace was the best place to be in the winter time—a wonderful place to try to whittle.

The fire poker was a bent piece of solid iron that was about as big around as the metal used keep concrete from cracking, but I have no idea as to its origin. Probably had something to do with a wagon. But it could make the sparks fly when Daddy poked the burning logs with it. Mama whitewashed around the fireplace and on the hearth with white mud. (White mud is a little like red clay, but it is white and slick. I went with her up to the big road, just below where Chan’s house now stands, and we got white mud out of the ditch there. She put it in a bucket with a little water and painted the fireplace with it, from time to time.

The front door was fastened securely at night with a piece of wood about six inches long and an inch and a half wide (called a latch, I think) on the wall next to the door with a single nail through the center, so that it would rotate. At night, we turned it on the nail so that one end held the door shut.

If you went out the front door, you were on the front porch. It had a tin roof, like the house itself, that was supported by rafters. There was nothing under the rafters—the were exposed. What we called bumble bees—really carpenter bees—loved to burrow into the rafters, leaving a little pile of sawdust on the porch. It was important to learn to distinguish the a “bumble bee” from a “steady john.” We thought that a bumble bee would sting, and a steady john would not. Actually, a “steady john” must have been what is actually called a drone bumble bee. And actually we didn’t ever learn enough about the difference to avoid an occasional sting anyway. The best plan was to leave them all alone!

Speaking of buckets, the water bucket was on a shelf in the kitchen. It was just to the right as you went through the door from the living room. Everybody drank from the same dipper, of course. A “wash pan” sat next to the water bucket. Everyone washed their hands in the wash pan before eating.

The kerosene stove was also in the kitchen. The kitchen was a smaller room. There was also a table in the kitchen that Daddy had made. It had an oil cloth table cloth. Mama and Daddy liked to tell the story of Wade’s billy goat getting in the back door and pulling the cloth from the table. Broke the salt dish, or something like that. The kerosene bucket—a brown five gallon can with a spout—sat in the corner. The chairs were cane bottomed straight chairs, but when the canes wore out, Mama wove new bottoms with baling twine.

When I arrived on the scene in 1942, there was no running water—not even a well. We got water from the branch, or from the well at Uncle Earl’s, who lived across the branch about a quarter mile to the East. He and Grandma Segrest lived together there, and he didn’t marry Aunt Daisy until 1948, which was the year Grandma died. There was no electricity and no telephone. We had no motor vehicle.

Kerosene lamps provided light. The Aladdin lamp was very nice. It had a mantle—some kind of fabric that you had to burn, leaving only the ashy filament. When you lit the lamp, the kerosene burned up through the mantle and put off quite a bright light. And it had a shade, ling more modern lamps. But the best idea was just to get to bed early, especially in the winter time. When the fire died down it got cold in there. Sometimes the water froze in the bucket!

But once you got to bed, everything was fine. Two, three, four, or even five homemade quilts. Everything was fine, that is, until you had to get up. Even after Daddy built the fire in the morning, it was still cold in there!

Speaking of quilts, I “pieced” a quilt top myself. Did most of it before I started to school. That’s what all the old women were doing, so I decided to try it. Mama quilted it for me. (Put it on the quilting frames and put a solid sheet for a bottom, cotton in the middle, and sewed simi-circular arcs about an inch apart through the whole thing. Chan did one too later on, but he cheated—used the sewing machine. He was always pretty smart.

I mentioned before that there was no running water, and you may have wondered about the bathroom. There was none, either inside or out. One went “out of doors” to relieve oneself. (“I’ve got to go out of doors,” usually meant the equivalent of “I have to go to the restroom”) Of course, when we were very small, there was a little pottie that went under the bed. Baths were another question. One did not take an “all over” bath every day. Usually one used a bath cloth—often just a small piece of scrap cloth from clothing or an old sheet or sack—and sponged off with water in the wash pan referred to above. The bath cloth was appropriately called a “wash rag.”

When I was born, there was a dog named Smokey who lived with us at the Little House. He was old, and I don’t remember the details of his death. But his collar, effectively called “the dog belt” survived him to good purpose. It hung on a nail next to the door into the Kitchen, and was Mama’s instrument of choice for punishment!

(2) A Challenging Childhood

by Dale | Nov 29, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

Miss Dee was born in troubled times in Alabama. She arrived on January 23, 1881 in rural Macon County in a community that was known back then as La Place. It is now considered a part of the Shorter community, but is not in the town limits of the recently incorporated Town of Shorter. It lies east of the present Town of Shorter, but is within the postal ZIP Code assigned to the Shorter Post Office.

Miss Dee’s mother was Sarah Rebecca Haden. The Haden family migrated into Alabama from South Carolina, which was a very common migration pattern in the early settlement of Alabama. Times were very hard, and life was uncertain. Jesse Thompson married Sarah’s older sister Susan in 1868, but Susan died in 1868, and Jesse married Sarah in 1869. They had a son, Jesse Haden Thompson, who was Miss Dee’s older half sibling, in 1872. But then Sarah’s husband, Jesse Thompson, Died in 1873. Miss Dee’s mother, Sarah, married her father, John Finley DeBardeleben in 1877, and, William Joseph Debardeleben, Miss Dee’s older brother, was born to them March 10, 1878. Then Miss Dee was born in 1881, but her mother, Sarah, died on March 13, 1883, when Miss Dee was only 2 years old. Four months later, her father John Finlay DeBardeleben, married her mother’s sister, Mary Alice Elizabeth Haden, who helped to raise Miss Dee. After Miss Dee’s mother’s death, her father and her aunt/stepmother had five more children: John Thomas, Charles Allen, Ethel, Robert Francis, and Sara Capitola. Then her father, John Finlay DeBardeleben died in 1892, when she was only eleven years old, and Miss Dee became an orphan. Her older brother, Jesse Haden Thompson died in 1893. These many early deaths reflect the difficulties of the time. The fact that Miss Dee was an orphan makes her story all the more remarkable. Miss Dee reported in the 1960 newspaper article by Ms. Tyson that she was largely raised by her maternal grandmother Elizabeth Oldfield Haden, whose husband Joseph Thomas Haden had died in 1877, four years before Miss Dee was born.

Miss Dee’s father, John Finlay DeBardeleben, was a Methodist Preacher. Miss Dee’s grandfather, John Arthur DeBardeleben, enlisted in the Confederate army in 1864. John Finlay DeBardeleben’s grandfather was born in South Carolinan

The La Place community was located on the Old Federal Road. Pioneers had poured into Alabama, or, more accurately, bogged and bumped their way into Alabama through the Creek Indian territory that included what is now Macon County over that road. The Old Federal Road was built to connect the East Coast States and Washington D.C. to the newly acquired (1803) Louisiana Purchase. The construction of the Federal Road in 1811, cutting through the Creek Indian territory a mere 70 years before Miss Dee’s birth. The construction was a precipitating cause for the Creek Indian Wars in 1812-13 &14, which was related to the concurrent War of 1812. Macon County, where Miss Dee was born, was located in, and had been a part of the Creek territory, before it was ceded to the United States in the 1830’s. The great Indian war leader, Tecumseh, had come from Ohio only 70 years before Miss Dee’s birth, and delivered his famous fiery speech at Tuckabatchee, which is located not more than 15 miles from where she was born. But Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians at nearby Horseshoe Bend in 1813.

So, General Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians in those wars, and after he became President of the United States, he made arrangements to remove them from their homes and lands during the 1830’s. The removal occurred less than Fifty years before Miss Dee’s birth. Alabama became a State only 62 years before her birth. The Civil War was silenced at Appomattox only 16 years before her birth. The end of the war brought hard times for Alabama. The agrarian economy was upended by the War, and was struggling to reassert itself on a new footing. A former slave, Booker T. Washington came down from Hampton Virginia to Tuskegee, only 16 miles from her birthplace, to establish what is now Tuskegee University in the very year that Miss Dee was born. Miss Dee is buried in the Tuskegee Cemetery, located near the University. The proximity in time of her birth to these significant events that have left cultural imprimaturs on history itself magnifies the awesome significance of the story of her life and works that I am about to tell.

During the period of time that preceded Miss Dee’s birth, especially before the Civil War, Alabama was known as part of the Southwest, and with passage of time the Old Southwest. The raucous, turbulent nature of those pioneering pre-Civil War times in Alabama were described in Flush Time in Alabama and Mississippi, by Joseph Glover Baldwin, first published in 1853. His writings were humorous, and he rivaled Mark Twain in popularity at the time. All of the adults who surrounded Miss Dee at the time of her birth were a part of that tumultuous time: a time that is now largely forgotten. That is the world that shaped mindsets in her natal surroundings. But her life and works also shows that there was also, very obviously, gentility.

An article in 1960 in Montgomery’s Alabama Journal by Katharine Tyson, that I found in the box containing Miss Dee’s stuff, appears to be based on a personal interview. It indicates that Miss Dee was proud to be a Southerner:

Mrs. DeBardeleben says she is a child of the old south. Not one ancestor whose lineage she has been able to trace ever lived north of the Mason-Dixon line.

The 1960 Tyson Alabama Journal article further states:

“Miss De Bardeleben was raised by her grandmother. The family lived in the village of La Place, now Shorter, 15 miles from Tuskegee.”

The DeBardeleben’s were among the first white settlers of Macon County. Miss Dee’s great grandfather, William Arthur Debardeleben was buried in the LaPlace Cemetery in 1838—in close proximity to the time that native Americans were being removed from Macon County by the Federal Government. He had been born in the Orangeburg District of South Carolina in 1802, and died in Macon County at the young age of 36.

Elizabeth Oldfield Haden, the grandmother who helped raise Miss Dee, must have been a very strong woman. Her husband died in 1877—six years before the death of Miss Dee’s mother. The grandmother raised at least 10 children of her own, and some of them were still minors when her daughter, Sarah, Miss Dee’s mother, died. The Haden’s lived on what Miss Dee sometimes called a plantation on the Old Federal Road in a community then called La Place. Her father’s family also owned a plantation in the Blackbelt portion of Macon County in a community called Cotton Valley.

The place where Miss Dee was born, as the crow flies, was within a couple of miles of the spot where I was born. I should make it clear that I was not born on a plantation. I was born on the north side of Calebee Swamp, and by road is probably three miles from where she was born on the south side of the swamp.

But back to the Haden plantation. The house where Miss Dee was born has been gone for a long time. The place is no longer called the Haden plantation. But old names tend to linger. Haden Hill, is on the far side of Calebee Swamp from the place where I was born, was included in the Haden plantation. It is a hill that rises from the alluvial plane of Calebee swamp, on the road that leads through Calebee swamp from the old Milstead community where I was born to the La Place community where Miss Dee was born. The hill still bears the Haden name. I remember riding a wagon load of cotton pulled by mules to a cotton gin in what used to be the La Place community with my Daddy on that road that was still a clay gravel road when I was very small.

The Haden’s were Baptists. They are buried in the La Place Baptist Church Cemetery. Interestingly, internet sources list Sweet Gum Cemetery as the burial place. That is probably because the cemetery has a Black section and a white section, and nearby Sweet Gum Church often uses the Black section for burial of its members. But the cemetery began as the cemetery for the LaPlace Baptist Church, a white church. The LaPlace Baptist Church was gone long before I was born. Miss Dee attended the La Place Baptist Church with her Grandmother as a small girl, but Miss Dee’s father was a Methodist preacher, and she joined the Methodist Church at age 11: just after her father died. There have been no white interments in the cemetery in many, many years.

There was a one room school at La Place, that was located near the La Place Methodist Church, and it is possible, but not entirely clear that Miss Dee attended that school as a child. I am not clear about when the school came into being. It merged into the Shorter School in 1920. Miss Dee would have been 39 years old in 1920. After graduating from the University of Alabama and the Teachers College at Columbia University, the Tyson article seems to indicate that Miss Dee taught at that one room school.

I hope to learn more about Miss Dee’s childhood, and if so, I will expand this post. But from what I have discovered, it is clear that her childhood was challenging, and as we will see, she accepted the challenge, and lived her lifetime responding to challenges.

(3) Family and Community Connections

by Dale | Nov 28, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

In the Southern United States, questions like, “Who are her folks?” have always been popular. Such questions are often used jokingly now, as satire of the Old South. But the truth is that family—extended family—was an important part of the structure of culture. Cultural structure is much more complex than just family relationships, but that was and is part of the structure. The cultural structure includes the racial division, but there is internal structure in both the black and white sub-cultures. Wayne Flynt has capably described the structure that exists within the white segment of Southern culture, in discussions of the popular book, To Kill a Mockingbird, notably in his eulogy of the author, Harper Lee.[1] In his analysis of the book, he shows that there are cultural differences between the family of Atticus Finch, the small-town lawyer, and the Cunningham’s, the salt of the earth respectable country people. But then there are the Ewells, “the undesirables who joined the KKK and lynch mobs. William Faulkner epitomized that class in his short story Barnburners. Harper Lee herself may have just taken for this structure for granted as a part of reality. But she captured it beautifully, and I believe that it was part of the art of her writing. Her writing exposed the fallacies of the belief system that confirmed that structure.

Miss Dee was justly proud of her southern heritage, and it will be appropriate to describe her family and the community structure of which she was a part. Although it would be totally impossible to recreate in words the family and community structure in which she was nurtured well over a hundred years ago, perhaps we can recapture some feel for the environment.

In the previous essay, A Challenging Childhood, I described Miss Dee’s immediate family. And in the essay Introducing Mary Christine De Bardeleben, I described her relationship to Mrs. Lightfoot. And I have mentioned churches that were an important part of her childhood community. But my research into Miss Dee’s family and description of the community that produced her is not complete and I hope to supplement this section. Help from any reader who happens to have information will be appreciated.

[1] Mockingbird Songs, Wayne Flynt (2017)

I have included this post, although incomplete, in order to describe the broad outline of the life of Mary Christine De Bardeleben. I plan to develop it further. I would welcome any information that anyone has dealing with this part of her life.

(3) Mama

by Dale | Nov 28, 2020 | The Little House

Mama was not born in Macon County. She was born at Morris in Blount County. She was the Daughter of William Dee Mote and Myrtie Stubbs Mote. She was part of a large family with five brothers and five sisters. Grandmother Mote’s family—the Stubbs family—was a large family, mostly in the Birmingham area, and we never knew them very well. Grandaddy Mote’s—the Mote family—was also a large family, mostly in the Birmingham area, and we never knew them very well, although there was and still is a Mote family reunion that we sometimes attended after we were almost grown. Grandmother and Grandaddy moved around a bit. Granddaddy Mote had been a coal miner in Birmingham, and a truck farmer operating from Shades Mountain. Granddaddy sold his interest in the farm on Shades Mountain to his brother, and bought a four-hundred-acre farm in the Blackbelt region of Macon County. The family moved to Downs, in south Macon County in 1934, near the Bullock County line.

Mama was born January 12^th, 1918. The boys in Mama’s family included Dee, Wiltshire, Hickman, Archie and Emmette. All the boys remained in the general area of Macon and Bullock Counties. The girls were Sue, Maggie, Mama—whose name was Ella—Martha, and Tally. Aunt sue studied nursing in Birmingham, and married Sam Sommers, a Jewish doctor, and wound up in New York. Aunt Matt (Martha) joined the WAVES in World War II, and met and married Adam Goetz. They lived in Baltimore for a time, but wound up in California. Aunt Tally, visited with Aunt Sue in New York, met and married Joseph Abdallah, who was of Assyrian descent, and lived in Brooklyn. Aunt Maggie married Berry Spratlan, and they lived in Hardaway, near Downs, in south Macon County. There was another Sister, Tommie Her clothing caught fire from an open heater at the old Shorter School after they moved to Macon County, and she burned to death.

Mama and her family had lived on Shades Mountain before coming to Macon County. She told us about Uncle Dee and Aunt Maggie finding buzzard eggs under a rock on the mountain. She said she would take us there, but never did. We visited Shades Mountain after becoming adults, but didn’t see any buzzard eggs in the flourishing upscale housing that had developed there.

She attended Shades Cahaba High School while living on the Mountain. She didn’t finish, and didn’t finish at Shorter High School in Macon County either. Instead, she fell in love with one of the bus drivers. That was Daddy. She was eighteen when they married. Daddy was twenty-six. They married in 1936, and built the Little House after marriage. Wade was born two years later.

Mama was cheerful enough, especially publicly. But she was quite intent on doing whatever was necessary to get by. She was very frugal, and managed to get by on whatever Daddy managed to earn. Income was always limited. She was strict. She was the main practitioner of the dog belt, the hung between the rooms in the Little House! But she did nothing more with it than was needed. She more than made up for it with with her cooking. We ate well, on limited means. But I’ll come back to that. Mama read to us. There wasn’t that much to read at the Little House. But she came up with Heidi, Tom Sawyer, and a few other books. She read us the funny papers from the Montgomery Advertiser, and funny books. One book—it must have been a dictionary—had two pages of pictures that I remember, and I knew right where to find them. One was a page of dogs. I liked the Great Dane and the Chihuahua—the biggest and smallest. The other was sea creatures. I liked the sea horse.

She was a hard worker. She worked in the home, and she worked in the fields, chopping, hoeing and picking cotton. She worked in the garden, raising and picking vegetables: Butterbeans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, irish potatoes, hot pepper, bell pepper, watermelons, cantaloupes, eggplants, okra, just to name a few. And she “saved” the vegetables. She used a “canner”—a pot with a pressure top, that would process and seal seven jars of vegetables or fruit at a time. When refrigeration arrived, years later, she froze vegetables.

She was an intense, protective mother. She saw to it that we behaved. She insisted on school attendance. She helped with homework, a little, but fortunately I don’t remember any of us needing much help. She monitored our conduct and our companions. It was a lot easier to get into the branch to play than to visit with other children. She was determined to make things work for the best, even in difficult circumstances. She was cheerful, smiling a lot. But she could get up tight, even if it was just about getting housework done.

Mama’s flaw in those days was that she smoked. Grandmother, of course, never knew that Mama smoked. But she did. She smoked Prince Albert. Rolled her own with good “PA!” the ad on the Grand Ole Opera said, “Roll your own with good PA, and take a puff or two, you’ll get that extra smoking joy Prince Albert brings to you. The tobacco came in a red can with white writing, and Prince Albert himself was pictured right on the front. Made great targets for the BB guns.

4) Daddy

by Dale | Nov 27, 2020 | The Little House

Daddy’s family was a major influence in my early years. His parents, Grandma and Grandpa Segrest were both still living when I was born. Grandpa died two years later, in 1944, and a vaguely remember him. He apparently liked to lay on a bench in the front yard at what I always knew as Uncle Earl’s house, just across the branch to the east of the Little House. That’s where he and Grandma lived, and, of course, Uncle Earl, who was not married then lived there too. I actually remember the old man, lying on the bench, in the front yard.

Fermor Chandler Segrest and Minnie Braswell Segrest

Daddy—Forrest Chandler Segrest, Sr.—was born December 27, 1909. He was born about three miles east of the Little House, on a place that he called the “Dunne” place. His brothers, Marvin Lynwood (Uncle Buddy), Ralph Verner, (Uncle R.V.), Robert Earl (Uncle Earl) and James Woodrow, (Uncle Jody), always lived nearby. And his sisters Carrie Mae Slay (Aunt Carrie), Willie Reese Butler.(Aunt Willie), and Verla Ruth, Haney (Aunt Verla), were not far away. We knew all of them well. Uncle Buddy, and his wife Aunt Runnie, Uncle R.V., and his wife Aunt Ruby, Aunt Carrie and her husband, Uncle Pink, and Aunt Willie and her husband, Uncle Raymond all celebrated over sixty years of marriage. Only Uncle Earl and Aunt Daisy, Aunt Verla and Uncle Wylie had fewer than fifty years. Mama and Daddy were married for fifty-six years before Daddy’s death on December 19, 1992.

(Standing) James Woodrow Segrest, Sr., Robert Earl Segrest, Sr., Forrest Chandler Segrest, Sr., Willie Reese Butler, (Seated) Verla Ruth Haynie, Ralph Vernon Segrest, Sr. Carrie Slay, Marvin L. Segrest

With both parents from large families, I had lots of first cousins—Uncle Buddy and Aunt Runie had eight children—Mae, Vernon, Juanita, Virginia, Aaron, Franklin, Montez and Zenoma. Aunt Carrie and Uncle Pink had six—Pinkston, Frances, Warren, Grady, Ruth, and Alton. Uncle R.V. and Aunt Ruby had five—Ralph, Donald, Joyce, Bob and Bill. Aunt Verla and Uncle Wylie had only one—Charles. All of those were older than me. Uncle Jody and Aunt Ella had four—James, who is a year older than I, and Fay, Roy and Betty Jean, who are younger. Uncle Earl married late, and his three—Murray, Robert and Terry, were all younger than I. In the early years, there were foot paths connecting to all of Daddy’s brothers houses by the shortest route, so you didn’t have to go “around the road.”

Daddy had two great granddaddy’s who were enlisted soldiers for the Confederacy in Civil War—Grandpa Braswell and Grandpa Segrest. Both fought at Chickamauga, among other battles, according to family tradition. One was part of the Army of Northern Virginia, for some reason. I think that after Chickamauga, the both walked home. I know nothing of any slave ownership, and am certain that they were not “plantation” owners.

Everyone that I have ever met who spells their last name S-E-G-R-E-S-T can trace ancestry to Macon County, Alabama. The Segrests arrived in Macon County soon after the Indians departed if not before. There were three brothers, and the came from Orangeburg District, South Carolina. They were prolific in Macon County. There were lots of them there in my early days. It was probably the most common name in the County. And to the surprise of many outsiders, we were no longer closely related, although genealogists could trace the family tree, easy enough. Family tradition had the family originating in Germany, but from what I have been able to learn, I suspect that our name bearing forebears were from the Swiss Alps.

While all of my Segrest ancestors since the 1830’s were Macon County residents, I do not know of a real “home place.” Daddy’s immediate family probably identified the place where Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Earl lived as a sort of home place, I don’t think they ever owned it before Daddy bought it in 1934. My ancestors seem to have moved from farm to farm, but always calling Macon County home, or returning there after sojourning elsewhere.

When I was born, I believe that Daddy’s sole occupation was farmer. Previously, he had been a school bus driver. While we lived at the Little House, about 1946, he drove a milk truck, picking up cans of milk and delivering them to the milk plant in Dadeville. He then worked as a carpenter, along with Uncle Earl and others, for Conner Brothers, who owned a lumber supply store in Tuskegee and engaged in construction work. He helped Granddaddy and Grandmother Mote build their new house at Downs in 1952. He drove a tractor with a mower to cut grass and weed for the County on Road rights of way, and went on to work as a bulldozer operator. Then he became a road crew foreman, and retired from that work. The common thread was that he was practically always driving something, and prided himself in his driving skill. In his old age, we had a heck of a time getting the keys away from him, and had to actually disable the tractor!

Daddy was a lively, well loved man. He was well read, although he went no further than the 7^th grade in school. He didn’t start to school until he was about 9 year old, and could already read. He was promoted to higher classes very quickly, and probably spent three or four years attending school, at the most. Mrs. Rossie Pierce, who taught me first and second grade, also taught him. He read the Montgomery Advertiser everyday.

I don’t remember Daddy ever reading to us. But he told stories. He told about the three little pigs, and I am sure there were other traditional stories as well. But our favorite stories were his stories about fishing. As a boy, he had fished on Calebee creek with the Richardson boys, as well as the Jordans, who were his cousins. And he either remembered the events with vivid detail, or was a creative story teller! Based on the numbers of initials that we found carved into trees close to the Creek when we began to fish and hunt there, I think he probably had a lot of story material to work with.

Daddy lohttps://dalesegrest.com/biospheric-faith-consciousness/3-stages-and-sources-of-faith/ction/ved to buck dance. He danced for us occasionally. I never understood how he did it. It was a lively dance, and it didn’t look to me like his feet were touching the floor.

In those days, Daddy smoked Camel Cigarettes. I guess everyone smoked in the days of World War II, if you can believe the War movies. He smoked a lot. Later in life—I guess when he learned that smoking is bad for health, he quit. But really, he just switched off to Blue Tip Cigars!

(4) A Natural Teacher

by Dale | Nov 27, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

In a 1960 article in the Alabama Journal, a Montgomery Newspaper, writer Katherine Tyson described Miss Dee as “a natural teacher.” Her assessment is borne out by a letter that Merton Robertson had written to Miss Dee two years earlier, in 1958

“Dear Miss Mary,

64 years ago this month a little 6 year old boy sat on a wooden bench over by the west wall of the upper room at the Haden place. And his teacher was a 13 year old girl. He thought then that she was a wonderful girl.

Now an old man three score and ten, he thinks you are a wonderful girl still.

Lots of Love

Merton”

Merton was a member of the Robertson family from Shorter. He was a first cousin to Dr. Malcolm Lightfoot, who I mentioned in the Introduction, and whose wife was a first cousin to Miss Dee. As evidenced by the letter, he was a little younger than Miss Dee. He had moved to Tallassee. A faithful member of the Tallassee Methodist Church, the “Old Men’s” Sunday School Class at First United Methodist Church still bears his name.

When Miss Dee turned to writing in the 1930’s, it was to write Bible studies for women’s groups, with careful directions as to how to use the material: always the teacher!

During her long and useful teaching career, Miss Dee logged in 40 years of teaching, according to a note that I found in the box. The hand-written note lists 14 years in teaching Alabama that included 9 at Shorter. It lists 4 years in Georgia, that apparently do not include 6 at Paine College, because they are listed separately. It indicates that she spent at total of eleven years at Oklahoma University, and other evidence makes it clear that those years were not consecutive. She spent four years in Lubbock Texas, teaching at Texas Tech. The passage of time, and death of the people who knew her well makes it difficult to recreate an exact chronicle of her teaching career, but I will try to reconstruct that time table as we continue to study her career in depth. If you have any information or suggestions about where I might locate further information, please share it with me.

(5) The Fish Killing

by Dale | Nov 26, 2020 | The Little House

When we were small, Daddy told us lots of stories about his young days, and catching fish from Calebee Creek, which was about a mile south of the Little House. Based on one incident that I remember, that happened when I was very small, I know that Daddy’s fish tales were not just tales.

Daddy and Uncle Earl were working on a pasture fence in Calebee Swamp for the cows. The cows were allowed to wander around in the swamp, for some reason, even though we didn’t own the land. They were working on a fence next to the creek. Of course, they had hammers with them for the fence work. It was summer time, and as usual, the water in the creek was low. One of them saw a school of drum, and edible fish species, near the edge of the water. The fish may have been a little oxygen starved, but to Daddy and Uncle Earl, they looked like supper!

Into the creek they went with hammers flying! They threw the fish out as they killed them with their hammers. When they had finished, they had landed twelve or fifteen very nice fish. we had fish for supper that night! It was important to take advantage of such opportunities in those days!

(5) A Gifted Student

by Dale | Nov 26, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

The following is a chronological listing of Miss Dee’s academic career that I have been able to piece together. There may be more. But this timeline shows Miss Dee’s lifelong commitment to learning:

1895 Completed high school in Montgomery.
1898 Completed two years at Alabama Normal School at Livingston, Alabama for an Associate’s Degree;
1901 Completed her A.B. Degree from the University of Alabama, sharing summa cum laude honors with a male student;
1902 Completed a B.S Degree from Teacher’s College at Columbia University in New York;
1910 Completed training for missionary work at The Methodist Training School in Nashville, TN;
1921 M.A. Peabody College, Nashville, TN;
1923 Course work at University of Chicago Divinity School;
1929-30 Studied for a year at Boston University.;
1936 Certification Course work at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) through its extension service in Tuskegee to qualify for teaching in Alabama;
1940 Course work at Oklahoma University;
1943 Course work at Emory University.

Miss Dee was not a “professional student.” Her studies were always with a purpose. Her work at the University of Alabama and at Teachers College, Columbia qualified her to teach. She then taught in Macon County public schools and at Alabama Normal School at Livingston. Her work at The Methodist Training School qualified her for missionary work, and most of the remainder of her career was connected to various forms of missionary work. She was truly a woman with a mission. She taught at Paine College in Augusta GA while working to establish The Bethlehem House in Augusta. Her master’s degree from Peabody qualified her for College work, and she taught at Oklahoma University. She did not receive a degree, as best I can tell, from Boston University, but after her work there, she taught at Texas Tech. Her course with API extension service (Auburn) qualified her to teach in Alabama public schools, and she taught at Shorter for a number of years. I am not clear yet about her work at Emory University in the 1940’s, and don’t know if she also taught there. She also had some connection in those years, before returning to Shorter, in Macon County, AL in 1945, with Gammon Theological Seminary.

This outline of her studies reflects the structure of her career. My description of her career will move from point to point in her personal educational and teaching experiences.

(6) Alabama Normal School and Julia Tutwiler

by Dale | Nov 26, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

ry Christine De Bardeleben completed high school in Montgomery in 1895, according to documents that I obtained from Columbia University that dealt with her admission there. She would have been only 14 years old at the time. She was admitted to Alabama Normal School at Livingston, Alabama in 1895. The line between secondary and post-secondary education in those days was not as clearly defined as it is today. That might mean that it is a mistake to immediately label her as “precocious”, in that many “colleges” admitted what would now be considered high school students. But she finished Alabama Normal School in 1898, and was admitted to the University of Alabama that same year, at age 17. And she received her degree from the University of Alabama in 1901, at age 20, as one of its first female graduates.

It appears that she was able to advance in keeping with her own gifted capabilities. I am not sure that is as possible today as it was then. Unfortunately, I have not been able to figure out where Miss Dee attended high school in Montgomery, or how she managed to enroll there, or what her living arrangements were while she attended high school there.

I have no indication about how Miss Dee came to choose Alabama Normal School. But in her brilliant career, it certainly seems that her contact with the brilliant Julia Tutwiler, was a fortunate choice. It seemed to make a major impact on Miss Dee’s developmental processes. My Name is Julia, the one-woman play by Kathryn Tucker Windham, relates how Julia Tutwiler, with tacit approval from her father, a college president, undertook to teach Black slave children to read, when she was a child herself. But very significantly for the purposes of this website, the play also relates how Julia Tutwiler also taught poor white children. Miss Dee certainly concerned herself with the social welfare of the Black culture. But her final “mission” was to the poor whites in Macon County, where she had been born. Her final mission was teaching at the Shorter Public school in Macon County, and I tell the story of that school on this website.

Julia Tutwiler played a major role in prison reform, and establishing separate facilities for juveniles, both Black and white. During the progressive era, she worked with Booker T. Washington in this important endeavor.

These progressive ideas must have had major impact on the developing Christian faith that motivated Miss Dee to her life work. No doubt, the influence of Julia Tutwiler played a major role not only in Miss Dee’s call to missionary work, but in the transition of that call from missionary work in Japan to missionary work among Blacks in the south. While the fact that Miss Dee was in the first class of campus dwelling females to graduate from the University of Alabama is very impressive, after studying her career, I realized that the strongest influence in her educational development was her association with Julia Tutwiler at Alabama Normal School. Not only did Julia Tutwiler open the way to the University for females, and choose Miss Dee, her work with Blacks was a precursor of Miss Dee’s “call” to mission work with southern Blacks. Miss Dee would later establish a mission for Blacks—The Bethlehem House—in Augusta Georgia. But her work with poor whites was equally important in providing a role model for Miss Dee. Miss Dee was truly a protégé of Julia Tutwiler.

I am sure that I have not collected all the information about Miss Dee’s work at Livingston, and about the influence of Julia Tutwiler. I am seeking more information, and would be delighted to receive information.

(6) The Little House Surroundings and More

by Dale | Nov 25, 2020 | The Little House

There were no lawns at the Little House. Grass was not allowed in the yards. The yards were keep clean with a “brush-broom”. A brush-broom was made of bushes that grew down in the branch head. They were cut off at the ground, the bottoms were bound together in a bundle, and the bushy tops used as a broom to sweep the yard.

There were trees in the yard. One was near enough the front porch so that you could climb right up on tin roof of the house, and, of course, we did. The house had a tin roof and we had a radio. Daddy figured out that if he hooked the radio antenna to the tin roof, reception was improved. But somehow electricity was involved. So, sometimes when we climbed the tree to get on the roof, we got a little shock!

If you went out the back door of the Little House, and turned to the right, you were looking at the “bus body.” Daddy had been the school bus driver, and owned the bus. When he quit driving, he took the body off the chassis, to use at the Little House. He had built a brick furnace in it to build a fire to keep baby chickens warm. There was also a brooder and a run pen, and I don’t remember exactly how all that worked, or if there were different operations at different times. But the bus body was a fine place to play, and behind the bus body, well, that was “out of doors.”

The most interesting story about the bus body concerns a rat. Daddy had some fine half grown chickens in the bus body. Then at night, something started getting in there and killing them. Daddy got some kind of wire trap, determined to catch the varmint. He did, and it was a big ole rat. Daddy was furious. At that time, before I was born, he had some kind of vehicle. Mamma’s sister, Aunt Maggie was there visiting, and got to see and tell about it all. Daddy decided that the rat clearly deserved not only execution, but punishment. So, Daddy devised a scheme to hook the wire trap, rat and all, up to the spark plug wire on the vehicle. Only problem was that he couldn’t see the rat dancing! He suggested that Mama hold the contraption up with the rat in it! Fortunately, Mama had better sense, but Aunt Maggie really got a charge (of a different kind than what Mama would have gotten) out of the suggestion!

The bus body was used for chickens before we had a chicken house. The chicken house was built, at least in part from old material salvaged from Aunt Pinini’s house. But I haven’t told about Aunt Pinini yet.

If you went out on the front porch, and looked to the right, you would see the Orchard. There were lots of peach trees, a few apply trees, and a couple of pear trees. One of the pear trees lived for many years, long after we departed the little house. Switches off the peach trees were a convenient alternative to the dog belt. But Mama never collected an arsenal of peach switches and leaned them in a corner for convenient access, the way Aunt Runnie did for Montez, Zenoma and Franklin!

To get to the garden, you had to walk out in front of the house, veer to the west, around the top of the branch head valley west of the house. The garden was on the other side of that draw. That’s where butterbeans, tomatoes, peas, Irish potatoes, radishes, peppers and lots of other great vegetables found their origin.

One year, Daddy cleared new ground for a watermelon patch down at the bottom of the hill below the garden on the other side of the draw. He broke it up, plowed a deep furrow, filled the furrow with manure from the cow pen, and covered it over. He planted Black Diamond watermelons and cantaloupes. The hills (the place where you planted the seeds) were six or eight feet apart, and after the seeds were planted, were covered with newspaper with a rock on top to keep rats from digging up the seeds! Watermelons were an important part of social life, as I will explain later.

Uncle Earl’s house was across the branch, about a quarter mile east of our house. But there was a well-worn footpath that went straight to it. You left the side yard of the Little House, went down the hill just south of the orchard, crossed the pasture fence, and went through the pine thicket to the branch. There was a board that spanned the branch, so you could walk right over, pass just north of the cow pen, go up the hill, cross the pasture fence again, into Uncle Earl’s yard, just south of his smokehouse.

There was also a road that went to Uncle Earl’s and from there turned left and went almost straight to big road, about a half mile away. The road from the Little House to Uncle Earl’s followed an arc out onto Mr. Frank Pierce’s place around the top side of the valley that contained the branch. A spring the gave rise to the branch. It was down below the road to to Uncle Earls, to the south. The road followed the contour of the land, and was about level, all the way to Uncle Earl’s. It had two ruts, worm by wagon, and the occasional automobile or truck and the school bus, that was driven by Mr. Maudie Pierce, the first grade teacher’s husband.

Right in front of the Little House, across the small front yard, was the sweet gum tree. Its rosin was a decent substitute for chewing gum. Mama made homemade tooth brushes from the twigs. She worked the fibers around, so that the end of the twig was a little like a brush. We couldn’t afford real tooth brushes, and didn’t like them anyway. I remember defiantly breaking one that Mama got for me. Dog belt time!

The sweet gum tree, and a small tree—oak I think—just beyond it hosted a wisteria vine. In the spring, the blue blossoms of the wisteria, hanging a little like grapes on a grape vine, were absolutely gorgeous.

(7) One of Miss Jule’s Girls

by Dale | Nov 25, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

For Miss Dee, getting admitted to the University of Alabama in 1898 was not just a matter of completing her work at Alabama Normal School, getting the necessary forms and applying for admission to the University. She was a member of first class the first female students to be admitted to the University of Alabama with housing on campus. Julia Tutwiler, president of Alabama Normal School in Livingston mounted a campaign that convinced the University to accept women students and to provide on campus housing. Kathryn Tucker Windham has captured the adventuresome spirit of Julia Tutwiler in her one-person play, My Name is Julia.

The play portrays Julia Tutwiler’s efforts to have women admitted to the University. After describing the efforts leading up to the decision to admit women, the actress portraying Julia Tutwiler describes the admission of her students from Livingston, which included Miss Dee. The play presents this dramatic event as follows:

“It was five years later (after the decision to admit women to the University, which occurred in 1893) before any of my Livingston girls attended the University. Lack of proper housing was the hindrance. A few Tuscaloosa girls enrolled in the university each year, but housing for boarding students, women boarding students, was not available. This was an inexcusable impediment.

“So I accosted the University’s president. “You must provide proper on campus housing for the women students,” I told him. “Your men students have dormitories. The same should be available for women.”

“Amazingly, he agreed with me!

“’I promise to provide a house on campus if you can find ten qualified students to live in it,” he told me.’

“Even as he spoke, I was making mental selections of those ten students.

“Back at Livingston, I assembled my faculty and said to them, “We must select ten of our finest students to attend the university next fall. Each girl must excel in academics, must have pleasing manners and must have a reputation above reproach. And she must have parents who will allow her to take part in this educational advance.”

“Selections were carefully, carefully made. When I met in my office with the ten girls who were chosen, I congratulated them, but I warned them. “When you enroll as university students, you may be subjected to insulting remarks and crude jokes. Some of your professors may give you unreasonable assignments, seeking to discourage you.

“You have a heavy responsibility. Unless your achievements and deportment are exemplary, our efforts to open the University of Alabama to women will likely fail. God bless you.”

“In the fall of 1898, my ten girls and their chaperone moved into a two-story residence on Tuscaloosa Avenue near the president’s home. They named that residence for me, Julia Tutwiler Annex.

* * *

“I was more than pleased when, at the end of that first year as university students, my ten girls won 66% of the academic honors.”

Our Miss Dee finished summa cum laude, sharing the honor with a male student.

Although this is merely a dramatic portrayal, intended for the stage, I believe that it captures and accurately describes the spirit of the historical events. And it provides great insight about the kind of person that both Julia Tutwiler and Miss Dee were. As described in the introductory essay in this series, Miss Dee completed the University of Alabama and graduated with the 1901 class.

While at the University, Miss Dee served on the editorial staff of the school newspaper, The Crimson White, in the 1900-1901 school year. The Crimson White was first published in 1894. The following poem entitled The Senior Walk, written by Miss Dee, is found in the November 2^nd, 1900, edition of the Crimson White:

Say, have you seen the Senior Walk?

Have not? –then listen while I tell

Of airs that pass beyond expression,

The Senior—Oh he is a “swell”!

He has a golden headed care,

He sways with grace quite bel,

Describing charming airy curves,

The Senior—sure, he is a “swell”!

He never sees the “sophs” and “rats”

That daily cross his path—Oh well,

He holds his head erect, you know,

The Senior who’s so “swell”.

O Senior, proud of step and mien,

It can’t be said that man ne’er fell,

And the “last great day” in June, my friend,

‘Twill not suffice to be a “swell.”

M.C.D.

Of all the writings by Miss Dee and descriptions that I have seen of Miss Dee, this poem is the most like advocacy! She obviously understood the significance of being one of Miss Jule’s Girls in what had been an all-male military school.

(8) YWCA and a Call to Missionary Work

by Dale | Nov 25, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

I believe that Miss Dee affiliated with the Young Women’s Christian Association as fully as possible, throughout her career. In those days, many college campuses with female students had YWCA Chapters. There may have been a chapter in Tuscaloosa at the time she was enrolled at the University of Alabama, but I have not been able to find actual information yet.

Writing in 1960, after interviewing Miss Dee, who would have been 79 years of age at the time, Alabama Journal reporter Katharine Tyson wrote “During a YWCA summer conference, she vowed to become a missionary to Japan, but found due to her age she was too young for the position. But holding steadfast to her determination to go to Japan she planned to continue teaching until she could get an appointment.” The newspaper article did not make it clear when this call to missionary work occurred.

After she completed her work at the University of Alabama, Miss Dee had returned to Livingston to teach for Julia Tutwiler at Alabama Normal School in 1901-02. Sources at the University of West Alabama, formerly Alabama Normal School, indicate that there is no evidence in the archives of a YWCA chapter on campus during the 1900-1901 school year, but there was an active chapter in 1901-1902, the year that Miss Dee returned to Livingston and taught there. Was she involved in creating the chapter? I can’t really say, but when she returned, YWCA was active on campus.

Another source indicates that Miss Dee received the call to missionary work “while teaching with Julia Tutwiler at Alabama Normal School.” Because it was seven years after she taught at Alabama Normal School in 1901-1902 before she was actually admitted to The Methodist Training School in Nashville for missionary training in 1908, I have examined her activities between those dates as carefully as I can to try to figure out exactly when she received the call to missionary work.

It is clear that she actually worked at Alabama Industrial School for Girls in Montevallo as secretary of the YWCA on that campus in 1907. And in that capacity, she actually was involved in organizing summer conferences. Miss Tyson’s Alabama Journal article also mentions that after completing her work at Columbia, Miss Dee returned to Macon County and taught in a one room school, grades one through twelve. That would likely have been the one room school at La Place, near the place of her birth and the residence of her grandmother. It is not clear how long she taught there.

However, in 1906, records from Birmingham Southern indicate that Miss Dee, along with her friend, Rosalie Tutwiler, an alumna of Southern, visited the campus of Southern University in Greensboro, Alabama, and that both were on faculty at Alabama Normal School at the time. Miss Dee’s younger half-siblings were enrolled at Southern at the time. (Southern is a predecessor of Birmingham Southern College.) Records from the University of West Alabama neither confirm nor disaffirm whether Miss Dee was on faculty there in 1906. The records of faculty members for that year are missing.

Katharine Tyson also reported:

“Several months later, on Christmas Eve, to be exact, her uncle who had taken over the management of the farm announced all the Negroes on the farm were intoxicated. Then and there, Miss De Bardeleben says after a sleepless night she made up her mind, she was needed far more at home to teach among southern Negroes than she was needed in Japan.”

She goes on to state that Miss Dee tried to devise ways of teaching in her own county, but eventually her application for missionary training was accepted.

After carefully examining all the historical data that I have been able to locate, I believe that Miss Dee attended the YWCA summer conference and was called to missionary work during the year that she taught at Alabama Normal School with Julia Tutwiler immediately after completing her studies at the University of Alabama. She was only 20 years old at that time, and it makes sense that she was too young to train for missionary work at that time. She planned to keep teaching, until she was eligible, so she enrolled at Teachers College at Columbia. She returned to La Place and taught at the one room school there, as reported by Katharine Tyson. It is not clear how long that continued, but at some point, she apparently returned to Livingston, and taught there in 1906, at least. There is evidence that her family had moved to west Alabama by then, where her younger half-siblings were enrolled at Southern University. Then in 1907, she served as secretary for the YWCA chapter at what is now Montevallo University. And in 1908 she enrolled for missionary training at The Methodist Training School in Nashville. I will pick up on her work there in another essay. Her connections with YWCA would continue throughout her career.

(7) Christmas At the Little House

by Dale | Nov 24, 2020 | The Little House

Christmas at the Little House was a greatly anticipated event! The living room was decorated fully. There was holly. Sometimes mistletoe. The Christmas tree would be a cedar. All the greenery came from nearby woods. Decorations were well planned, and carried over from year to year. I mentioned that Daddy smoked camels. Inside the pack there was foil, lined on one side with white paper. You could burn the paper off, and leave a shiny sheet of bright aluminum foil. A little work with scissors, and there were icicles!

Mama would pop popcorn, and use a needle to thread through and make a nice decoration. Sycamore balls were good. I think they were rapped with foil, sometimes. There were no electric lights in the early years—no electricity! There were some glass trinkets—balls on a wire hook.

The tree was nailed to a board, and stood upright on the floor. I think a wire held it upright, but the board may have been nailed to the floor. The tree always stood by the front door. Those icicles glistened reflections of the fire, and caught whatever other light there was. Excitement blended perfectly with absolute joy!

A gold star topped the tree. I think that Wade still has it.

On Christmas morning, there would be presents. Cap pistols. Balls to play with. Apples and Oranges and candy. An a little later bb guns. Daisy bb guns. (We hunted birds with those bb guns, but before Harper Lee had gone to print, Daddy gave us to understand that we were not to shoot mocking birds.) Tinkertoys. It was hard for us to contain ourselves on the night before, and the event itself was never disappointing.

When Uncle Hickman or Uncle Dee Mote showed up in a car to take us to Grandmother Mote’s for lunch, the emotions were always mixed. We had to leave the toys! But, looking forward to seeing all the Mote cousins helped overcome the disappointment! We always went to Grandmother Mote’s for Christmas. The excitement would build as we neared the destination. We always had turkey. And dressing. And Ambrosia. And always told and heard the same stories, but never tired of them.

But in the very early years there was a strange custom. Everyone could not eat at the table at the same time. There were too many. But the old folks ate first and the children had “second table.” Thank goodness, that custom, which I suspect was very general in those days, didn’t survive. It probably ended by the early fifties.

After a wonderful day of food and visiting, we got our bag of apples and oranges from Grandmother, and got to ride in a car back home. It always felt good to get back to the toys and Christmas goodies at the Little House. But we will visit Grandmother and Granddaddy Mote’s place for my birthdays, before we finish writing! I was born on my Granddaddy Mote’s birthday!

(9) Columbia University Teachers College

by Dale | Nov 24, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

With the backing and encouragement of Julia Tutwiler, Miss Dee was one of the ten women from Alabama Normal School to live on campus at the University of Alabama. She graduated summa cum laude, in 1901. She returned to Alabama Normal School at Livingston and taught with Julia Tutwiler in 1901-1902. She was only 20 years old at the time. I believe that it was during that year, while teaching with Julia Tutwiler, that Miss Dee felt a call to Missionary work in Japan, but she was too young for admission to missionary training at that time. She decided to continue teaching until she could enroll in the Methodist missionary training. So, Miss Dee enrolled at Columbia University Teachers College in 1902, to further enhance her teaching skills. I suspect that Julia Tutwiler may have been involved in Miss Dee’s enrollment at Columbia. In 1902, Columbia Teacher’s College had only been admitting women for a few years. The first woman to receive a degree from Columbia was in 1887. But continuing her pioneering tradition, Miss Dee successfully enrolled, and received a BS from Columbia.

I found the documents pictured above in the box of material containing Miss Dee’s memorabilia.

Miss Dee completed her Degree at Columbia University Teachers College in 1903.

The Columbia 1903 Commencement Program from Miss Dee’s Box

Kathrine Tyson, who interviewed Miss Dee for her Alabama Journal article in 1960 indicated that after completing her work at Columbia, Miss Dee returned to the one room school teach. I believe that would have been the one room school at LaPlace. Because that article was based on a personal interview, I believe that the information is accurate. But the records are not entirely clear concerning Miss Dee’s activity after completing her work at Columbia. Records from about 1915 from The Methodist Training School in Nashville indicates that Miss Dee “Taught several years at State Normal School Livingstone (sic) Alabama” and “One year secretary Y.W.C.A.,” and “Alabama Girls’ Industrial School, Montevallo, Ala,” before her admission to the Missionary Training School in 1908.” They make no mention of her teaching in the one room school at LaPlace. But as you can see, these entries themselves are not totally clear and unambiguous. The only time that I have been able to clearly confirm that she taught at Livingston is before she went to Columbia, where the year, 1901-1902, is confirmed by records.

The Alabama Girls Industrial School that is referred to in the Methodist Training School records had resulted from efforts of Julia Tutwiler to provide vocational educational opportunities for women in Alabama. Julia Tutwiler was offered, but turned down its presidency to remain at Livingston. The school that originated as Alabama Girls Industrial School is now The University of Montevallo. I have confirmed that Miss Dee was secretary of the YWCA at Alabama Girls Industrial School in 2007-2008, just before her admission to Methodist Training School in 1908. The Tyson article indicates that she got her call to missionary work while teaching at Livingston, but was too young for admission. Apparently she went to Colombia Teacher’s College as an interim measure. That certainly sounds like something Miss Jule would have encouraged. Incidental records from Birmingham Southern, dating back to its predecessor, Southern University in Greensboro, Alabama, indicates that she visited family members there in 1906, and that she was serving on the faculty at Livingston at that time, but again, the Livingston records are incomplete, and do not confirm that fact. As stated above, the Tyson article was based on a personal interview, and therefore is credible. Based on all evidence that I have been able to discover, it appears that Miss Dee returned to LaPlace and taught at the one room school there after finishing her work at Columbia. Apparently, one Christmas Eve, while she was there, she came to the conclusion that her missionary work needed to be among Blacks in the South instead of Japan. I have not been able to ascertain when she left her teaching post at the one room school at LaPlace and went back to teach at Livingston with her mentor, Julia Tutwiler.

(10) Teaching in Macon County

by Dale | Nov 23, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

For Mary Christine De Bardeleben, Macon County was always home. She returned there again and again. That pattern began early in her career. After completing her teacher’s degree at Columbia Teachers College, Miss Dee returned to Macon County to teach in the one room public school at La Place. No doubt, at that time her grandmother was still living on the plantation at La Place, and Miss Dee returned to live with her, within walking distance of the Laplace one room School. After the death of her grandmother Haden, she would usually stay with her cousin, Mamie Ross Lightfoot, and her husband, Dr. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot. After retirement, when she had returned to teach at the Shorter public school, she had her own house, built by fellow teacher, Ralph Parrish, on land gifted by the Dr. and Mrs. Lightfoot.

In the 1960 interview, with reporter Katharine Tyson, Miss Dee explained that in her initial teaching job in Macon County, she taught “all grades from alphabet to advanced arithmetic.” That was after she finished at Columbia, and before 1906. Public education was just beginning to develop in Macon County, and one room schools dotted the Macon County countryside. Usually there was only one teacher, and that was the case with the La Place school.

The one room school at La Place was Miss Dee’s first teaching job in Macon County but it would not be her last. There is scanty evidence, and at least a possibility that she returned to back Macon County as a teacher in the mid-thirties. She took course work from what is now Auburn University extension service in Tuskegee in 1936 to qualify for teaching, but I have found no evidence of actual employment in Macon County in that time frame. After 1936, she was back at Oklahoma University, as I discuss in another post. Her final teaching mission was at the Shorter public school. That likely began in 1945. Over a lifetime of teaching and missionary work, Miss Dee saw much progress in education in the County that she loved and always called home, to which she always returned. From her broad perspective, she saw, and tried to address the intense needs, in the public education system in the County.

(8) Aunt Pinini

by Dale | Nov 23, 2020 | The Little House

Well, although I had lots of aunts and uncles, Aunt Pinini was not actually one of them. Her house was there when Daddy bought the place, and I don’t know how long she had lived there. She was there before Daddy and his family built the Little House, and she probably had been there a long time. Even then, the old southern tradition of calling elderly black people Aunt and Uncle as titles of respect was fading into the twilight. But the house was there, right behind the Little House, maybe thirty yards away, and everyone called her “Aunt Pinini.” A field road located right in front of her house led from the Little House to the field that everyone called Eleven Acre—“lemacre”, (an unrecognizable contraction of the actual words “eleven acre”) was what they actually called it—and we still do.

Aunt Pinini had daughters, Honey and Annie, but I don’t really remember them. I vaguely remember Aunt Pinini. She would give Wade and me sugar biscuits. But according to Wade, she always made sure to tell us that the biscuits came from Grandma Segrest’s. Apparently, there was some taboo that she did not wish to violate. She may have done something about taking care of Grandma—I really don’t know.

Aunt Pinini’s house was a very small one room shack. I remember very little about either her or the house. She was very old, and apparently her health began to fail. Honey and Annie came to get her, and she went to Birmingham to live with them. After she moved away, the house was torn down, and the salvage Daddy used the material to build the chicken house. He built the chicken house between where her old house had been and the Little House—a little to the east.

(11) Miss Dee was a Methodist

by Dale | Nov 22, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

In her 1960 Montgomery Advertiser article, reporter Katherine Tyson stated, “’Miss Mary’ is first last and always a Methodist.” That is likely a quote from a personal interview. The life work of Miss Dee bears out its truth. She was trained as a Methodist missionary, and elected to do mission work among Blacks in the South. She pursued education, and taught Bible and religion under the auspices of the Methodist Womens Missionary Council. Her father, and two brothers were Methodist preachers.

In 1934, at age 53, Miss Dee gave the history of the La Place Methodist Church as part of its centennial celebration. Miss Dee presentation was an informal, conversational history of the Church, based mainly on her own recollections. In it, she reported:

I did not claim this church as mine when I was a little girl. My Baptist Aunt and Grandmother carried me to their Sunday school held regularly in the old Baptist Church in La Place.

Although she attended the La Place Baptist Church, she never joined that Baptist Church. Later in the same historical account she reported her childhood Baptist experience with good humor:

Old dear brother Dowdell I stood in awe. Even while I loved him, I avoided him. For he was always enquiring into the state of my little girl’s soul and insisting that I should have a happy, shouting conversion experience.

The year that Brother Skipper * * * came to this charge, my father had just died, and that same little girl’s soul found expression for its love and loyalty by joining the church that father had served so unselfishly, so devotedly thru the years. I became a Methodist and this became my church.

Her father had indeed “served so unselfishly.” According to historical records of the United Methodist Church, her father, John Finlay DeBardeleben, was converted under the ministry of Rev. B. B. Rose in 1868 at the Union Church, which was part of the Tuskegee Circuit. It was located just a few miles up the road from La Place, between La Place and Tuskegee. He was licensed to preach on Nov 27, 1880 by the quarterly Conference of the Tuskegee Circuit. He was received into full connection in the Alabama Conference and ordained a Deacon in December, 1884 by Bishop Keener at Opelika. He was ordained an Elder by the same Bishop on December 11, 1887 at Greensboro.

He was assigned to a circuit in Barbour County, and preached his last sermon in Louisville in February of 1892. He died in March of 1892 in the parsonage at Louisville. It is not clear that Miss Dee was living with her father at the time of his death, because, by her own account, as reported by Mrs. Tyson in the Alabama Journal in 1960, she was largely raised by her maternal Grandmother Haden. Her father was married to her mother, Sarah, at the time he was licensed to preach in 1880. But by the time he was ordained, and received into full connection, Sarah had died, and her father had married Sarah’s sister Mary.

The account that Miss Dee gave at the 1934 Centennial Celebration at LaPlace reveals that she did not join the Methodist Church while her father was still living, but hints that the fact that her father was Methodist preacher may have influenced her decision.

As mentioned above, Miss Dee had two brothers who became Methodist preachers. Her older brother, William Joseph Haden, who was her mother’s son, born in 1878, became a preacher and preached in Georgia. He delivered the sermon at La Place in 1934 at the centennial celebration. Her younger brother, John Thomas DeBardeleben, who was the daughter of John Finlay DaBardeleben and Sarah’s sister Mary, was admitted in full connection and ordained Deacon in 1915, and Elder in 1917. He became a Chaplain, and is buried in Arlington. So, Miss Dee’s family ties to Methodism were extremely strong!

I should mention that the La Place church was the first Methodist society established in Macon County, although it was at a different location and had a different name at its founding.

My wife, Betty Menefee Segrest, remembers Miss Dee saying that she cried when some of her cousins enrolled at what is now Huntingdon College, (which was located in Tuskegee back then) but she did not have the money to go. Putting that into historical perspective, at that time East Alabama Female College (now Huntingdon) was a Methodist school for girls, located in Tuskegee, and accepted undergraduate as well as college age students, so it is difficult to reconstruct the exact background information for this comment.

As we have seen in other essays, after her father’s death, Miss Dee completed high school in Montgomery in 1895, and enrolled at Alabama Normal School in Livingston in 1896, and then went on to the University of Alabama in 1898. It is not clear how and why all of this developed as it did, if she really wanted to go to the Methodist College in Tuskegee.

But in 1908, she would enroll in the Methodist Training School in Nashville, and most of the remainder of her career would be in affiliation with the Women’s Missionary Council of The Methodist Episcopal Church South. In 1960, she was awarded life membership in the WSCS of the Alabama West Florida Conference of the Methodist Church.

(9) The Chicken House

by Dale | Nov 22, 2020 | The Little House

Daddy built the chicken house from the remnants of Aunt Pinini’s house. It was down the hill a short distance from the house, to the southwest. It’s main door that faced down the hill, so you had to go around the chicken house to get to the door. Once you entered the chicken house through that door, you faced the back of the chicken house and the chicken roost. At night, the chickens went in there and slept, on the roost. There were nests up on the roost, and I think under the roost on the ground, and the chickens also went in there to lay eggs.

But sometimes, a chicken snake would get in there and swallow the eggs. Mama said the snake swallowed them hole, and he must, because after he swallowed them you could see the outline of the egg bulging its fairly slender body. You could count the eggs! Mama said the snake would jump off the roost to break them, but I not so sure about that. The eggs that the snake didn’t get—and Mama beat him to most of them—were very good.

There were different kinds of chickens. There were white leghorns and red leghorns. In those days you could order the little chickens and the post office would deliver them. I bet they couldn’t do that now! Those are the only two kinds I remember us having. But Uncle Earl had some black and white spotted chickens called domineckers. We didn’t have any Domineckers. I don’t think you could order them. I think Uncle Earl hatched and raised them.

But that is the other way to get little chickens. You could have the old setting hen hatch and raise them, or you could just hatch them from eggs. The easiest way was to let the hen (an “old setting hen”) set on them. After a hen had a nest full of eggs she would “go on the nest.” Old setting hens were right mean. They would get after you.

Hatching them without the help of the setting hen was more tedious. There was some kind or hatchery—a box that you could keep warm, and put the eggs in there, and you had to know when to turn them, like the old setting hen did, and after so long a time they would hatch. The old setting hen would look after her biddies (the little chickens), but if you bought the biddies, or hatched them yourself, you had to put them in the brooder, where a light bulb kept them warm. But that was after we got electricity! I mentioned the bus body in another essay. Daddy raised chickens in it. He built a little furnace in there to keep them warm, but I don’t actually remember it in operation.

But in any event, before long, if they lived, they would get to be “fryin’ size” and that was a great time for us! That is, unless they were in the bus body and a rat got to them first. But we had chicken killings. You could either “wring their necks” or cut their heads off with an ax. Then came the picking, after you dunked them in hot water. And if they were young, there would be “pin feathers.” Pin feathers were little black, pin like, immature feathers. They could be pretty hard to get off of the chicken.

(10) Play

by Dale | Nov 21, 2020 | The Little House

In today’s world of technological games, and sophisticated toys, one might well wonder how kids could possibly entertain themselves in the environment that I have described. We enjoyed ourselves greatly, and the games may have stimulated imagination just as much—maybe even more–than today’s gadgetry.

Playing cars was one of the biggies. In the sand, in the brush-broomed yard beside the Little House, there were, at times, extensive roads for “cars.” Right after Christmas, we might have had a toy car or truck, but for the most part, we improvised. Sardine cans, cut just right, made excellent trucks. If the top remained intact on one of the short sides, the rest of the top could be folded to make a wonderful windshield. Blue milk of magnesia bottles were luxury cars. Vanilla extract bottles, up on their sides, with indentations, would pass for motorcycles. Spam cans were the bulldozers that built and repaired the roads. The list could go on and on. And there were cows, mules, houses, barns and other imaginary representations, to support much simulated adult discussion of the entire operation. The conversations, of course, were in the vernacular of the day, and involved make believe visits to neighbors, building projects and the like.

Cowboys and outlaws and Indians were standard fare. Sticks, like the ones used to make brush-brooms, made excellent stick horses. The reins, made of string, went around the big end, and the little end just tapered off. The “horse” went between the legs, and our legs did the galloping. In retrospect, it probably looked more like riding a snake than riding a horse, but that was no obstacle to our ready imaginations! The tails of the horses would wear off smooth from dragging the ground. And at night, the horses were hitched to the front porch. Great battles occurred, often with imaginary opponents. The Christmas cap pistols would last a while, and then be replaced by wooden weapons fashioned by Uncle Earl. The discussion of clothes pens is yet to come—that fits in with wash day—but the spring loaded clothes pens, tied to the back of the handle of the wooden pistols, made a fine way to hold rubber bands, and fire them, after stretching them from the front end of the barrel.

Usually, there would be worn-out tires around the house, even though we had no vehicle. They were great for rolling. It was a bit messy when it rained and water got in the tire, and I never quite understood how it got in there, but it did. Some of the tires were tall and then, not much like the short fat tires today. I had a big tall firestone, and have no idea where it came from.

Automobile tires were not the only things that rolled. We didn’t roll wagon wheels, but once the wagon tore up, there were wonderful parts. The hub of the wheel that received the axle was made of wooden pieces that were bound together on the outer edge of the rim with a band of steel. Perfectly round. You could take a stiff piece of wire, make a crook on the end of the wire, bend it to a right angle with the rest of the wire, and push the band with it. Once it got started, it was easy. Now I know that it operated on the principle of a gyroscope, and that made it stand up as it rolled, and by tilting it you could turn it. The faster you went, the better it worked.

Then if some of the cousins around, there were games you could play together. Like Hellover, where you threw the ball over the house and the kids on the other side tried to catch it. And bum bum bum, here we come. Kids in one line said that, the opposing team s “What’s your trade” and the response was “Sweet lemonade” and then “What’s your initials” and then “Well get to work.” Then the other side would start pantomiming things like picking cotton, chopping cotton, cutting wood, or whatever. Once the challenging team guessed what it was there was a big melee. I may be forgetting a few details! This was usually under the direction of Montez and/or Zenoma and/or another cousin, Joyce, some of the bigger kids.

Franklin, Uncle Bud’s son, lived about a half mile away through the woods, and would come over and play baseball. Well, it wasn’t exactly baseball. We didn’t have a baseball, so we used a tin can. And we didn’t have a bat, but a stick would do. After a few licks, the tin can baseball could be sort of rough on the hands, and the bat became pretty ragged, but nevertheless the game went on. Franklin was actually the left-handed pitcher for the Shorter High School team.

We played tin can ball in the pasture, in an opening just north of the pine thicket. The pine thicket itself was a wonderful place to play. I can still remember the odor the pine trees and pine straw. The pine straw could be piled up, and you could turn flips in it. Or if the girl cousins were around, we could play playhouse. Playing house didn’t involve a real playhouse. The walls of the “house” were outlined in rows of pine straw. If you needed a door, all you had to do was leave off the pine straw. If there were dolls around, and sometimes there were, they were the babies.

The pine thicket was also the location of my tree house. The tree house was just a platform secured on two limbs that left the tree in the same general direction the same distance from the ground. Getting the boards up there was the problem. I would try pulling them up with a rope. Wade wasn’t interested. But by the time Chan was about three years old, he got interested. So, he was on the ground, pushing the board upward and I was in the tree pulling. After it got higher than he could reach, I had a problem. I couldn’t pull it any farther, and he couldn’t push. And I couldn’t drop it, because he was still there! I said, “move!” and he said “Huh?” It got him right between the eyes. But somehow, we got enough boards up there to complete the house, such as it was. The boards for the floor were actually “slabs”—the outer portion of a tree that went through a sawmill, and had one round side—but we put the flat side up.

We built an interesting “playground” contraption. I think that Daddy must have built the first one at the little house, but we built our on after we moved to the house that Uncle Jody built. We called this thing a “flying jenny.” It involved sawing off a tree about three or four feet above the ground. Then we cut a long pole—maybe the top of that tree—and somehow drilled a hole through it midway its length, so that half the pole was on one side of the hole and half on the other. Then we got a long metal bolt, or spike. The spike went through the hole, and into the top of the stump. It took at least three people to play on the flying jenny. One got on each end, and the other pushed so that it went round and round! Sometimes, pretty fast! There were mishaps, like cousin Betty Jean flying off the end of the pole and sailing through the air, fetal position, to a landing that occurred with no serious injury. It’s a wonder any of us survived!

And at night, we might play “fire ball.” That was properly done in a plowed field, for reasons that will become obvious. The fireball was made from rags or strings, or maybe even a coverless baseball. It was soaked in kerosene. When lit, it was exciting to toss it around in the field, but you had to get rid of it pretty fast.

Did I mention corncob fights? They didn’t hurt all that much unless they had been soaked in a syrup bucket in water for a few days, but after soaking, they threw better and more accurately, and hurt worse when they hit.

(11) The Branch

by Dale | Nov 20, 2020 | The Little House

A well-worn footpath led directly from the Little House to Uncle Earl’s house. Unlike the road that went around the draw where the branch started, it went through the pasture and the branch. The path left the Little House, headed east towards Uncle Earl’s, down by the orchard, across the pasture fence, through the pine thicket and right to the branch. I shouldn’t have described play without including the branch!

The branch started with springs just a little north of where we crossed the branch on a wide plank that spanned the narrow stream. Just above the plank was a broken dam made of bricks, partially overturned into the stream bed. Uncle Earl had built that dam. He mounted a little water wheel on it that turned a small grind stone that would sharpen tools. That has always seemed like a lot of work for a machine to sharpen an ax! And it apparently didn’t last very long before the branch flooded and took it down.

But just above the plank and broken dam was a delightful pool in the branch. In it there were crawfish and tadpoles galore. Little tadpoles and big ones. I never really knew the difference, but I guess the big ones turned into bull frogs and the little ones into toads. There were lots of other aquatic life. Little insects that skipped across the top of the water. Off in the edges there were wiggle tails that would turn into mosquitoes. And there were snakes. Mama always said that just because we didn’t see them didn’t mean that they didn’t see us. “Watch for snakes,” and “Don’t get on a snake,” were well worn warnings. But that didn’t keep us from having a great time in the branch!

A little southeast of the little house in the pine thicket, there was a sawdust pile. There had been a saw mill at some point in time, and it made a big pile of saw dust. I don’t remember anything about the sawmill. Maybe it’s where they cut the boards to build the Little House. Close to the saw dust pile was the pig pen, but I don’t remember the pigs that lived there.

(12) Methodist Training School

by Dale | Nov 20, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

As I have described in other essays, Mary Christine De Bardeleben felt a call to missionary work. The call apparently came while she was teaching with Julia Tutwiler at Alabama Normal School in 1901-1902, after she had completed her work at the University of Alabama, and before she attended Teachers College, Columbia University in 1902-1903. Initially, she felt that the call was to go to Japan as a Methodist missionary. At age 20, she was too young to qualify as a missionary. At that point in time, the Methodist Training School had not yet been organized, and apparently it was some other agency that determined the she was too young. After receiving a degree from Teachers College at Columbia, she returned to La Place, the place of her birth in rural Macon County, Alabama. There, she taught all twelve grades in a one room school. And on a Christmas Eve, a traumatic announcement by her Uncle who was managing the farm on which she was living that all Negroes on the place were intoxicated, she felt a call to mission work among Blacks in the south.

She was still persevering in her call to mission work. The Methodist Training School was apparently organized in Nashville in 1906, under the auspices of the Women’s Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. We will never know when she communicated her desire to do missionary work among Blacks in the South to the school. Apparently, she had made this decision before her acceptance. We will never know if such an iconoclastic idea delayed her admission to the training school. Apparently, all we will ever know in this regard is what Katharine Tyson said in the Alabama Journal on January 6, 1960 after she interviewed Miss Dee. It is my guess that the award of life membership in WSCS by the Alabama West Florida Conference on June 2, that same year was somehow related to the interview with Katharine Tyson. In any event, both events occurred over 50 years after Miss Dee was admitted to the Methodist Training School in Nashville in 1908. Unfortunately, the account by Tyson is not totally accurate. She reported that after completing her work at the University of Alabama, Miss Dee “had further study at Columbia where she got a BS in education from Teachers College; and her Masters at Peabody, she returned to Shorter to teach in a one room school.” Miss Dee actually finished at Columbia in 1903, and likely returned to Shorter to teach, but shedid not receive the degree from Peabody until 1921. I have summarized the likely time table for the events above, and analyzed them carefully in an earlier essay in this series.

It is a credit to her perseverance that Miss Dee was eventually accepted for missionary training in 1908. Ms. Tyson reported:

“All but one member of the faculty insisted that she train for the orient. This one, a Field Work Supervisor, understood Miss De Bardeleben’s feelings about working in her own country, and assigned her to a Negro church to teach the Bible to women. As the days went by, she became more enthralled with her project, and stood her ground about remaining in America to teach.” No doubt, the one faculty member who supported Miss Dee’s plan was Miss Estelle Haskin, whom I discuss later.

So, Miss Dee began missionary training in 1908. As always, she was an exceptional student. In 1926, while teaching in Norman Oklahoma, Miss Dee requested and received a transcript of her credits from Methodist Training School. I have not figured out the purpose of the request. By 1926, the Methodist Training School had merged into Scarritt College for Christion Workers. The organization into which it merged began as Scarritt Bible and Training School in Kansas City Missouri in 1892. That organization moved from Missouri to Nashville in 1924. The letter transmitting the transcript to Miss Dee is from J. M. Sullen, Registrar of Scarritt College for Christian Workers. The letter was in Miss Dee’s box, together with a hand written transcript.

There were actually two hand written versions of the transcript, listing courses and grades. It is possible that one or both were copied from a more formal transcript which may have been delivered to someone for whatever purpose it was requested. The hand written documents indicate that Miss Dee’s courses in the Methodist Training School included Sociology, Christian Doctrine, Applied Methods, Home Conduct, Old Testament History, Prophets, Apostolic Age, Epistles, Church History, Public Speaking, Domestic Science, and Bible reading. She scored 90 or higher in all but two of the courses, and 88 ½ and 89 ½ on those two. The focus was clearly on knowledge of the Christian Religion and the Church. There is little other information about her actual work in the Training School, but Miss Dee obviously did quite well in the training school.

The box containing Miss Dee’s “stuff” that I examined included a picture of the Methodist Training School Class of 1910. Miss Dee is pictured as one of the students.

Miss Dee finished missionary training in Nashville in 1910. The treasures in Miss Dee’s box also included accounts of the deaths of two of the people whose pictures appear as faculty: Sara Estelle Haskin and Kate Hackney. The box included two larger copies of the picture of Miss Hackney. However, the picture for the class, and both copies of the picture that I found in the box all appear to be the same photograph. Miss Dee had written on the back of one of the pictures, “Kate Hackney many years missionary to China” and on the other, “Kate Hackney, missionary to China many years.”

The information in the box clearly indicated that Miss Dee stayed in touch with Estelle Haskin and Kate Hackney for as long as they lived. Miss Haskin died in 1940, and Miss Hackney in 1946. The box included a personal letter from Miss Hackney’s sister, giving details about Miss Hackney’s death in 1946. Like Miss Dee, she had attended Columbia, and additional information may justify a separate essay. Miss Dee’s relationship with Estelle Haskin definitely justifies its own essay in this series, which I will provide.

Miss Dee was intent on missionary work to Blacks in the south. After she completed the training course in 1910, Miss Dee became a member of the faculty at the Methodist training school for the year 1910-1911. She worked with Estelle Haskin on missionary work with Blacks in Nashville, while serving on the faculty. I suspect that she was training for her own mission to Blacks, and awaiting official approval of that effort. She finally got approval to engage in missionary work to Blacks in Augusta, Georgia, as reported by reporter Tyson in the 1960 Alabama Journal article. In 1911, Miss Dee’s long-standing relationship with the Women’s Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church South began. She was granted her wish for missionary work with Blacks in the south, and assigned to missionary work in Augusta Georgia.

No doubt the presence of Paine College in Augusta led to the decision to start the work there. Not only did she establish a “settlement” house there—she also became a part of the faculty of Paine College, which appears to have had a significant impact on the development of her career. Students and faculty at Paine College were instrumental, and a very necessary part of the plan that led to the establishment of what came to be known as the Bethlehem House. The fact that the work was under the auspices of the Women’s Missionary Council provided a structure for her long-lasting relationship with Miss Estelle Haskin.

About these Laity Talks

by Dale | Nov 20, 2020 | Laity Talks

I volunteered for lay speaking in United Methodist Church in about 1971 During the forty-plus years that I was active as a lay speaker, I probably spoke in over 100 Churches; maybe 150. I spoke in many different settings and contexts, often using the same talks more than once. I usually spoke extemporaneously, but occasionally recorded talks and transcribed them. Some of them were preserved. These are good samples of my talks.

The earliest talks were mainly in my geographic area. Often they were in small rural churches. Lay speakers would fill pulpits in the absence of an ordained minister.

I was elected Lay Leader of the Alabama West Florida Conference in 1985. The number of invitations to speak increased dramatically. I had opportunities for speaking all over south and west Alabama and in the Florida Panhandle. As a busy Circuit Judge, I had little time for preparation. I usually prepared at least an outline, but chose the words as they came to me.

In addition to churches I had other opportunities for speaking, and some of those were preserved also.

The talks presented here developed at various times over a period of forty years. My thinking was also developing during that time. I have tried to present the talks here as best I could in the chronology of their development.

(12) Monday was Wash Day

by Dale | Nov 19, 2020 | The Little House

Back in those days, Monday was wash-day—the day for washing clothes. Early memories of wash day are very special. I mentioned that there was no running water at the Little House. There was no water at all at the Little House, in my earliest days. The drinking water came from the well at Uncle Earl’s. We didn’t wash clothes at the house at all—we did it at the branch!

Washing clothes involved some interesting equipment. There were wash tubs, a rub board, a wash pot, and if we didn’t string out some kind of wire between trees, the pasture fence would work for a clothes line, even with a little risk of snagging on the barbed wire. But then again, you didn’t have to have clothes pens if you used a pasture fence. If you did have clothes pens, there were two different kinds. One kind didn’t have a spring, it was just a peg, with a split down the middle. Come to think of it, they may have called that a clothes peg. The other kind—with a spring–had two pieces of wood, flat on the outside, with the insides facing each other, with a notch to hold the clothes on the wire, and a spring between the two wooden parts with short arms toward the end that closed, to hold the two ends tightly together. And, of course, there was washing powder. I believe that it was Tide, even back then.

Here’s how it worked. You dipped up water from the pool in the branch just about the plank, filled the two wash tubs about half full of water—one for the wash and the other for the rinse. The rub board went in the tub that you were washing in. The tubs were galvanized, number two wash tubs, and I will not bother to describe them. They are still made, and anyone who requires a description probably won’t understand the rest anyway! The rub board had galvanized, corrugated metal sheet between two straight pieces of wood. The metal began about 4 or 5 inches up the side pieces, leaving legs that went down into the tub that you washed in. Above the metal, still between the wooden sides was a shelf, and above that a flat wooden piece in the same plane with the metal, and above that, a wooden piece between the two side pieces, holding it all together. Octagon soap was the standard, and the bar of soap rested on the shelf above the metal when not in use. (By the way, Octagon soap had coupons, and I think you could use to buy more Octagon Soap. Mama cut them out and saved them, of course.

The rubboard stood in the tub, leaned up on the side of the tub. The bottom of the rubboard was in the water. The clothes were rubbed vigorously on the rub board, up and down, in and out of the water, and Octagon soap was liberally applied. (The Tide went into the wash pot). You had to be careful not to mix the whites and the colored clothes. The colored clothes would fade on the white clothes. Soap wash rubbed on and made suds as the rubbing proceeded. After the person doing the washing was satisfied that the grit and grime had been expelled, the clothes were transferred to the wash pot, for boiling. I guess that it followed up on Pasteur’s great discovery.

The wash pot was cast iron. It held about 5 or 6 gallons or more, and was bigger around in the middle than at the top. After the metal closed in toward the top, it spread out again in a flange around the very top. It had three very short legs, and these usually stood on bricks, and a fire was made under the pot. You put enough water in there to boil the clothes without boiling over. If you boiled over, it doused the fire, and that was not good and had a distinct smell. We had to gather trashy wood for the fire around the pot. The fire was built so that any breeze carried the fire under the pot. The fire around a wash pot also had a very distinct odor about it. I can still recall that odor, like I recall the odor of cotton.

A wooden stick was used to punch the clothes while they were boiling. The wash powder went in the pot, and you had to be careful not to put too much, and have suds boiling out of the pot! After boiling the clothes for a while, using the punch stick, you lifted the clothes out of the pot and maneuvered them into the rinse tub. The stick was helpful in getting the clothes out of that hot water. The rinse tub got the soap out. Then the clothes were clean, so you “hung them out” on the line (or fence, as the case may be) to dry. After they dried, you “brought them in.”

Octagon soap did cost money, and Mama was always frugal. (And by the way, there was a war going on and commodities and supplies were “rationed”). So, Mama and Uncle Earl experimented with lye soap. I can’t begin to describe the process. As best I remember it involved running water through ashes to collect some kind of chemical, but I may be wrong. And I think it involved something from a hog, but again I may be wrong. And red devil lye. She actually got the soap into cakes. But I remember it being pretty potent. It may have caused some wear and tear on the clothes, so it didn’t replace the Octagon soap. Lye soap never became our standard washday soap!

This Holy Place

by Dale | Nov 19, 2020 | Laity Talks

La Place UMC, February 4, 1979

EXODUS – Chapter Three:

“2. And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

3. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

4. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

5. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off they feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”

In 1934, Miss Mary Debardeleben prepared a brief history of LaPlace Methodist Church on the occasion of its 100th Anniversary. The following are excerpts from her narrative:

“West’s History of Alabama Methodism has this to say about the beginning of Methodism in this community:

“Tradition says that the Rev. John Boswell (1789-1853), he then being presiding Elder of the Chattahoochee District, organized a (Methodist) Society in 1834 in the house of James Howard (1776-1856) at Cross Keys (now Shorter) about 16 miles west of Tuskegee, and that a log house was built soon after the organization of that society for a place of worship.

“As regards the building of the present house of worship, Mrs. Judkins of our community thinks it was done in 1859, for as a girl attending the old school at LaPlace, on its site on the hill yonder opposite the church – she remembered the boys getting putty from the workmen here and bringing it in mischief to the girls at the school as chewing gum.

“The Church was formerly known as Payne Chapel in honor of Bishop Payne.

“The late Dr. J. S. Lightfoot and I were trying to recall how the Church looked before it was remodeled years ago: (1904 – 1905 D.S.). There was a white fence around it with fancy-cut palings; two gates, two doors, and two distinct divisions inside. For male and female created he them and there must be no undue freedom of the sexes in those days. Of course, this did not prevent your best boyfriend from making a race for it and sitting just across the partition from you.

“…Another event that took place during Brother Skipper’s term of service was a district conference. Didn’t we turn things inside out and upside down to entertain such an illustrious gathering? Not since I could remember, had there been such a gathering of the faithful.”

All of this has come from Miss Debardeleben’s comments during this church’s centennial celebration in 1934. Perhaps a bit more historical framework will deepen our appreciation.

When this church was organized in 1834, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which occurred in 1813, was more recent than the Korean conflict is to our own time. One of the precipitating causes for the Creek Indian Wars was the opening of the Federal Road by Lieutenant Luckett in 1811–that is the road on which this church fronts. In fact, only two years before the beginning of this church in 1834, was this area ceded from the Indians. That treaty was signed in 1832, while Andrew Jackson was President. Our land records here in Macon County commence in the 1830’s, usually the late 1830’s.

The establishment of this church in 1834 was nearer in point of time to John Wesley’s heartwarming experience at Aldersgate in 1738 than it is to our own day. Methodism itself was still less than 100 years of age when the great history of this church embarked.

Speaking of Gettysburg, Lincoln said, “We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground; for the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.” Certainly, the same is true of this Holy Place.

If we listen in the stillness of this hour, we can almost hear the children who were our forefathers playing in the school yard across on the hill; the people gathering; the old organ; the fine preaching. The anti-can’t class was organized here and met here–we recently buried the last charter member. Can you imagine the excitement of a District Conference here at La Place?

Truly, this church has touched the lives of thousands. Yet even its glorious history is now fading in memory, and the lives of its faithful members in those early days seems far removed from us.

That was a different day and age, before we were touched by the technological revolution. The economy was cotton: small patches–tenant farms–plantations. The country stores weren’t novelties; they were necessities. Cotton gins dotted the countryside. What credit there was centered around the stores and gins and landowners. But the economy was built on personal relationships.

This church was a nerve center in the network of that society. But it was more than just a place to meet and exchange the stories of the day. Young brides brought their grooms to this altar to establish Christian homes. Young souls dedicated themselves to Christ here. And, after the soul departed, friends and loved ones gathered here to mourn the passing.

Perhaps we who have seen this area gradually lose its character as a strong community, close to the soil, find our thoughts reflected in the words of Thomas Gray in his Elegy (Written in a Country Churchyard):

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn

Or busy housewife ply her evening care;

No children run to lisp their sire’s return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave

Awaits alike th’ inevitable house; –

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

It’s good to turn to the past from time to time–to realize that our very existence rests on the struggles of dimly remembered pioneers who, among the many activities in their hard and busy lives, founded and nurtured this church.

But the struggle of life is unrelenting, and we must also look forward. In five years, we will be entitled, by years, to a sesquicentennial celebration in this church. This church is the oldest Methodist Society in Macon County. Will we, of this generation, allow the light of the world, which has flickered within these walls as a beacon to seven generations, to be forever darkened? John Donne said, “If a clod falls into the sea, Europe is the less; send not to know for whom the bell tolls, my brother, it tolls for Thee.”

Let’s again let these old walls ring the mighty hymns of this church; let’s let the word of God breathe from this pulpit and teach us to live and to die; let’s let our children go forth from this church into the world with a faith that prepares them for the 21st Century.

We have turned aside tonight, like Moses, to behold a miracle. We might ask why this church, like the bush, is not at last consumed. But the miracle only attracts our attention. The voice of God tells us to take off our shoes, that the ground on which we are standing is Holy Ground. Even more important is for us to remember that it was from that bush that Moses went forth and lead the Exodus, the deliverance of the children of God.

(13) Sara Estelle Haskin

by Dale | Nov 18, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

Julia Tutwiler appears to have deeply influenced Miss Dee during some of her most formative years. But Sara Estelle Haskin was probably her most ardent advocate and mentor in her chosen mission work. She was the pioneer in the settlement house mission work. The United Methodist Church celebrated a bicentennial in mission work in 2019. Its published material concerning the celebration included the following information about the work of Miss Haskin:

“When the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), began its foray into settlement work at the turn of the twentieth century, it asked Sara Estelle Haskin to take up the post in Dallas. With no equipment and no real pattern to follow, she plunged into the work and began a very successful ministry. Her goal was to be a neighbor to those around her in the neglected areas of the city where she settled. She started three settlement houses that provided much-needed services for the area. Afterward, she moved to Nashville, where she worked with Mrs. Sallie Hill, an African-American woman, to start another center to serve the neighborhood. Eventually, her success in such endeavors led her to a position as secretary of literature of the Woman’s Missionary Council, located in Louisville. Biography was important to her, so she used many sketches of persons of faith in the literature she published.”

So Miss Haskin was the true leader in settlement work. She actually had started mission work to Blacks in Nashville that preceding Miss Dee’s Bethlehem House in Augusta. Miss Haskins was on the faculty of the Methodist Training School in Nashville while Miss Dee was a student. No doubt she was the faculty advocate who pushed for the approval of Miss Dee’s proposal to do missionary work to Blacks in the south. Miss Dee apparently work with Miss Haskin on the project for missions to Blacks in Nashville before going to Augusta, and likely many of her ideas were derived from that work.”

After Miss Dee successfully started a settlement project for Blacks in Augusta, the Women’s Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South decided that such projects should be called “Bethlehem” houses. The project in Nashville was then named as a Bethlehem House, and a number of other Bethlehem Houses were established.

Miss Haskin died in New York in 1940, working on the plan to implement unification of the Methodist denomination following the 1939 merger.

A Remnant Shall Be Left

by Dale | Nov 18, 2020 | Laity Talks

Place UMC, March 4, 1979

ISAIAH: 1:2-9:

2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

5 Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

9 Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant….

A few weeks ago, I spoke to you concerning the history of this church. Together we decided that this ground, like the ground on which Moses stood beside the burning bush, is holy ground. I reminded you of District Conferences that have been held in this church, of a centennial celebration that was held here, and we were reminded that the influence of this church for the past 145 years has spread throughout this nation.

We attempted to paint a picture of a day and age which was different from ours. It was at this altar that young brides brought their grooms to establish Christian homes. it was at this altar that men, women, boys, and girls dedicated their lives to Christ. And it was into these pews that friends and kindred came to mourn the loss of souls departed. The church was a part of the life and times of the people.

In closing, we pointed out that the real purpose in the message from the burning bush was not to tell Moses that the ground on which he was standing was holy ground, but rather to lead the children of Israel to their deliverance.

The book of Isaiah deals with a period of Biblical history in which Isaiah pointed to a time when the nation of Israel would be virtually destroyed. Recurring throughout the book of Isaiah was the theme, “A Remnant Shall be Left.”

It was God’s promise to the children of Israel that regardless of the difficulties and regardless of the punishment inflicted on them, God would not utterly destroy the nation of Israel. It would always be the function of the remnant that was left to remember the true God and to return the children of Israel to the paths of righteousness.

We might wonder in a church so small as ours what is the use in continuing to struggle for existence. The character of the community has changed. Lifestyles of the people have changed, and it would be easy simply to drift into the future and to allow our church to lapse into oblivion. But from the book of Isaiah, the message rings clear as to our purpose–“Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant…”

The problem confronting this small rural church is the same problem facing many small rural churches in America today. The economic ties in the community have changed; and no doubt, if there were no church here, we would probably not be meeting to establish a new one here. The church does not appear to be the wave of the future.

Back when Edward Gibbon recounted the causes for the fall of the Roman Empire in his grand work entitled The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, one of the precipitating changes which he listed was the changing configuration of the population.

Practically within our own lifetime we have seen this country move from a rural society to an urban society. We have seen the personal relationships which grew out of the rural society and agricultural economy deteriorate; and in many instances, there is no relationship at all now among the various segments of our population. Raw emotion can flow freely under such circumstances where there is no appropriate relationship.

Perhaps some examples need to be given of the changes in personal relationships to which we refer. As one enters the church, to the right there are four bronze memorials. Mrs. Mary DeBardelaben was the person from whom we quoted extensively in our last talk on the history of the church. She had made a presentation 45 years ago on the occasion of the church’s centennial celebration. Speaking of 45 years, that’s how long Fletcher Robinson served as Sunday School Superintendent; and he is also memorialized. Dr. P. M. Lightfoot was one of the corner stones of the community, a country doctor, and land owner. Mrs. Bibb was our teacher, school principal, and friend.

In the economic, political, and agricultural life there have been people in the community like Mr. Herbert Henderson who operated a 40-mule farm and cotton gin; Mrs. Carrie Carr who operated a cotton gin and “carried” a good many of the community’s farmers. Mangum and Bessie Carr had a substantial operation employing many people; Mr. Arch Segrest was a substantial landowner, farmer and County Commissioner, and a person of considerable renown. There are others too numerous to mention. These were strong individuals; and as people of this type have slipped away from us, so has the character of the community which they represented. Without dwelling on the point, our credit is now impersonal, coming from large corporations for the most part; and that, in and of itself, has a considerable impact on the way people live and think and act.

It was from communities such as the Shorter Community that young men went forth to protect this country in World Wars I and II. I remember very well the Roll of Honor which hung on the wall at Shorter High School, and I remember that there were stars by five names, indicating that those five had paid the supreme sacrifice.

Suppose that the world today were faced with a Hitler. Where are the fountainheads–the branch heads, if you wish–in these United States from which the young men would leave, perhaps never to return, but proudly to defend?

But the prospect of cataclysmic warfare should not be required in order to illustrate the decay of our moral fiber and the courage to protect it. I believe that our rural churches are the key to calling the people into a new relationship with God and, thus, with each other. It is only on this firm foundation that the moral structure of our society can be reconstructed.

I can recall in duck ponds on cold wintry afternoons, and perhaps just after the sun has dipped beneath the horizon, a few mallards making it in to safety through the approaching night. These few issue their call to their brothers flying high overhead. Though danger might lie between the high skies and the safe lake, it would be necessary for the others to find their way through the darkness.

In the same manner, we, the remnant which is left, must issue our call.

(13) The Cow Pen

by Dale | Nov 18, 2020 | The Little House

Just across the branch and a little south of the path to Uncle Earl’s was the cow pen. It was fenced and we always “brought up” the cows at night to stay in the pen. Inside the pen was a cow shed. It was about an open shed—a trussed roof held up posts around the outside, about 16’x 30’. As best I remember the roof had a wooden deck and “tar paper” roof”. “Tar paper” was a rolled roofing or siding material. The long dimension of the shed ran north and south. Down the middle next to the center were two rows of troughs for feeding. I believe there was a row of poles holding up crest of the roof that ran the length of the shed. There was a “V” shaped hay holder with leaning sides made of narrow boards several inches apart that would hold hay, that the cows could pull down and eat. I think cow feed also went into the troughs. In the mornings, Daddy and Uncle Earl fed the cows. While the cows were eating, Daddy and Uncle Earl would milk them. Wade milked too, when he got big enough. I never got big enough, while we were still doing that.

The cows had names. There was Suzie, and Flossie and Blaze that I remember. I think maybe Blaze had been Suzie’s calf. Wade and I had to go and “bring up” the cows at night. Sometimes they were all the way down in salt bottom on Uncle Earl’s place, next to Calebee Swamp. We would “get around” them and “drive them” to the shed.

Suzie was mean. Sometimes she would chase us, and we would have to get up a tree. Flossie was nice, though. Suzie was the bell cow, the leader of the herd. After we had moved away from the Little House, old Suzie came up missing. I went with Daddy in search of her. We found her bones in edge of the swamp, in a brushy area with low vegetation. I will always remember the strange pattern of broken-down bushes and cow tracks, where the herd had gone round and round her dead body. Some strange, haunting death ritual.

Just north of the cow pen, and across the path that led to Uncle Earl’s there was what I will call a “patch” of French mulberries. They are etched in my memory for some reason. Wandering around in them was an adventure for a little boy. It was not just the French mulberries—the purple bunches of inedible fruit—that were fascinating. There were big spider webs. In the mornings, the spider webs would catch dew, and if the sun caught it just right, you could see the rainbow colors. And in the webs were the big, beautiful black and gold spiders. And there were butterflies. Big, beautiful butterflies.

And on the pine trees, in the pine thicket and close to the cow pen, we would find “locust” shells. The shells were dried skins, left by an insect—I think a cicada—that we called locusts, apparently in a process of metamorphosis. We found lots of them. As twilight descended, the locusts—the actual bugs that would eventually left their shells on the pine trees—would “sing.” There song was a distinctive, intermittent two pitched buzzing (maybe two different bugs) that I still associate with the sounds of night fall. These look like the 17 year cicadas that you can now find on the internet, but it seemed like we had them every year. Maybe their life cycle involves 17 years, but with a different crop every year.

And around the cow pen at the right time of year, there would be “June bugs.” They were green, and when they lit on a big flower, you could catch them. Then you could tie a string around one of the June bug’s legs, and have it fly in delightful circles around and around, while you held the other end of the string. Somehow, I associate their buzzing flying noise with the sound of lots and lots of airplanes near the end of WWII.

And there was one more fascinating bug that intrigued us: the tumble bug. That is not exactly what we called them, but if you are from that era you will understand. These bugs seemed to operate in pairs. Somehow. they maneuvered dung (even including human waste) into a small ball. Then, with one on one side, and one on the other, one would push, and one pull, I guess, but they were always intent one taking it somewhere. I can’t say where they were taking it, or what they planned to do with it! Oh well. If you look up tumble bug on the internet, you will get the gymnastics. If you want to see what I’m talking about, enter a search for “tumble turd.”

Is That All There Is?

by Dale | Nov 17, 2020 | Laity Talks

c. 1984

He had very little to live for as he stood on the bridge at the outskirts of the city. No one could think of anything in particular to say to discourage him. He had lost his wife to cancer a few years earlier, and their only son had died before the death of his wife. So, he stood there, obviously dejected and depressed, and no one could think of anything to say or do. “Well, maybe we can get Gus to come and talk with him,” they said. Gus was the town policemen. “He knows how to handle situation like this.” So, they sent for Ole Gus, the town’s policeman, and Ole Gus came. He went out on the bridge, and he talked to his old friend, the old man on the bridge. They talked for a couple of hours. Then slowly, Gus put his arm around the old man, and slowly, arm-in-arm, they jumped off the bridge together.

The story sort of sets the stage for what I am going to talk to you about–at least the first part of what I am going to talk to you about.

In seeking for my scripture for today’s lesson, I ran across a small bit of scripture that was interesting to me; and I’m going to try to remember it. It’s not my text for today, but it is one that I will share with you. It comes from Ecclesiastes. It says, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefor, the heart of the sons of the men is set fully in them to do evil.” I subscribe to that theory in my court and attempt to eliminate that particular problem.

I’ll come to the text in a few minutes; but before I begin the text, I want to present what is perhaps the dilemma of modern times. If I were required to state the two most prevalent problems that I have encountered as Circuit Judge–the most pervasive, and the ones that seem to have almost daily impact in my court–it would be these two things. The first would be drinking and drugs. I have been totally appalled at the amount of drug and alcohol abuse, and its relationship– not just to the criminal problem–but to everything that comes before my court. When I get around later to writing the several books that I intend someday to write, one of them is going to be entitled “Just a Couple,” because I have heard those words so frequently since becoming a judge. “Just a Couple.”

Speaking of “just a couple,” that leads me to the next problem that I encounter most frequently, and that is that the breakdown of marriages. The breakdown of marriages and the custody of children is a constant and ongoing problem in our society. In today’s talk, I am going to try to look for the common denominator in these problems. You might, at first, when I say I am going to look for the common denominator, think that I am talking about a relationship between the two. I don’t know. It’s sort of a chicken-and-egg proposition. I’ve seen some marriage problems that were caused by drinking, and I’ve seen some drinking problems that were caused by marriage. And I don’t know which causes which more often. I’m not seeking the relationship between the two, but the common denominator that they both share.

A thousand years before Jesus Christ was born, a man who called himself “The Preacher” wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, and I am reading from verses 13 through 24:

“Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head but the fool walketh in darkness. I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me. And why was I then more wise? Then said in my heart that this is also vanity, for there is no remembrance of the wise man more than the fool, forever. Seeing that which now is and the days to come shall all be forgotten. Dieth the wise man, as the fool. Therefore, I hated life because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous to me. For all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Yea I hated all my labor which I had taken under then sun, because I shall leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity. Therefore, I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labor which I took under the sun. For the man whose labor is in wisdom and in knowledge and in equity. Yet to a man that hath not labored therein shall he leave it for his portion. This is also vanity and for great evil. For what hath man of all his labored under the sun? For all his days and sorrows and his travail grief. Yea his heart taketh no rest in the night. this is also vanity. There is nothing better for man than that he should eat and drink, that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.

There is an element of despair in the words of the preacher. That element of despair is common thread that runs through the pursuit of knowledge. It runs through the striving on one’s own and through one’s own labors to achieve that which is good. The problem of existence in the present-day world has been described by one of the great modern philosophers. He says that “the masses of people are living in quiet desperation.”

Life is a series of disillusionment, going from point to point. We are born into the world and we have certain so-called milestones that we accomplish. One of the ones that we all remember is graduation. When I speak of graduation, I’m talking about graduation from high school. We set for ourselves a graduation night and that is a rite of passage in our society. Through twelve years of school, or K through twelve, as they now say–the goal is to achieve graduation. I remember my own graduation, and I’m sure most of you that have graduated from high school remember that event. I remember a sense of emptiness that occurred. Actually, you’d been to graduations before and you know pretty well what was going to be said. You knew that it had all been said before and that it would all be said again; and it had happened to you, sort of like passing a bump in the road, and it was over. And you ask yourself, “Is that all there is?”

And then you have the next event: marriage. I counselled with many people during the time that I was an attorney in private practice. I remember one young lady sharing with me her marital problems. She described how she was of the old school and never engaged in pre-marital sex, and then she was married; and for the first time, she experienced sex, and she said to me that her reaction was, “Is that all there is to it?”

We go on and we get into our life’s vocation, or occupation. And we work hard, and we learn what there is to know about our jobs. And all of a sudden, we look at it one day and there is a feeling of emptiness; and we say to ourselves, “is that all?”

We bring children into the world, and our expectations are high and great for our children. I don’t know why we all think that despite our own inability to be great achievers, we all think that we are going to raise presidents of the United States! But we do! We think it!

We set high aspirations and goals for our children. It really doesn’t make any difference, we say, as long as our children do a little better than we were able to do. Now, if everybody’s children since the beginning of time had done a little bit better than the parents did, we would be living in a glowing society today! But that’s not really the way that it works. Many of our children do well, and they are the happiness of our very lives; but for so many, we see saintly mothers and fathers who have sons and daughters who wind up in trouble of one type or another, either with the law or with their personal affairs. And in despair, we can almost hear them saying, “Is that all?”

Ultimately, the time comes when the big black van arrives and six friends or companions or respectable gentlemen out of the community carry our body to the last place it will ever go on this earth; and as the family leaves, they say to themselves, “Is that all?” We really hide ourselves from death. We cover it over with flowers, and we hesitate to experience it all in one blow. But as that breath is breathed the last, there is a strong element of finality to it. Nevertheless, it is so simple, and we simply are left with the great question, “Is that all?”

When we consider this panorama of events from the cradle to the grave, like a descending staircase with each step having the question written on it, ‘Is that all,’ we can understand the gloomy message of the Preacher–the writer of Ecclesiastes. With him, we are tempted to say, “all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.” With him we are tempted to say “There is nothing better for man than that he should eat and drink and should make his soul enjoy good in his labor.” And as a result of all of this seeming lack of meaning, we experience a terrible emptiness–a despair.

We, along with the masses, live in quiet desperation. This is the common denominator in the breakdown of marriage, and in drinking, and in the many other problems that we face in our society. The emptiness that will not be filled. The emptiness that we have to try to fill in whatever way that we can, because it demands filling. It must be filled. And it is this emptiness that demands filling that leads to the problem. Like a black hole, as described in the science of the universe today, that draws everything, even light, into itself.

Because of the emptiness, we reach for power; we reach for money; we reach experiences with sex; we reach for drugs; we reach for whisky; we reach for anything to eliminate that gnawing emptiness. When that grasp and reach exceeds the bounds acceptable in our society, then we are governed by the law; and the law should take its course. The law is necessary, because there are those who will never be able to satisfy that deep emptiness without the strong arm of the law calling to account acts such as murder, robbery, burglary, rape, incest, and the host of other things that are brought on by the terrible problem of emptiness.

I mentioned that The Preacher shared his wisdom by writing the Book of Ecclesiastes a thousand years before Christ. We’ve all experienced the uneasiness of stormy nights, only to see bright sun rising the following morning, driving away our fear. Like the sunrise after an uneasy, stormy night, Jesus came. He told those who listened that he could not put his new wine into old skins. Or a new patch in an old garment. He gave a new commandment–to love. He turned down all else in order to live in perfect love. He filled the emptiness to overflowing, and showed us the way. He told Nicodemus, a man who knew the law, that following the new commandment would be for Nicodemus, like being born again. And it would have been. To put away the idea that the way to perfection is to obey the law, and to turn instead in a direction of a positive affirmation of life, would certainly be much like being born again–like entering into his mother’s womb for a second time of coming forth with a completely new outlook on life.

Jesus’ ministry reached out and touched another man in biblical history who knew the law. This man, as far as we know, never saw Christ in person. This man was trained at the feet of the high priest. He knew the law. He knew the Law of Moses, and I’m sure that he was well-acquainted with imponderable questions that had been raised by The Preacher–the message that had been delivered in the book of Ecclesiastes. But somehow or someway, while this man was pursuing excellence in his own way, while he was following the law and holding the coats of the people who stoned down one of the early Christians, the message came to him. In a blinding flash, Saul realized that the goal and purpose of life is not mere obedience to the law. That experience gave him a new identity, and afterwards, St. Paul was instrumental in spreading Christ’s message of love throughout the world. Many times, he shows in his writings how Christ had come to fulfill the law and prophecies, and he developed the theme that Christ’s message–that the new wine which Christ brought was the wine of love–and that you could not put it into the old skin of mere obedience to the law.

Writing to the Corinthians, he answered once and for all the gloomy message of The Preacher in Ecclesiastes.

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my good to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;. whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophecy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

There is that which fills the emptiness and it can be found in the message of Christ. So, we don’t have to go about with emptiness, and we don’t have to go without answers. To that graduate, we can say, “There’s more.” To the newly weds, we can say “There’s more.” To that man or woman buried in a vocation, we can say, “Yes, there’s more.” And to the loved ones gathered at the grave, we can say, “Yes, there’s more.”

The poet, William Cullen Bryant, saw the scheme of things in nature and drew the comparison in beautiful words. He walked through the Adirondack Mountains; and in the twilight, he saw a lone water fowl flying into the sunset that inspired him to pen the familiar poem, “Ode to a Water Fowl.” I still remember a few verses from some memory work we did back at Shorter High School.

“Whither, midst falling dew,

while glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far through their rosy depths dost they pursue,

thou solitary way?

Seekest thou the plashy brink of reedy lake

or marge of river wide?

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

on the chafed ocean side?

***.

There is a power whose care

teaches thy way along the pathless coast.

The desert and illimitable air,

lone, wandering, but not lost.

He who from zone to zone

guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

in the long way that I must tread alone

will lead by steps aright.”

I thank you for the opportunity to be here.

c. 1984

14) Uncle Earl’s Place

by Dale | Nov 17, 2020 | The Little House

The Old Segrest Homeplace

Although they arrived in Macon County soon after it was ceded by the Creek Indians, I have never heard of my Segrest forebears owning any plantation. Other Segrests who were a part of the same Nineteenth Century migration into Macon County apparently acquired significant amounts of land, but I do not believe that my ancestors did. If they did, they must have lost it long before I came along. My immediate ancestors seemed to have moved from farm to farm in the Macon County area from the time that they arrived in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. I know that Daddy’s immediate family lived briefly in Tallassee Alabama for a very brief time when he was very young.

The closest thing to a “homeplace” for my forebears, was the place that I am calling “Uncle Earls.” Daddy’s family apparently lived there off and on for quite some time, but to my knowledge, they did not own the place until Daddy bought it, in 1934, along with the land where Daddy built the Little House. He bought 160 acres in all. Daddy sold 80 acres to Uncle Earl, that included the place where Uncle Earl lived with Grandma and Grandpa. But the family was already living there, and had lived there in the past, before Daddy bought it. So, Uncle Earl’s home place was more or less the Segrest homeplace, for my closest Segrest relatives. Grandpa died there in 1944, and Grandma in 1948. Daddy had bought it, and Uncle Earl bought the part that included the old house pictured above from Daddy.

The old house where Uncle Earl and Grandma lived was torn down, and Uncle Earl used the salvageable material to build a new structure sometime after 1944. Before that, it was an old fashioned four room house with a “dog trot” hallway down the center. I don’t actually remember the hallway, or whether the ends had been closed in. The old roof line drained in four directions, not quite coming to a point at the very top. The new roof on the house that Uncle Earl built tapered two ways with a single roof line at the top traversing the entire house from east to west. The hallway was eliminated, and there were six rooms in the remodeled house. It included a “double” fireplace with a single chimney that served both the living room on the front, and the center room on the back that was a combination bedroom/sitting room. Uncle Earl was a carpenter by trade, and did most of the reconstruction.

The main house of my recollection is Uncle Earl’s rebuilt house. Grandma died at Uncle Earl’s in 1948, the same year that Uncle Earl married Aunt Daisy.

One of the peculiarities of Uncle Earl’s house, or it may have been the old house, that for some reason I accepted as quite normal at the time was that all through the house, on the side of the doors opposite the hinges, there was a triangular hole where the corner of the door had been cut off. The quite logical explanation was that it allowed the cats to freely roam the house in search of mice! But Daddy and Uncle Earl told the story of a dark night in the old house long before, when something strange entered through the hole and was making a strange noise as it made its way into a corner. They decided that they needed to catch whatever it was, and used quilts to jump on and almost smother an old setting hen. Stories like that were very amusing to them. They told them over and over again!

The house was furnished with old fashioned, cane bottomed straight chairs. I think that all of the grandkids—my cousins—must have learned to “plow” with those old chairs. You see, you could turn them upside down, with the top of the back and the front of the seat on the floor, and hold onto the back legs of the chair as if it were a plow. The front corners of the top of the front legs were worn smooth and flat from miles of plowing!

Soon after the remodeling of the house, Uncle Earl decided that he needed a storm pit. Before that, Uncle Willie had a storm pit—some boards and tin over a ditch on the other side of Uncle Earl’s house from the Little House, as I remember it. I don’t ever remember going to Uncle Willie’s storm pit, and don’t really know why anyone would have gone there! The “ditch”, as we called it, was much more useful as a place for kids to play. You could slide down the clay banks—especially if there was pine straw on the bank. But I guess if it “came up a cloud”, Uncle Willie actually got in that thing. If there had been a real flood, he would have drowned!

But Uncle Earl built a real storm pit. He dug a hole about 10 feet square and four feet deep right behind the west end of the back porch of the remodeled house. (Of course, I had to help dig, at about age six , and enjoyed it a lot!) The entrance to the storm pit was a covered stairwell that led down into it. It had a concrete floor, and concrete block sides. The dirt that came out of the hole was around the west and south sides. On the east side the concrete wall came up above ground level, and a couple of blocks were left off, leaving openings that the “old” folks could look through. There was a roof, with rolled roofing. It was a neat place. With the passage of time, it became a bit moist and dank, but that was okay. You could store vegetables down there!

Some of my best memories involve “heading to the hole, ” (our affectionate name for the storm pit) because it was “coming up a cloud”. Sometimes Uncle Earl would meet us half way, and help us across the fence to make sure we got there safely. We never got blown away, like Grandmother and Granddaddy Mote’s house did in Calera in 1910!

Out in front of Uncle Earl’s, where the lane that led down from the big road turned west to go to the Little House, was a huge Black Oak Tree. The tree was actually on Mr. Frank Pierce’s place and the family story was that many years earlier, the Pierces cut the tree down to keep it from sapping up the moisture from the adjoining field. Sprouts sprang from the stump. Grandpa Segrest cut off all sprouts but one. That one sprout became the huge oak tree. At one time, it was actually marked with a metal plaque by people from Auburn University, denoting the largest black oak tree in Alabama! Under that tree, and in that tree, was a great place to play. Forks in limbs made a good place for a tree house, but the limbs were so big, your hardly needed any boards. Many watermelons, cantaloupes, and tomatoes have been shaded, eaten and sold/or from the shade of that old tree!

(14) The Bethlehem Center

by Dale | Nov 17, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

The thing that is remarkable about Miss Christine De Bardebelen is not that she attended The Methodist Training School and was trained for missionary work in 1910, but how she used that training. All accounts give Miss Dee credit for establishing the very first mission for the Women’s division of the Methodist Episcopal Church South for Blacks in the South. The Methodist Women ultimately assigned the name “Bethlehem Center,” to this mission, and to all such missions established for Black communities. She established that first Bethlehem Center, with help from students and faculty at Paine College, in 1912.

Augusta was chosen, in part because Augusta was the location of Paine College, that had been established in Augusta in 1882 as a joint effort of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, a Black denomination.

As mentioned in an earlier post in this series, in her article in the Alabama Journal in 1960, Katherine Tyson credited Miss Dee for starting the “first social center for Negroes in the south.” Barbara Campbell, a worker in the United Methodist Church, writing in 2010, also credited Miss Dee with starting the first Bethlehem Center.

However, in fairness, a little more needs to be said about this type of mission work. In Nashville, where Miss Dee attended Methodist Training School, there is mission ministry that is now called a Bethlehem Center, that has a history going back to 1894. It apparently does work very similar to the work started at the Bethlehem Center in Augusta. It was started in 1894, by none other than Sara Estelle Haskin, together with Sallie Hill, an African-American woman and a Fisk graduate. But it was apparently referred to initially as a “settlement project,” not a “Bethlehem Center. Barbara Campbell provides the following excellent explanation about the dynamics that were involved:

Women of southern Methodism experienced severe criticism and opposition to their settlement house plans from pastors and other church leaders. The word settlement had come to mean non-evangelical or even non-Christian.

Recognizing the term settlement house was troublesome, Belle Bennett, president of the Woman’s Board in 1906, recommended a change of names. Wesley House was selected and used almost exclusively until settlement work was undertaken in African-American communities in cities where Wesley Houses were already established.

Bethlehem Center or Bethlehem House became the official, distinguishing title in African-American communities. The women categorized these projects as “City Missions-USA” or “Other Social-Evangelistic Work.”

By 1940, more than two dozen Wesley Houses served such groups as Italian workers in Alabama steel plants; Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Italians in Florida cigar factories; and Austrian, Bohemian, Polish and French seasonal workers in the oyster and shrimp fisheries in Mississippi.

Thus Bethlehem Center was the name adopted for “social evangelistic work” for blacks, and “Wesley Houses” the name for similar ministries for other racial groups in the south.

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South had separated from the Methodist Church in 1844 over the issue of slavery. It reunited with the Methodist Church in a 1939 merger. The denomination became the United Methodist Church in 1968, as the result of merger with the Evangelical United Brethren denomination, another Wesleyan denomination.

As we have seen, Miss Dee finished Methodist Training School in Nashville in 1910. But she did not start the Bethlehem Center in Augusta until the fall of 2012. You will recall that, based on her interview with Miss Dee, Katherine Tyson reported that “(a)ll but one member of the faculty insisted she train for the Orient. This one, a Field Work Supervisor, understood Miss DeBardeleben’s feelings about working in her own country, and assigned her to a Negro church to teach the Bible to women.” And you will recall that Sara Estelle Haskins was included in the faculty for the Methodist Training School for Miss Dee’s class of 1910. And that she was also co-founder of the settlement project for Negroes in Nashville that is now known as a Bethlehem Center. No doubt, she was the faculty member who supported Miss Dee’s ambitious idea.

Miss Dee’s box that came into my possession, as explained in the introductory essay, included an account of the 1940 death of Estelle Haskin, that recognized the significant role that she played in organizing the work of Methodist Women. She was deeply involved in the work of Unification of North and South at the time of her death. Miss Dee would be very pleased that in this post, I am giving this the well-earned credit to the leadership of Sara Estelle Haskin, which does not detract in the least from the courageous, groundbreaking work of Miss Dee herself.

The record of the meeting of the Women’s Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, included the following:

“Extension Work. –The work for the betterment of negro women and girls has been greatly enlarged this year by the going of Miss Mary De Bardeleben, Extension Secretary of Negro Work, to Augusta, Ga. In her contact with Bible Study classes she has been enabled to organize teach-training classes and not only in connection with Paine College, where naturally she is located as headquarters, but she has succeeded in organizing a Civic League among the colored people themselves, which looks to cleaning up their cabin homes, and the employment of a trained nurse to visit among their own sick. The officials of the city of Augusta have rallied to this Civic Improvement League, and by making Miss De Bardeleben herself a legal inspector have given her authority to order material improvement to rented property and the cleaning of such homes as are bound to be sources of infection and demoralization. There must be regular headquarters for the extension negro work.”

Miss Dee was greatly assisted in her efforts by students and faculty at Paine College. She continued at Paine College through the 1917-1918 academic year, and continued her missionary work with Blacks. She suffered some illness in 1913, that apparently interfered with her work, but remained on the faculty at Paine. Others, including significant Black leaders, became involved in carrying out the mission of the Bethlehem House in Savannah.

Obviously. her work at Paine inspired further academic work, and turned her career toward teaching.

(15) Grandma and the rose cutting

by Dale | Nov 16, 2020 | The Little House

If you went out the front door onto Uncle Earl’s front porch and looked to the right, in front of the porch and about six feet away, Grandma had a nice rose bush. It was the vine type, and was on a frame. Mama really like those roses, so Grandma gave her a “cutting.” I was fascinated with that project. The idea was that if you stuck the end of the cutting from the rose bush down in the ground, and kept it watered, it would sprout roots. From that, you could generate a new rose bush. At four or five years of age, I was totally engrossed with the project. Mama faithfully set it in the ground at the Little House. I would go and look every day, to see if it were growing. Of course, I really couldn’t tell whether it was growing roots or not. I would ask Mama every day, and she we tell me that we would just have to wait and see.

But I really wanted to know about those roots. This was after we got a telephone, and Mama was talking on the telephone one day when I got curious about the roots on the rose cutting. I inspected it, but still couldn’t see anything. I tried to get Mama’s attention, but she was talking fpor a long time, it seemed to me! I got so anxious to find out that I just pulled the cutting up. It had roots, alright, but of course that was the end of the rose cutting project.

A great lesson for life. Some of the most sensitive, important things are destroyed if we insist on examining them too closely. If we examine the roots, we kill the plant!

(15) Paine College

by Dale | Nov 16, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben

The Women’s Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) chose Augusta Georgia for Miss Dee’s missionary work among the Blacks. Clearly, that location was chosen because Paine College was located there.

Paine College had been founded in 1882 by the leadership of the MECS, one of the predecessors of the present-day United Methodist Church, and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, which by name change is now the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Each denomination appointed three of the six-member board of trustees. Paine College was the brainchild of Bishop Lucius Henry Holsey, who first expressed the idea for the College in 1869. Bishop Holsey asked leaders in the MECS to help establish a school to train Negro teachers and preachers so that they might in turn appropriately address the educational and spiritual needs of the people newly freed from the evils of slavery. Leaders in the ME Church South agreed, and Paine Institute came into being. Paine was under the leadership of white presidents for many years.

It is interesting to note that the school was named in honor of Bishop Robert Paine, who had owned plantations in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. He had played a role in the division of the Methodist Church on the issue of slavery in 1844. It is also interesting that La Place Methodist Church in Macon County, where Miss Dee had joined at age eleven was also originally named Paine Chapel in honor of Bishop Paine, according to a talk that Miss Dee made at the La Place on the occasion of its centennial celebration in 1934.

The choice of Augusta, where Paine was located was quite natural, and the decision drew on actual experience. Miss Estelle Haskin, the faculty member who championed Miss Dee’s desire to become a missionary to Blacks, had established a somewhat similar mission to Blacks in Nashville in 1894. Fisk University assisted in that effort. And Miss Dee worked with that project in Nashville while attending and serving on the Methodist Training School and while awaiting her assignment to Augusta.

Miss Dee served on the faculty at Paine while working with students and faculty at Paine to establish the Bethlehem Center. She taught English at Paine College. She was chosen to lead the high school division at Paine. Teaching at Paine was her first experience on a College faculty, but would not be her last. The teaching experience at Paine appears to have pointed her in the direction of teaching at the college level. In 1916, while still teaching at Paine, Miss Dee enrolled in the Master’s Degree program at Peabody College in Nashville in Summer School. That training would be part of her preparation for teaching at Oklahoma University and Texas Tech.

Paine College has produced many notable alumni. Among them are Mike Thurmond, superintendent Dekalb County School District, Louis Lomax, the first African American TV Journalist, Woodie W. White, a Bishop in the United Methodist Church, John Wesley Gilbert, archaeologist, educator, and Methodist missionary to the Congo, who was the first graduate of Paine College, the first African-American professor of the school, and the first African-American to receive an advanced degree from Brown University, Frank Yerby, a writer, Joseph Lowery, minister in the United Methodist Church and leader in the civil rights movement who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with Martin Luther King Jr., Shirley McBay, a gifted mathematician, who served as dean for Student Affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1980 to 1990, and Emma Gresham, teacher and politician who was mayor of Keysville, Georgia.. These alumni demonstrate the contributions of Paine College. Along with hundreds of other alumni, these had diverse gifts, and used them well. Each of them can be found on an internet search. Miss Dee made her contribution to the educational efforts of Paine College.

With regards to her personal efforts, perhaps the most poignant story of an alumnus is that of Charles G. Gomillion, who was to have a significant role in Macon County History, and his story deserves its own essay!

The Inadequacy of Legalism

by Dale | Nov 16, 2020 | Laity Talks

There is always danger, as a society matures, that it will become hidebound in the law. An examination of the problem of legalism can also give insight into the nature and purpose of law. A major thought in comparing the New Testament to the Old Testament is the problem of overcoming legalism.

In order to focus on the problem, it is necessary that we examine several different, but related, passages of scripture. First is the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, verses one through eleven:

And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.
And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, “Why do ye that which is now lawful to do on the Sabbath days?”
And Jesus answering them said, have ye not read so much as this, What David did, when himself was hungered, and they which were with him;
How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?
And he said until them, That the son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.
And it came to pass along on another Sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered.
And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the Sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him.
But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which has the withered hand. Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.
Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do evil? To save life, or to destroy it?
And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth the hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.

Jesus was in conflict with the authorities. He was in trouble with the law. He was doing something that the authorities thought was illegal. He was working on Sunday. How could this be? Because his disciples ate corn, and He healed a man’s hand, he was being charged with violating the law of the Sabbath. How could this be? How could the authorities take such a ridiculous position? Well, as we go to the Old Testament, we find that law of the Sabbath is spelled out as one of the Ten Commandments. One of the Ten Commandments says don’t work on Sunday. The Ten Commandments, by the time of Jesus, had been embellished by the Tradition of the Elders.

But the Law of the Sabbath finds even earlier origins. You will recall from the Book of Genesis God that created the world in six days; and on the seventh, He rested. He “blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” I mention this early reference to the Sabbath, because one aspect of law is that you find it in the legends of our civilization. You find the bases for law from the earliest beginnings, and there is very little that is new as far as real law is concerned. The concept of the law of the Sabbath was “codified” in Exodus. The giving of the law was a very dramatic event. It was not a very democratic event. (Exodus 19:16-21)

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightning, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at nether part of the mount.
And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of the furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.
And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.

The commandment in question, taken from the Ten Commandments is found in the 20^th chapter of Exodus, the eighth verse, and it is as follows:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work.
But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord they God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

The giving of the law was a wondrous event. The words are beautiful in their simplicity–“Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.”

Now, by the time of Jesus, those people who were in charge of interpreting had embellished the law. They had developed what is known as the “tradition of the Elders.” This resulted from interpretations, similar to the way court decisions in our society tend to refine our law to greater and greater detail. In doing so, they applied the broad general principle of “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy” to each and every practical aspect of life. And it was with this tradition of the elders that Jesus found himself in conflict.

One of the dangers of legalism is its tendency to become more and more specific. I remember a number of years ago, in the private practice of law, I had a case in which I dealt with the “Fair Packaging and Labeling Act,” which was being administered by the Federal Trade Commission. I learned in the course of my research that the proper abbreviation for inch is “in.” as opposed to ditto marks. Now, what I’m about to say–and I don’t recommend to anybody that they violate any rules and regulations of the Federal Trade Commission–but I am going to say that legalism of that nature never arises to the majesty of law. There wasn’t any thundering and there wasn’t any lightning when whoever wrote down that you’ve got to say “in.” rather than ditto marks. That was not accompanied by anything majestic.

In the accounts of the creation, one does not find that God created abbreviations for all words, and saw which ones were good. As stated previously, the sources of real law can often be traced to the earliest legends and stories. A great deal could be said about the importance of folk tales and fairy tales in weaving the fabric of understanding of religious, moral, ethical, and legal issues.

Real law is not concerned with trivial things. Real law has a source that simply does not concern itself with things that are unimportant. There is a sense in which a distinction can be drawn between ethics and morality, on the one hand, as opposed to law, on the other. Ethics and morality deal with the things that ought to be. Law deals with the things that must be.

If there is a violation of law, then it is imperative that we do something about it. Law is limited to those things that must be. It is a mighty current from a silent and magnificently powerful source instilled by God, springing from the depths of our collective being, demanding its own expression and effect. The law is deeply embedded in the psychology of the human race. It springs from that psychology and in that psychology finds its moving force. All written laws are simply evidence or symbols of this force. The principles of real law are so simple and basic that they are eloquent beyond words,“Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt not covet.” Like a mighty drum beat, they pound their way through history and religion and into the core of our being. In the Old Testament, we read that the Hebrews were instructed to write these simple commandments on their lintels and on their foreheads.

The Ten Commandments have not been repealed. Jesus didn’t come to do away with the law. He had definite problems with legalism, but it was not his purpose to destroy the law. Just the contrary is true. In Matthew Five, verses 17 through 22, we find the following passages of scripture:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, and same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

So, the Ten Commandments definitely were not repealed by Jesus teachings. The Scribes and the Pharisees that he mentioned in this passage in Matthew were those people who were most noted for their practice of following the law. They made a fetish of following the law, and they were believed to be very good people. Now, what Jesus was saying was, “I’m not doing away with the law,” and “You’ve got to be even better than they are in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.” And this is what it’s all about. Nevertheless, Jesus found himself accused of violating the law of the Sabbath. His response was, in a sense, a return to basics. What he was doing when he healed the withered hand was in harmony with the mighty drum beat of the law. The tradition of the elders, concerning itself with trivia, was mere interpretation, far off course from the original principle.

Today, there is a real need for us to return to basics. To understand what the law can and cannot do for us. A characteristic of real law is that it is found in our heritage. There are not many improvisations in the law. If we read the Ten Commandments, then a great deal of what we regard as law is going to be covered. And, yet, you can go to any lawyer’s library and find books about what the law is.

Let’s move on. Christ’s ministry was more than a mere call to return to basics. More than a call to repentance–the prophets had done that. John the Baptist had done that. Jesus brought a new wine that could not be placed in old skins. He stated that he had come that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Now when he said that, he was not merely restating the law. He gave the great commandment that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and our neighbor as ourselves. His love has been described as “the love that passeth all understanding.”

The mystery of Jesus’ ministry is a transcendent love, and it is by finding ourselves totally engulfed in this love and by losing ourselves and our selfishness in that love and in the act of loving that we fulfill the great commandment. That is more than just the opposite of the Ten Commandments. It is very true that if a person lives by the great commandment given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount–he won’t go out and steal; he won’t go out and covet–the commandments will be fulfilled. That’s what Jesus said. He didn’t come to do away with the law, but to fulfill the law. But what he said was a great deal more. A person could live a lifetime without once violating the law, but never experience the rich fullness of life. There is more to life than just obeying the law. Love is the central focus of Jesus’ ministry. Life is a mighty stream, and the law could be compared to the banks of the stream. We certainly should not get out of the mainstream of life–there has to be some focusing of our powers and attention; but, nevertheless, the force of life is a moving, vital, vibrant force. It is not a dead confinement. The law is vital and moving. Saint Paul expressed it well: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

With effortless grace, love lifts the Christian up out of the endless grinding efforts to justify oneself under the law, to the ecstasy of abundant life. We cannot justify ourselves under the law. Jesus, in one act of perfect love, ushered us into the kingdom of God. The life of a Christian is in perfect harmony and rhythm with the might drumbeat of the law. In Christ, the law was not destroyed, but fulfilled. Christianity takes the policeman off the street and places him in the hearts of the citizens.

(16) Charles G. Gomillion

by Dale | Nov 15, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

I began my detailed investigation of the life and works of Mary Christine De Bardeleben in 2018, almost fifty years after her death in 1970. First there was conversations with family members. The family vaguely remembered of hearing that from time to time late in her life, an important person from Tuskegee Institute—now Tuskegee University—would visit her at her little retirement home in Shorter. They thought that she had taught him at some time in her career; that perhaps it was even the president of Tuskegee Institute. Investigation immediately showed that the visitor could not have been the president—none of the presidents had gone to school at any place Miss Dee had taught.

Then as I painstakingly examined the contents of the box, I found an important clue. There was an empty envelope in the box, in which Miss Dee had received a letter from Dr. C. G. Gomillion. But the letter itself was not there. The envelope was dated May 1, 1969. Miss ee was 88 years old at the time.

The envelope itself had inconsequential notes (on the other side) that Miss Dee had scribbled about problems with feet and nails and apparently a reminder to ask “Philip” (probably her relative Philip Sellers) if she didn’t have some money in First National. But the envelope was in the box, after all those years. So, I could begin my search.

I quickly confirmed that C. G. Gomillion had attended Paine College. Although I knew by the time that I learned that important fact that Miss Dee had been sent to Augusta as a missionary, that was my first clue that she actually taught at Paine College while she was there. And of course, I was able to quickly confirm that fact as well. So, I knew that she had taught him and that he was in touch with her near the time of her death.

In my ongoing investigations, I visited Paine College, and examined archives there. Of course, the archives confirmed the Miss Dee had been a faculty member, and that C. G Gomillion had been a student while she was teaching there, but over a hundred years had elapsed, and the records at Paine shed little light on their relationship. You might wonder why I was so interested in that relationship. I will explain.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s Tuskegee and Macon County were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement in Alabama. The courage of Rosa parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott at the end of 1955. But other important aspects of the movement began with actions of the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA) in Macon County, beginning in the spring of 1957. State Senator Sam Engelhardt, of Shorter, introduced legislation that would remove Tuskegee Institute from the city limits of Tuskegee. At that crucial time, C. G. Gomillion was president of TCA. With support from Martin Luther King, Jr., he led what amounted to a boycott of most of the white merchants in Tuskegee, to protest a gerrymandering effort, so that the students and employees of the Institute could not vote in city elections. The effort for voting rights did not end with social and economic pressure. The gerrymandering effort passed in the State of Alabama, and C.G. Gomillion became the named plaintiff in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, a lawsuit that was ultimately decided in Gomillion’s favor the Supreme Court of the United States. That case and its facts influenced passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The decision by the Supreme Court of the United States etched the gerrymandering case in historic memory. Less well remembered than Senator Engelhardt’s efforts to completely dismantle Macon County, and divide it, with its large Black population among adjoining counties. Unlike the gerrymandering effort, the effort to divide the county among adjoining Counties was not successful at the local level. A footnote in a paper about the racial/political issues in Macon County published by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in 1958 that I found on the internet had this to say about the effort at that time:

“The Legislative Committee composed of state representatives and senators from Macon County and the adjoining five counties that would receive territory in the event of dismemberment of Macon County has been holding hearings in the several counties. A scheduled hearing in Macon County was cancelled. Only one Negro has appeared before the Committee , and that was Charles G. Gomillion, who was heard at his request at the State Capitol. Opinions expressed in the hearings have by no means been enthusiastic about receiving territory from a dismembered Macon County.”

In the Civil Rights struggle, Macon County public schools, including the little Shorter School where Miss Dee had taught late in her career became the focal point of the integration of schools in the State of Alabama. Civil rights attorney Fred Gray, who represented Ms. Parks in Montgomery file the case of Lee v. Macon to force integration of the Macon County Schools. When George Wallace directed State School Superintendent Austin Meadows not to submit to the federal court orders, Judge Frank Johnson found that the school system was controlled at the state level and extended the Macon County litigation, Lee v. Macon to include almost the entire state school system. That case became the legal instrument for the enforcement of School integration in Alabama. Ultimately, the conflicts about integration brought the demise of two of the three white public schools in overwhelmingly Black Macon County, including the Shorter public school that I had attended. Macon Academy, that can fairly be called a segregation academy, sprang up to provide education for many of the white students residing in the County, but many whites fled the county.

To my knowledge, Dr. Gomillion had nothing to do with the school litigation, but he was clearly a leader in the over-all Civil Rights Movement, and in the voting rights effort, including the pivotal litigation. Many whites who were very close to Miss Dee were deeply affected by these issues. But despite the deep-seated, divisive racial conflict, the friendship of C. G. Gomillion with his former teacher continued through it all until her death in 1970. I found among the papers of C. G. Gomillion at Tuskegee University his unpublished autobiography. In it, he described the circumstances that led him to Paine College, and described his experiences there. He recalled taking English from a white lady, Mary De Bardeleben, at age 16, in 1916. He stated that she taught him English, “My teacher of English was white, a Miss Mary De Bardeleben, a Deaconess in the Methodist Episcopal Church South…” And he went on to say that she was his favorite teacher, “My favorite teacher was Miss De Bardeleben, who seemed to have taken a great interest in my effort to learn.” He said that he and Miss Dee had stayed in touch through the years, and that they visited each other from time to time after she returned to Macon County, only 20 miles from where he was located!

In describing his relationship to Miss Dee in his autobiography, Dr. Gomillion said nothing about how their friendship had managed to weather the social turmoil in Macon County. They actually found common cause to work together after she returned to Macon County: “During these few years, Miss De Bardeleben worked diligently in the Alabama Council on Human Relations, which I was first secretary, and then president.”

Miss Dee was not the only Paine teacher associated with the MECS to whom Dr. Gomillion related well. He reports that in his third year he was in a literature course taught by Miss Louse Young. “As with Miss De Bardeleben, Miss Young and I maintained friendly relations until her death a few years ago. It was she who arranged for me to study a year, 1933-34, at Fisk University, under the direction of Dr. Charles S. Johnson, Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, and Dr. Bertram W. Doyle, all three of who had studied at the University of Chicago in the famous Department of Sociology.” Clearly, MECS had a wholesome influence in the education and development of Dr. Gomillion.

During the time that I served as Judge in the circuit that included Macon County, it was my privilege to attend a celebration of Dr. Gomillion’s birthday at a church in Tuskegee. The speaker for the occasion was then recently appointed United States District Court Judge Myron Thompson, the first Black Judge appointed in the Middle District of Alabama. He speech focused on the vigilance that Blacks should maintain to protect their rights. He pointed to the initial presence, but eventual loss of Black rights during the reconstruction era following the Civil War. Dr. Gomillion gave a brief, not more than two-minute acceptance. In it he said that he heard young people talking a lot about rights, but did not hear them talking about responsibilities.

(16) Adventures in Uncle Earl’s Barn

by Dale | Nov 15, 2020 | The Little House

Uncle Earl had a barn right behind his house. We didn’t have one at the Little House, but Daddy and Uncle Earl did a lot of their farming together back in those days, so we didn’t need a barn. Our mule, Pete, stayed at Uncle Earl’s and spent nights in covered shed that was part of the barn. Uncle Earl’s mule, Molly, stayed there too. But independently of the mules, the barn was a fascinating place. It had a loft, and there was all kind of stuff up there. The mule shears were there, long after the mules were gone. It was a great place to play, there was a door that opened from the front of the barn into the loft, so you could put stuff like hay up there. There was a shelf, or porch, just below the loft door that someone could stand on, and that made it easier to get things up into the loft. But it was also a good place to jump from, if you were brave enough. If some hay wound up on the ground below, it was even better!

On the ground level barn floor there was a corn crib, and there was a place where we stored cotton that had been picked, until we got enough to carry to the gin. The cotton crib was a fine place to turn flips, and no matter how you landed, it didn’t hurt. But the cotton didn’t stay in there all that long, so we needed another place to turn flips. Wade, four years my senior, tried out the corn crib and was pretty good at it. I couldn’t do a flip in the corn crib, so he decided to show me how, with accompanying oral instructions. He perched on the partial wall that retained the corn in the crib so it didn’t scatter all over the barn floor, and proceeded, while talking. “You go up, and over, like this…….” whereupon, he landed squarely on top of his head! It was not like landing in the cotton, to say the least. He walked around with his shoulders almost up level with his ears for two or three days!

We were delighted, on one occasion to find kittens right behind the barn. Aunt Daisy feed them milk for some reason, and I don’t remember the ultimate disposition, but I don’t think Mama would let us keep one.

Sometime after we got a tractor, and Pete and Molly, the mules, were gone, Uncle Earl housed his milk cows in the shed where, the mules had stayed. One night he heard a commotion down there, and as usual in cases like that he called for Daddy. I’m not sure that Daddy had arrived by the time that Uncle Earl figured out that there was a fox in with the cows, and they were very much afraid of the fox. Somehow Uncle Earl, while perched in the adjoining fence, managed to shoot the fox. As expected, the fox tested positive for rabies. And the cow, as they used to say “went mad.” Rabies was a very scary thing.

The Power of Pentecost or the Tower of Babel?

by Dale | Nov 15, 2020 | Laity Talks

Liberty UMC, Sunday, May 29, 1994

I want to share with you some Scripture before I begin my remarks, and the Scripture that I want to share with you is found in the 11th Chapter of Genesis. It begins with the first verse, and I’ll read several verses of that Chapter:

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar;

4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9 Therefore was its name called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

When I received the call from Brother Healey yesterday, I was proof-reading the final proof of a book that I have written entitled Conscience and Command. I don’t know if you know anything about publishing; but when you get down to this stage, you have to push things through real fast and so I had spent a number of hours Friday night and yesterday proof-reading so that I could send it back and say that it was all alright. So, I was rather tied up then and I had to push on through and finish that; and to make a long story short, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to prepare for this talk. But that’s not a problem because I have found that my greatest problem is not figuring out something to say, but figuring out how to cut it off; figuring out how not to say too much before I get through.

As Bobby mentioned, it was my pleasure to serve is the president of the MYF Subdistrict here in this area. Do you know it’s been 35 years since I presided over sub-district meetings here in this church. Time does have a way of getting on. We were talking before the service started about my glasses. I was trying to get them cleaned up a little so I could see well enough to read the Bible, but I’m not going to have to read the other stuff because I didn’t write a speech for you.

Anyway, I’ve had a long time to study about what I might say when I get invitations to speak–a whole lifetime. I won’t have any trouble thinking of the things to say, even without having it all written out.

Each of us is called to our own vocation as a Christian. We read in the Bible about the Body of Christ. But always there is the danger that the Body of Christ, or the society–the group of people–will become so intent on themselves–on building on their own powers–as they did on the Plain of Shinar–that we lose the commonality. And that’s what I want to visit with you about this morning. I know very little about the things that you as individuals do to make a living. I suspect that you don’t know a great deal about my work as a judge. Yet, it is extremely important that each of makes our contribution to society and that we do it well. Because that’s the plan of the New Testament. That’s the plan of the Body of Christ. We as Christians must go about our vocations doing the things that we are called to do. Merely coming to church is not what the Body of Christ is all about. The Body of Christ has to do with what we do in our everyday affairs and in our calling.

This morning I will be visiting with you from my perspective as a judge. My calling is the law. And I can tell you after eleven years on the bench that the process works all right. We don’t have a whole lot of problems with the way the court system works. In our circuit, we are current with our dockets—just as current as we reasonably can be. People don’t have to wait a long time as they do in other places. And I can honestly say that I conscientiously apply the rules to the controversies that come before me. I’m not always right, but at least I’m always honest; and I always try to do the right thing; and I call things according to the best judgment that God gives me to call the shots with. But nevertheless, when I look at our world, I don’t see the quality of life in our circuit being a great deal better today than it was eleven years ago when I took office. In fact, if anything, things may be a little worse off. Why? I’m going to suggest to you that that is the problem that confronts the church. While the process of law works all right, the results are disappointing. The reason is that you have got to have the right formulas…you have got to have the right relationships…you have got to have the right beliefs in society in order for any system to work.

I can tell you this for a fact: if everybody decides that they are going to do what they want to….do you remember in the Old Testament when things disintegrated after the children of Israel had moved into the Promised Land, at the end of the period of Judges, and before the advent of Kings, there’s a passage of Scripture that says, “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” It’s right at the end of the Book of Judges. That’s anarchy. We can’t all do as we see fit. In the last eleven years, I’ve watched as the family has further disintegrated; I’ve watched as the schools have not really improved. The glue that seems to hold us together seems to become weaker and weaker.

In the area of law, we’ve seen the decisions about prayer in public schools. Now, the Constitution of the United States says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or preventing the free exercise thereof. That’s the clause. That’s the Establishment Clause; that’s the Freedom of Expression Clause; and the right to gather and to worship is a tremendous privilege on this Memorial Day. There are people who laid down their lives so that we would have the opportunity to be here today. Now, I don’t disagree violently with the court decisions about prayer in public schools. We need to be teaching people to pray right here in this church. I do disagree, and I say that the Supreme Court over-extended its authority to the extent that it said that people can’t pray in school if they want to. People are not making a law respecting the establishment of religion when they pray in public school. If the Legislature were to pass in act saying what prayer needs to be prayed, now that would be a fairly major problem as far as the Constitution is concerned. While I disagree mildly with the Court’s approach, I think that as church people we need to be more concerned with what we can do with the freedom that is ours.

I see a lot of opportunity right here. I see a lot of empty seats in this church; and if they were full, we might be having some greater impact on the world than what we are having. So the problem might not really lie in the legal system; it might lie in our society. It may not be that our Legislature doesn’t represent us as well as they should; it could be that they are the spitting image of us–that they represent us too well–that the values we hold are the values that are ultimately reflected in our legislatures and courts. The values that we hold are ultimately the values that are reflected in our Legislature and that come to bear on the problems that we share. We have the opportunity through our religion to come to one mind–to follow one God–to worship one Christ; and if we do that, then we arrive at common values on which law can dwell. Without those things, then we can’t hire enough policemen. It won’t work that way.

We need to concentrate on family values. We need to restore the power of our churches. We need to restore the integrity of our schools and to arrive at a common language in which we can discuss the problems that confront us. We need to have morality in all of those places and in our places of employment. There is nothing to keep us from worshiping God as we see fit. Why don’t we do it, I wonder? Why don’t we understand that the only answer is to turn to God and lay the problems that we have at His feet.

Part of the problem is, perhaps, that we make our God far too small, as J. B. Phillips suggested. In order for Christianity to have any meaning in the world in which we live– and you may chuckle when I say this–we’ve got to believe in a God that understands computers. We’ve got to believe in a God that understands nuclear physics. We’ve got to believe in a God that understands sparrows and a God that understands kittens. From the top to the bottom. From everlasting to everlasting. Alpha and Omega. Beginning to end. The whole works. The created order. The highest abstractions to the lowest central theme. We’ve got to believe in a God that created those. We’ve got to believe that He sent His son who suffered and died in order to atone for our sins. He was raised from the dead on a powerful Easter morning and 40 days later, a week ago today in our church calendar, sent the Holy Spirit into this world and we can commune with that Holy Spirit.

All of our efforts to achieve justice through our courts, through our own machinations, amount to nothing more than what those people who tried on the Plain of Shinar to do it on their own were doing. Because our tongues are confounded. We don’t know how to talk with the Black folks who surround us. We don’t know how to talk with the engineers that are around us. We don’t know how to talk to the people in occupations that are different from ours. We live in a world of confounded tongues. We live in the Tower of Babel; and that is the reason we can’t put it all together, because we are not any longer speaking the same language, because we tried to do it on our own, and we did not incorporate the Almighty God. He sends Jesus Christ in the form of the Holy Spirit into the effort.

Now what would happen if we just relied for a moment on that Holy Spirit? The Bible provides an answer to that too. And I’ve always been intrigued by the way that the Tower of Babel compares to the Power of Pentecost. In the New Testament, in the Book of Acts, Chapter Two:

1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans?

8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,

10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes

11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?

13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

I think that as we set about finding orderliness, we have got to understand that our own efforts lead us always into the Tower of Babel. What we need is the Power of Pentecost that comes through the church. Now, there will always be those who mock. There will be those who laugh. The scoffing little dogs will laugh every time the cow tries to jump over the moon, but that is not any reason why through the Grace of God it can’t happen. I think that in the message that I have brought to you this morning there is a way to understand the problems that we have encountered in our efforts to deal with the world on our own. There’s a way to understand why our courts are not more effective.

Now, the law is my calling. I suspect that if you will take what I have said this morning and lay it up against your own calling–the things that you do every day–I suspect that you will find that it has meaning and application for you and your calling just as it does for me and my calling. The Spirit is involved in the relationships that we have with each other. We are called on to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourself; and we don’t do that.

Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you today convicted of sin. We come to you directly from the Tower of Babel. We come to you from the world that is torn and hurt and broken and bleeding; a world that is in need of the Great Physician. We ask for the Power of Pentecost to be substituted for the Tower of Babel in our own lives. We ask for Your grace, so that we can find solutions to our problems on our own, but at the same time that we not forsake what You have given us in terms of talent; that we turn our talents to Your use in the building of Your kingdom, for it is in the holy and powerful name of Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen.

(17) Time in Savannah

by Dale | Nov 14, 2020 | Uncategorized

In 1918, Miss Dee left Paine College and the work at the Bethlehem Center in Augusta. Already, others had taken the lead in the work of the Bethlehem Center. For a period of time, in the latter part of 1918, and in 1919 and 1920, she was in Savannah, GA. Material in her box provided proof of her whereabouts, but no explanation of what she was actually doing there.

In the records of the Women’s Missionary Council, I only saw the cryptic message that she had received a call for missionary work to “far away France,” and the World War One came to an end in 1918. The “records” in Miss Dee’s box consisted mainly of post cards that she received from a sailor in the Belgian navy. They were, for the most part, written in French. I am grateful to my cousin, Lillian Corti, who has expertise in the French language, for helping my decipher those cards. But, of course, we had only one side of the correspondence—the cards she received.

The sailor referred to Miss Dee as “Mon Grande Soeur”—my big sister–, and I was able to learn that there was a “big sister” project that was a ministry to soldiers and sailors. It was a kind of “pen pals” operation. At a later time, I will decide whether it is will help to actually place contents and or images of the cards on this site, but will delay that decision for now. Writing postcards could not have been her main occupation in Savannah. I have to yet investigated whether she was involved in teaching somewhere in Savannah, but had no clue about where that would have been. I have not yet found any church related work that she was doing there, although I may have overlooked it during my short time in the archives of the Women’s Missionary Council.

For me these were a couple of mysterious years. I would love to have assistance in finding out what Miss Dee did in Savannah during this time! She discontinued her studies at Peabody during this time, but resumed them and got her Master’s degree in 1921, at age 40.

(17) Buying Shoes

by Dale | Nov 14, 2020 | The Little House

I will have to be honest. Most of the time, us kids didn’t wear shoes. But there were occasions when we needed to have shoes, so arrangements had to be made to purchase them, and I remember what we did about buying shoes when we lived at the little house. It may—or may not—have been associated with the war and rationing. Both Daddy and Uncle Earl were involved in executing this plan.

They didn’t actually take us to a clothing or shoe store. We had to make other arrangements. But the shoes needed to fit! So, they carefully put my foot down on a piece of paper—probably newspaper—and they carefully cut a template for the foot, and that was what they used to determine the size of the shoes! Armed with the paper, they “went to town”—Tuskegee—and made the purchase. As best I remember, it worked ok, and the shoes fit.

The Three Stories

by Dale | Nov 14, 2020 | Laity Talks

[In my frequent opportunities for lay speaking in numerous churches, I often used one or more of these stories.]

Oak Valley Station UMC, October 10, 1993

I appreciate your perseverance. I guess I have been invited at least a half dozen times to be here, and I’m just glad that you kept extending the invitation. On one earlier occasion, back in 1989, I was fully committed to be here. But a few days earlier, I went to a church in Tuskegee to a meeting and I slipped down and broke my knee and that was the reason that I wasn’t here then. I told people later that I had heard about lying down in green valleys, but I hadn’t heard about falling down in black churches. In any event, I’m just glad that you invited me again. My speaking engagements have slowed down a little since I am no longer Conference Lay Leader. I still have a good many opportunities to speak, but not nearly as many as back between 1985 and 1990. Back then, during the Laity Sunday season, I would usually have engagements every Sunday for about three months. I had the opportunity to speak in churches all over the Alabama-West Florida Conference, and it was a great joy to have that experience. One of the great joys of that experience is that I didn’t have to have but one talk–I never went back to the same place, anyway! The only problem this morning is whether I have kept that talk well enough in my mind so that I can give it to you. I made a few notes, just in case something slipped my mind.

I appreciate Don mentioning the continuing work that I am engaged in. It might sound strange for a circuit judge to be teaching a course in law and religion on the side. But I think that the work is important. Part of what I’ll be telling you this morning is why it’s important. My book, Conscience and Command, will be published next year; and I think that it’s important for me to write about the world of law and society that I have experienced. The book is not just a narrative. It is a study about what makes law work. I think that there is a close relationship between the moral values that sustain the church and arise from our belief system, and the moral values that sustain law. It’s important for us to realize that relationship, so that in this day when we hear so much about separation of church and state, we realize that the founders of our country were committed to the proposition that the Christian faith is important. It’s important for us to realize that the founders of our nation had that commitment. Mine is not a simplistic knee-jerk reaction as far as the relationship between church and state is concerned. We need a very modern-day approach to it, and that’s part of what I’m trying to do.

Let me tell you why I think the work is important. We live in a broken world. Nobody knows that better than a circuit court judge. Before my bench parades the broken lives of our people, and it is so distressing. It reminds me of a story that I’ve told many times before. Back when I was in about the seventh grade, and we had a first-aid course. The lady came down to Shorter where I lived from Tuskegee and taught that course, and she told us about another student that had taken the course some time previously. It seems that this student had the opportunity to put her first-aid into practice. The teach told us that the student came back after the course and said, “Oh, I am so glad that I have had this course in first-aid.” And she said, “Really, why?” She said, “Well, there was a terrible accident out on the highway, and I was the first one there.” “Oh, really? What did you do?” “Oh, I knew exactly what to do.” “Well, what did you do?” She said, “I sat down flat on the ground, and I put my head down between my legs to keep from fainting.” So, there, amidst all the mangled bodies, we have somebody practicing first-aid.

Isn’t that exactly what our church does today? In a world that is hurting and broken and bleeding, we don’t even put on a band-aid until the Great Physician can get there. What do I mean by a world that is broken and hurting and bleeding? Every day, I deal with broken families. The family is in trouble. Dealing with broken families is not easy; it’s not fun; but I’ll guarantee you, there’s not a person sitting here who has not been touched by one of those family conflicts that cut so deeply. It doesn’t just affect the nuclear family. The grandparents so often are separated from their grandchildren. And all the moral formation that comes from the extended family, in the broken world in which we live, that power is escaping us. All that power for good–that power for morality, is escaping from the structure of our society.

When I’m not dealing with the broken, dysfunctional family, I’m dealing with criminal cases and civil cases. I’m helping to fill our prisons to overflowing, at the cost of fifteen or sixteen thousand dollars a year for each inmate. It sort of reminds me of that commercial that used to be on television. Pay me now, or pay me later. And that’s the position that we are in. Are we not willing to use the influence of the church for good, to overcome the problems that we have? Are we not willing to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to bear on the problem?

And then, not veiled at all before my bench, are the problems of race relations that we encounter. Now, back in the sixties, I guess people had sort of an easy time looking at race relations. It was easy to decide what’s good and what’s bad. But have we through all of our legislation and through of all our decided cases, cured the problem of people not getting along with each other? And the answer is no. We have not legislated morality, nor can we legislate morality. But, when we call ourselves Christians, there’s certain ways that we ought to behave; and that’s what I mean when I say that there is relationship between law and religion. The solutions to these problems comes through our faith systems. We can’t prove everything by science. In order to be human beings, we’ve got to live by faith. That’s not a choice on our part. We will believe certain things, and it’s simply a question of what we will believe.

I remember another story, and I’ve used it a lot of times. I’m going to share with you all three of my stories. I’m going to give you all of them. There was this teacher who had this very bright student. Little Johnny could just do everything that a student ought to do, and he could do it fast. The teacher couldn’t keep little Johnny busy. So, one day, she got this brilliant idea about how she would deal with the matter. She found a magazine that had a map of the world in it. She took her scissors and cut the map up into little strips—just tiny pieces—and she gave it to Johnny, and said, “All right. When you get this page out of the magazine put back together, just like a jig-saw puzzle, then I’ll give you your next job.” Well, in less than three minutes, “Teacher, I’ve got it.” Well, she just couldn’t believe it “Well, Johnny, how did you do that?” He said, “Well, I figured it out. There was a picture of a man on the other side of the page. I knew that if I got the man right, the world would be right.”

Johnny was right. That’s the way it works. If we get the people right, then the world will be right. Now, just the fact that I told a story about getting a man right and the world being right, that tells you how old that story is. You can’t talk like that anymore. I mean, I should have been talking about getting a woman right, or getting a person right. I’m really tempted to change that story all around and make it about getting the woman right. Women are responsible for about as many problems in this world as the men are. Women have control of a lot of the things that make for morality in the world that I see that is so broken. So maybe we need to get the men and the women into the story. Only whenwe get both right will the world be right. Because it’s only by getting relationships right that a person becomes right. I guess we could be Robinson Crusoe out on an island somewhere and be all right without concern for relationships, but in order to be right in this world, we’ve got to be right with our neighbors. And that includes a whole lot of people. We’ve got to have the right sort of relationships with everyone. All of our relationships have to be right in order for the system in which we live and move and have our being to operate properly. That includes all of our essential institutions: government, schools, churches and the family.

The family organization must work right. That’s where moral values originate and are perpetuated. Sigmund Freud, an atheist, taught us that moral formation is brought about by internalization of the commands of the parent. Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, all of the people in social science who have taught us about moral formation understood that it is internalization of the commands surrounding us—and of the images surrounding us—that causes us to have certain moral qualities. And without those qualities, our legal system won’t work. Nothing will work. So, we are in a great deal of danger when the family is in trouble.

I’m not going to talk a terribly long time today. I’ve got one more story that I’ve got to tell you, because it’s on my list that I carry everywhere that I go. When I was about eight years old, one morning while I was out playing, I saw a mama mockingbird building a nest in a crepe myrtle tree close to the house. She wasn’t having a whole lot of luck with it. She would take the little sticks and leaves and put them up on the fork in the limb, but they would fall right off. They wouldn’t stay up there. She had the right place in the limb and everything, but she just couldn’t make the building material stay up there. So, I decided that I needed to help her. I went in the house and got Mama’s good scissors and got some string and started cutting little strips and hanging them across the crepe myrtle limbs. Unfortunately, the bird was stupid. She didn’t pay a bit of attention to all of the strings that I put on the limbs. She couldn’t build that nest; couldn’t see the strings. She was—well–just a simple-minded bird. So, anyway, like little eight-year-old boys will do, I lost interest after a while and quit watching and went on about my business.

That was early in the spring, and I didn’t think about the bird or the nest or the strings until late that fall. The leaves fell off the crepe myrtle. I thought about the nest, and I looked, and there it was! She did get it built! And there, right in the heart of the nest, right where the little clutch of eggs had been, there were my strings. She knew where to put them. She used them. Now, that story is one you can use to retire preachers or school teachers. Or you can use it to demonstrate the importance of witnessing. It’s a multi-purpose story. My friend, Henry Roberts who preaches in Pensacola told me that he would have invited me to Pensacola to speak, but he had already used my bird-nest story; and that he had made it his bird-nest; and if he ever did invite me down there, I could not use that story when I got there.

But isn’t that exactly what we as Christians do when we witness? We hang those strings. And there’s something in the nature of strings that allows those who need the witness to pick them up and use them at exactly the right time. I hope that some of you have had the opportunity to see some of the strings that you have laid out during your lifetime put to use. I hope that after the leaves have fallen, you have have seen some of the strings incorporated into the nest.

It was a pleasure being here with you. I’m tempted to go on for another hour or so, but do you sort of understand why it’s important for me to do a little bit of teaching now? I’m going to have a seminar for attorneys up at our church this week. I’m teaching at Huntingdon Monday and teaching at Tallassee Tuesday and Thursday of this week. I have a Council on Ministries Meeting–I’m the chair of that this year– on Wednesday, so I’ve got a pretty full week. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken. But, we just have to keep moving and doing the best we can, because the stakes are awfully high. We must keep hanging the strings if we want the nests to be right–if we want the relationships to be right. There’s a lot that’s important that needs to be done. I haven’t sounded like a preacher, have I? And that’s because I’m a lay person. I’m an unrepentant lay person…perfectly pleased to be a lay person with a lay occupation; and I’ve very pleased to be here with you to celebrate the ministry of laity today and to share with you my own perceptions of ministry of laity. Each one of our callings…the callings for each one of us is very precise to our own jobs, our own occupations, our own role in life. If I had read the Scripture this morning, it would have been from the Twelfth Chapter of Corinthians, which describes the body of Christ. Each person participates in that body with his or her own gifts and talents.

Will you pray with me? Our Father and Our God, you know all things, you see all things. You are present at all times and in all places, and we celebrate your presence here and now. We celebrate the opportunity as lay persons to engage in the powerful work of your Kingdom. Show us the things that you would have us to do. Help each of us to realize that we have a role and a purpose in life. Help us to execute on the plans that you have laid for us. These things we ask in the Holy and powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Role of Suffering and Stress

by Dale | Nov 13, 2020 | Laity Talks

FUMC Brundidge

December, 1997

I came in a little early this morning and sat here as the organist was practicing and soaked up a little of the tradition that exudes from this beautiful sanctuary. And I’ve enjoyed the music program this morning. I can tell that this is a church with tradition, and I’ve been in a lot of churches. I know that you have a great deal to be proud of. I admired the stained glass windows. You’ve also got a lot of places where people could sit in here. So, you’ve got an almost unlimited opportunity for growth. You don’t have to build a new sanctuary in order for the Kingdom of God to expand here in Brundidge.

Some of you that I met earlier were kind enough to remember that I ran for political office in this area one time. Do you know that that’s been twenty years ago? The few of you who remember that race for the state senate, that sort of sets a good background for what I am going to be talking with you about this morning. We don’t always succeed in the things that we try to do; and yet though unsuccessful, those experiences may be very important to us in our faith journey and in our growth as persons.

As we enter in this advent season, what does it mean that Christ came into the world and lived in the world? Does it mean that suffering is over? No, I think that you have lived in the world long enough to know that that didn’t happen that way. And yet when we begin to approach the meaning of religion, we often wonder why do bad things happen to good people? Why the trials and tribulations? But even that is not exactly what I want to talk with you about this morning. And from the scriptures, we get mixed messages. “Come, my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” “Deny yourself; take up your cross daily and follow me.” Now, toting crosses and a light yoke don’t sound to be exactly the same, do they? And the scriptures talk about the peace that passes all understanding. Yet Jesus said, “I’ve not come to bring peace but a sword.” How can we reconcile all of this? What is the benefit of suffering?

Now, why would I talk about something like this here at the beginning of advent season? For one thing, Christmas is not only the happiest time of the year, it is the saddest time of the year. Can you think of anything more melancholy than to remember…those of you who were older…the Christmases when you were a child? The haunting thoughts of the people who were there who are not there now. I venture to say that in this audience, there will be those people who are struggling with business reversal, who are struggling with family problems, who are struggling with wayward children, with sickness and, indeed, even death. How do we as Christians contend with those kinds of things?

Yet, in our civilization, suffering is a very important element. Progress, through suffering, is the cornerstone of faith that undergirds our civilization. We remember the soldiers who died that we can have freedom and liberty. We remember people like Sir Thomas Moore, who died for freedom of religion. We remember Socrates, who took the hemlock for the sake of law. We remember Jesus Christ, who died to bear our sins. But we wince a little if someone suggests, as Jobs comforters did, that sin causes stress. And I’m certainly not suggesting that everyone who suffers stress has committed some sinful act, and that’s their punishment. That’s not my point at all. But mental health counselors, indeed all health counselors, would have us believe that stress is the great enemy and evil. We should avoid it. But haven’t we come full circle when we begin to try to avoid all of the stress that comes our way? Religious leaders follow suit by touting the peace that comes from religious experience. Good people don’t suffer, they seem to be saying. Well, now, that’s not true. Good people do suffer. So, how do we reconcile all of this? How do we reconcile the easy yoke with the cross that we must take up?

I want to call your attention to a couple of different passages of scripture as we move through what we are talking about. First, I want to point to Genesis, 32, verse 24. Now, let me give you the background, rather than reading the whole story. You remember Jacob had stolen his brother’s birthright, and he had gone off and as we would say here, “done good.” He had spent twenty-some-odd years, and he had accumulated great wealth. And now leaving his father-in-law, he had decided to go back to his home, which he had left, you will remember, in a bit of a hurry because Esau was not really glad of what he had done. And as he got nearer and nearer home, he became more and more apprehensive. We would say he suffered stress. And on the night before he was to meet Esau, he….and I’ll just pick up with the scripture there.

24 And Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

25 When he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him;

26 And he said, ‘Let me go for the day breaketh,’ and he said, ‘I will not let thee go except thou bless me,’

27 And he said unto him, ‘What is thy name?’ and he said, ‘Jacob,’

28 And he said ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hath prevailed.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but my experience in my faith’s journey has often seemed like wrestling with that man in the night. That’s a part of the challenge that we must face. What happened to Israel as a result of his experience? He gained a new identity according to the commentaries. His old name, Jacob, meant “the Supplanter.” He had taken away what rightly belonged to Esau. His new name, Israel, means “God rules.” God rules. And there is a lesson in our stress that “God rules” brings very clear to us and brings home to us. Now, the message of stress is not ended there. Do you remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? What did they say when confronting the fiery furnace? Did they say, “God will deliver me?” No. They said, “God can deliver me.” And God did, in fact, deliver them; but the remarkable thing about that story is their faith in God and their willingness to walk into the furnace because they knew that God could deliver.

We come to church to get the peace that passes all understanding, but we don’t take it out into the world with us. Of course, you can’t talk about the topic of this nature without talking about Job. Job had all of his possessions removed…all of his family removed…and yet he maintained his faith. You know, we play in our minds with God. During the past week, I had occasion to sentence a number of people up in Wedowee, and I think about the first five who came up for sentencing told me that everything was going to be all right…that they had found the Lord. Now, really. I finally turned to the Sheriff and said, “You must be doing a wonderful job over in that jail…with all of these people finding the Lord.” I resisted the temptation to go further and say, “That is wonderful, because where I am about to send you, the field is white to the harvest.” I didn’t do that.

But we have to be a little skeptical of these things. During the past week, I heard a T.V. evangelist saying if you give money, a blessing will come to you. And he told stories about people people who had given money and how money came right back to them. Using God as a gambling device, I guess. One guy gave a hundred dollars, and, gosh, he got a house in the mail, or something like that. Now, our minds are skeptical about such claims. Certainly, we don’t…any of us…think that God is in the business of granting our bets. I’ll stay away from the Auburn/Alabama football game; but, you know, it’s bad enough to have to beat the other team and the referees, let alone when God gets on the other side, as well. Forgive me for that. I just couldn’t resist it.

But what all does God intervene in? God intervenes in anything He wants to intervene in. If He wants to run a football game, He can. But there’s somebody out there on the other side, too. And that’s something that we all have to remember. And I’m sure that in all of these things God’s will is, in fact, done. At least, these things do not happen in violation of the Will of God.

Is God just there for us to tempt, for us to say, ‘if we’ll do this…’ … Have you ever bargained with God? ‘If we’ll do this, will you relieve me of that? If I’ll do this, will you give me that?’ I’m afraid that most of us have some tendency to do that. That is not the faith that undergirds the world. That is not what brings us the peace that passes all understanding.

Let me bring another passage of scripture that involves a bit of suffering to your attention. Luke, the 22nd chapter, the 39th verse. Now, let me give you the stage here. Jesus Christ, Our Savior, was in the process of being betrayed by his friend. He was in Gethsemane. “And he came out and went as he was to the Mount of Olives; and His disciples also followed Him; and when he was at the place, He said unto them: ‘Pray that ye enter not into temptation,’ and He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast and kneeled down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done;’ and there appeared an angel unto Him from Heaven strengthening Him; and being in agony, He prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground; and when He rose up from prayer and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow; and He said to them, ‘Why sleep ye? Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.'” Can you feel the agony…the stress…and yet, our religion is supposed to take stress away from us. What a shallow, what a shallow concept of religion that is. God, indeed, calls us to take up our cross daily; but do you know what? When you are surrounded and undergirded by a faith in God the Creator, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. It is the reassurance of God’s living presence.

It’s not when we experiment with God with our little minds that God comes to us. It’s when we experience him in our inner-most depths…when He takes charge of that part of us that makes decisions…when we know that He is. When we know that because He lives, we can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. That is the relief that comes from experience. Not all of the problems go away.

As a judge, I see plenty of life’s suffering and brokenness; and it is a matter of concern to me, and I can’t help but meditate what the experience of Christmas—what the advent of Christ—means in all of this. We act out our callings against the background of faith. I think that I was called to be a judge, but that doesn’t make the decisions that I have to make easy. It doesn’t eliminate the sleepless nights. You were called to the work that you do in the world, and you must take Christ with you into that work; but that doesn’t make the experience easy. The ultimate issues of life are not easy; the stress is there. But an understanding of the power of God and of the nature of God will carry us through it.

Five years ago, during the advent season, I lost my father. He was 82. He’d lived a good life. I remember as we called the family in, because we knew that he was going…and I can never tell this story without feeling some emotion. My son, Mike, came in and I said, “Mike’s here, Daddy, do you see him?” “Yeah.” and Daddy said, “Hi, Mike.” Mike said, “Hi, Paw.” And then Daddy turned to me and said, in whatever world he was living in at that point, “I think we are all here now. Y’all go ahead to the table and eat. Save me a place by El.” Ella is my mama, his wife of 56 years. Save me a place at the table by Ell. All of the grief, all of the sorrow that I could feel, was brought to bear on my soul in that moment. But I understood the meaning of the table. There he lay with a tube in every aperture of his body…and yet he was dreaming of a table…a table that had one end there in that hospital room and the other end in eternity. I’ll never experience the 23rd Psalm in the same way again. Because I know that He prepares a table for us, in the presence of our enemies. In the very presence of the deepest stress that we can feel. God is there. And that’s what makes the yoke light.

I have said that I suspect that there are those here who have wayward children, who experience broken homes. There are those for whom Christmas will not necessarily be a joy, because of the melancholy of Christmases remembered. But there is a great joy in the Christ child. There is hope because of the man who experienced sweat drops of blood as he went through his agony; and if he could face that, we can face whatever we have to face, because of our faith. It is our faith that bears us through the tide. When we can say,

‘Oh God our help in ages past,

our hope for years to come,

Be thou our strength while life shall last,

and our eternal home.’

That is the kind of faith that can carry us through whatever we are called on to do in this world.

I hope that the advent season will be good to you. And I hope that for those of you who may be struggling with some soul-searching problem, my visit will have been meaningful. It’s been helpful to me to prepare these thoughts, and it’s been a pleasure for me to be with you.

(18) The Trip to the Gin

by Dale | Nov 13, 2020 | The Little House

One of my most memorable farming events from the Little House years was a trip to the gin. In those days, financing was interesting. For poor farmers, it often involved credit with other people in the farming business. I think that Daddy had borrowed the money for a crop that year from “Miss Carrie.” Miss Carrie Carr was a large landowner in the area. I’m sure that she had tenants. She owned a store and a gin. She also financed the farming operations of small land owners. The details are sketchy in my memory. But I’m sure that she loaned Daddy money in the spring with the promise of repayment in the fall, from the proceeds of the crop.

We picked the cotton and put in Uncle Earls barn. From there we loaded onto a wagon. The wagon “body” was about 4 feet wide and about eight or ten feet long. There were sides four or five feet high. It held about enough cotton to make a 500-pound bale. Axles ran under the wagon, the back one stationary, and the front axle would turn when the mules headed in a new direction. On the ends of the axles were the wheels, mostly wooden construction, but bound in essential places by iron. Iron bands circled the outside perimeter of the wheels and that is what made contact with the ground.

The front axle connected to a “tongue”. On either side of the tongue were “single trees” that hooked onto the frame of the axle/tongue. They were metal shafts, about 30” long, with hooks on the each end. When everything was in operation, chains connected the harness on the front of the mules, Pete and Molly, to the single trees. Bridles hooked to ropes that allowed the driver, back on the wagon, to “drive” the mules.

The occasion that I remember must have been sometime in 1946-1948. It was before we got a tractor. The cotton was loaded, and Pete and Molly hitched to the wagon. Off to the gin in far away Shorter! Daddy driving, Wade and me right beside him, on the front of the loaded wagon. Out past Uncle Earl’s huge Oak tree, Mr. Frank’s magnificent magnolias, the big Sassafras in Uncle R.V.’s field, to the big road. Down the big road to the corner. Off to the left toward on the gravel road through Calebee Swamp. Three bridges. Up Haden Hill. Finally, onto US Highway 80. To the left, just as if we were going to Hardaway and Downs, where Mama’s folks lived. But not that far. The gin was on Highway 80, right where the gravel road turned off to the right to go to Hardaway and Downs. Highway 80 was paved with concrete! Wade asked if the metal wheels were legal on the paved road, and Daddy said, “Yes, for farmers.”

The gin was amazing. The gin had a tall canopy, and we drove the wagon right under it. Once it was under there, there was a sucking tube about 8 inches in diameter that swung down from above, and sucked the cotton right off the wagon and took it into the gin.

But once we got to the gin, we were off the wagon, and I don’t think we were allowed in there. Later I came to know one armed or no armed people who lost them in the old cotton gins. They were dangerous! But out front of the gin, and off to the side there were lots of bales of cotton. The bales weighed five hundred pounds, or more. If they came out less than five hundred, they were considered “bundles” not bales. They were about five or six feet tall, thirty inches or so thick, and three or four feet wide. The top, bottom and narrow sides were wrapped with burlap. The cotton was packed tight, and the whole thing bound tight with metals bands—three or four of them. They stood upright. You could climb up on a bale by using the bands. What a great event it was to climb up, and jump from bale to bale!

The cotton was ginned and baled. Daddy settled up with Miss Carrie. And then back home on an empty wagon! But with precious memories for the twilight years.

(18) A Master’s at Peabody College

by Dale | Nov 13, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

Miss Dee enrolled for a Master’s Degree in Peabody College in Nashville in the summer of 2016. Her studies continued into the 1917-1918 school year.

In 1918-19, there was the mysterious interlude in Savannah that I have not figured out. The record in Miss Dee’s box seems to indicate that the studies were not resumed until the 1920-1921. The following is on the reverse side of the preceding.

Miss Dee’s initialed note indicates that she took one of the courses at Vanderbilt University. The remaining notes don’t appear to have to do with work at either school, but is simply a compilation of credits (probably for a particular area of work—maybe education) from various schools.

Regardless of the actual date of completion, her studies at Peabody resulted in a Master’s degree. Miss Dee’s box included her photo in her “new M.A. costume.”

Her studies at Peabody prepared Miss Dee for new ventures in teaching at the college level. In collaboration with the Women’s Missionary Council of the MECS, she went to Oklahoma University to teach after completing her work at Peabody.

Euthanasia

by Dale | Nov 12, 2020 | Laity Talks

East Tallassee UMC

June 26, 1994

A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to leave. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend and a time to sew. A time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. What gain has the worker from his toil?

It seems that death is a given in this life, and I want to explore that with you. In talking with you on this subject, I am drawing from a larger context that I have been exploring for several years. You may have seen where I have taught a class or two down at Huntingdon dealing with the relationship between law and religion. And my remarks this morning fit into that context of the relationships between law and morality and religion. And I say at the front end that I don’t think that in the absence of morality there is any law. I think that the motive force for law comes from morality. And I don’t think that without religion there is any real morality. So I think that these concepts are inextricably woven together.

Now, Hollis was with me during the last couple of weeks at a time when I dealt with cases that involve death. There were two beautiful young men–one black and one white–whose bodies were penetrated by bullets; and we were dealing with the person who pulled the trigger. And this has become a common place of my experience over the last twelve years. What I want to convey to you about that is the ultimate reality of what we were dealing with. Of course, we only had pictures, but we were dealing with people who had lived and who had died. They weren’t here anymore. Their families had had to pray and place them in a casket and bury them in the ground. And we explore today some of the meaning of that.

A couple of years ago, I was assigned by the Chief Justice to try a capital murder case up in Limestone County. Now, you of course know the significance of a capital murder case…that means that the person that did the killing could be put to death. I believe in capital punishment and think that anyone who tries to find an argument against capital punishment in the Bible has to search awfully, awfully hard to do so and has to almost twist the meaning of the Scripture to do so. I don’t have any embarrassment in approaching capital murder cases. But trying a capital murder case is a very unique sort of experience. You go into the courtroom and when the purpose is announced, there is quiet. I’ll say there’s a deathly quiet. There is a brooding presence about those proceedings. And so here I am in a North Alabama county where I don’t know a soul other than Curtis Coleman who happened to be my preacher years ago. He was teaching at Athens State University and of course I called him because I needed some friendly contact there.

I was staying over at a motel, and every morning, I would get up a go over to Hardee’s and eat a sausage biscuit and drink a cup of coffee. Well, the first morning, I went over there and they charged me a dollar a sixty-nine cents for my coffee and biscuit. And the next morning, they charged a dollar and nine cents. I was going to say something about it, being the honest person that I am, until I looked down and saw that senior citizen’s discount on there. I’m not sure I was qualified for it, but I didn’t even ask about. I figured that if I looked that old, it was time for me to accept that with grace and go on about my business.

During the very same case, I was up there behind the bench trying to read the small print on some of the things that I was supposed to read, and I noticed that my arms had got too short, and so I called Betty and asked her to make an appointment for me to go to the eye doctor.

Well, you say why in the world are you telling us all about that? We know you try capital murder cases occasionally. There’s a point in it. Because, you see, that represents my own gradual process of growing older and the fact that we all do that. I have probably dealt with thirteen or fourteen other capital murder cases in my life, and in fact I have one that y’all might be interested in now. Hardee’s seems to enter my life in a lot of different ways. I got my sausage biscuit at Hardee’s in Limestone County, and the latest capital murder cases here in our county involves the killing of someone who worked at Hardee’s here in Tallassee. I am dealing with that case. When you turn on the television, it’s so interesting to watch O.J. go down the interstate that you almost forget that in the background of that entire production there lie two corpses. I have had lots of experience in various ways with death, and maybe that’s why I am thinking about it this morning. I have been a pall bearer more times than I could possibly count and remember, and in most of those instances the people who were buried meant a great deal to me. That doesn’t happen quite as often now that I have become a senior citizen and perhaps closer to Jordan than I was at an earlier time in my life.

I have even had the experience very recently of conducting a funeral. Now, there’s an experience where the preachers earn their keep. To stand near an open grave with a casket over it, and to talk about the Valley of the Shadow of Death and in my Father’s house are many mansions– it’s a lot easier to stand here and talk about it than it is to stand there and do it. Especially when that person means a great deal to you. I admire preachers. I don’t know how they can possibly handle those situations. I say that I don’t understand it, but really, I do understand it–even though I would have a difficult time doing it on a regular basis. They are grounded in faith that transcends this mortal realm.

In the last two years, I have lost family members. Aunt Irene was the first to die and then my Daddy and then Uncle R.V., and then Aunt Willie, and then Uncle Raymond. I’ve lost five or six in the last two years, and that trip to the graveyard has become entirely too frequent. The things that cause me to start thinking about death and start talking with you about death, however, have nothing to do with these personal experiences that I have had but have to do with a course of study in which I recently participated. I told you earlier that my general area of interest and my witness to you comes from the area of the inter-relationship between law and morals and religion. And you may wonder, well, he’s gotten way afield now. I don’t think so. I think that I’ll be able to bring it back into focus for you because I have been studying this week for a course that I am about to take. I’m glad that the State encourages judges to continue to study and to learn as we carry out our duties. We surely don’t know enough about things to ever stop applying just as much understanding as we possibly can about life and human nature, do we?

Included in the material that I was to study was a discussion of euthanasia. Euthanasia. Everybody knows what euthanasia is…mercy killing. We were looking at the ethical and moral and legal problems associated with euthanasia. It was interesting reading, and what they were talking about is whether with the consent of the person who is to die, the doctor ought to assist in the death of that person. That is a very important issue in our world. To put it in a very crass sense, we are talking about medical costs. We are talking about society’s health care plan. Eighty percent of the money that is spent on health care is spent during the last six months of the lives of the terminally ill. Often this money is spent at a time when there is no quality of life. Under these circumstances, it’s natural that someone begins to talk about “is there a simpler way…is there some other way we can approach this matter?”

We have long since passed the point in our society where we would force life on someone. If a person can knowingly make the decision, a person does not have to accept medical support systems or heroic efforts. It does not necessarily depend on that person being totally conscious. Sometimes family members or surrogates are allowed to make that difficult decision for the person. But beyond the matter of simply not accepting further treatment lies a more difficult ethical and moral and legal question: since somebody has to pull the plug to remove life support, what’s the difference between that and giving the lethal injection to avoid all of the pain and suffering when there is no real hope of recovery. Well, it was interesting to me to read the arguments pro and con.

They first talked about the difference being active assistance in allowing a person to die and assisting in allowing a person to commit suicide. They talked about a person’s right of self-determination. And then came the counter-argument. There are two persons involved in making this decision to assist in death. It’s not just one. It’s not just the person who is going to die, but the doctor has to knowingly participate in that decision. Is that right? Is it appropriate for doctors to assist in bringing about death? There is a strong argument that doctors are in the business of preserving life. Never under any circumstances should they kill. I’ve given you these arguments not for the merits of the arguments but simply for you to begin to understand how law and morals and religion intersect in this important issue as in many other issues. There is more to it than this.

I brought the book that I was reading from, because none of these arguments that were advanced said anything about religion other than this:

“The ‘rights’ view of the wrongness of killing (that is a person’s right not to be killed) is not of course universally shared. Many people’s moral views about killing have their origins in religious views that human life comes from God and cannot be justifiably destroyed or taken away either by the person whose life it is or by another. But in a pluralistic society like our own with a strong commitment to freedom of religion, public policy should not be grounded on religious beliefs which many in that society reject.”

The idea that there is a correct moral answer to the question is rejected summarily. The idea that religion even has a place in the debate is summarily rejected. We’re free to believe whatever we wish, since it really makes no difference what we believe.

I turn now to the general evaluation of public policy on euthanasia. Now we come to the point. Public policy about euthanasia, public policy in the absence of religion! Back in the days when Christianity was taking its form, the Romans put deformed babies out on the hillside to die. There is nothing irrational about that. If we look to our own rationality, it makes perfect sense not to be burdened with those deformed and defective children. It makes perfect sense not to be bothered with the elderly…to go ahead and let them…. Among the Eskimos, the elderly just walk on out on the ice flow because their families can’t support them. They don’t return. The notion can even be romanticized. All of that makes perfect sense in the absence of religion–especially Christianity.

But somehow through the drumbeat of the ages there comes the message Thou shalt not kill. And that commandment is revealed truth. If we propose to adopt any form of euthanasia, we will turn loose of the truth that is revealed in that commandment

All morality is received and revealed truth. Science cannot create a moral system–that’s what the Nazi’s tried to do. There is a difference between removing life support so that nature takes a life, and simply killing somebody. And if we ever release our grip on our belief–our deep conviction– that killing is wrong, then where, pray tell, does it stop? And the very idea that a conscious decision by anybody is a self-determination. Does that assume that a soul is just consciousness, that it does not penetrate into eternity… that there is no soul?

Let me relate from my own experience. My mom and dad married in 1936, and they raised three sons. Daddy died a year ago last December 19th. As he approached his death, we didn’t know that he was going to die right then; but we knew he was going to die eventually. I carried him in for a regular check-up on a Friday, and they put him in the hospital because they were going to need to adjust his medicine. He was 82 years old. I won’t say something went wrong, but he didn’t do well; and wound up in intensive care with kidneys failing, liver failing, and all of his systems shutting down. We knew then that the end was coming soon. My youngest son showed up on Sunday. Daddy was slipping into and out of consciousness at that point in time. He certainly could not be said to be rational. Mike came in, and Daddy said, “Hi, Mike.” And then he turned to me and he said, “I think that we are all here now. Y’all go ahead and eat, and save me a place at the table by El.” Ella is my mama. There wasn’t any table. Nobody was going to eat, but I’ll tell you this: The same power that directs us in the Valley of the Shadow of Death is the one that prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. And as my Daddy lay there with a tube through every aperture in his body, in a place where he didn’t want to be, I came to an understanding of the 23rd Psalm that will never be erased. It was one of the most deeply moving religious experience of my entire life. I understand the communion table much better now. I understand how it has one end in this world and one end in eternity where my Daddy’s soul was visiting. It was from the first communion table that Jesus went to Gethsemane, where the sweat drops were like blood.

Now, before that time came, we could have already made the decision, you know, life is not worth living. But I think that the greatest witness in my whole life came to me at a time after hope of continued existence in this vale of tears was gone. We need to experience it all.

Sometimes, you try to write things to try to express your feelings; and I wrote something back then that I found at the house this week. I set up a little studio at home recently. When you move things around, you find things that you have forgotten about. And I picked up this piece of paper that I had written back then; and here it is:

The King of Terror stood at hand,

silently watching those of us

in whom light and life and flesh

was still firmly united.

His icy fingers touched and chilled us

to the bone.

Though we would follow

and eventually we must,

we must now turn back

as His black curtain

waves gently between us,

and he who lay at His mercy.

Lay at His mercy

with the black curtain

settling

ever more gently

and permanently.

Until light no longer penetrated

and we could not see

Beyond the Black Veil

This was the way I expressed my sense of loss, desperate frustration and deep grief when my father lay dying.

There is no case for euthanasia in this world of ours. There is no case for intentionally killing. There is no stopping point. There is nothing that makes it wrong other than our deep-seated revealed faith, and this is where law and morality and religion all interact. Because, you see, it’s not death that is the great mystery. It’s life. Life is the mystery. Who we are, why we are here, and our connection to whatever is meaningful in this universe–that is what is real, but totally unclear, except for the eyes of faith.

19) The School Bus

by Dale | Nov 12, 2020 | Shorter High School, The Little House

Wade and I both started school while living at the little house. Wade started in 1944, and I started in 1948. I will tell more about the school experience when I get to that topic. In this essay, I want to focus on the school bus. The school bus that picked us up travelled dusty roads all over the west end of Macon County to pick up rural white kids. There were three buses that served the Shorter public school, and they were “named” for the communities where their odysseys began. There was the Chesson bus and the Hardaway bus in addition to our own Milstead bus.

The Milstead bus came down the two lane drive all the way from “the big road” to the little house to pick us up. It turned around in the front yard of the little house, and that’s where we got on. There was a big mudhole in the road about fifty yards in front of the little house, and I remember at least one time that the bus got stuck. By then, Daddy and Uncle Earl had bought a Super A Farmall Tractor. It was small. Some of the boys on the bus didn’t think it would pull the bus out! It was a proud moment for Wade and me when the little tractor pulled the bus right out! Getting on that bus for the first time probably began the most important journey of my life! Looking back, I realize that the Macon County Board of Education and the Shorter public school were doing mission work into abject poverty, although all I knew at the time was that I was starting to school, and I didn’t much like it.

Mr. Mortie Pierce drove the Milstead bus. His wife, Mrs. Rossie Pierce taught first and second grades. The other two bus drivers, Mrs. Carr and Mrs. Johnson, both worked in the cafeteria–the only two lunchroom employees. Mrs. Pierce drove their car to school, and Mr. Mortie could go home in it, and then return in the afternoon to drive the bus, and she could go home in the car. Mr Mortie and Ms. Rossie lived in the Milstead community, which was where the Little House was located. Our address was Rt. 1, Box 45, Milstead, Ala., but the “mail man” knew everybody and where they lived, so a lot of mail just came RFD Milstead. Unlike the school bus the mail was delivered to a box on “the big road” and someone had to walk a half mile to get it. But that is another story. As I have mentioned elsewhere, Daddy had been a bus driver, and had furnished his own bus. That’s how he met Mama. She was a student and had recently moved to Macon County from Shades Mountain, near Birmingham, in Jefferson County. But Daddy’s bus had been disassembled, and the “bus body” as we called it, had become a place to raise chickens. By the time we started to school, the county Board of Education furnished the bus, and Mr. Mortie drove the backroads, whistling “Little Rosewood Casket” or “Uncloudy Day,” picking up kids.

(19) Oklahoma University

by Dale | Nov 12, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

After completing her work at Peabody, Miss Dee taught Bible and religion at Oklahoma University.

Her work was commissioned by the Women’s Missionary Council

20) Starting to School

by Dale | Nov 11, 2020 | Shorter High School, The Little House, Uncategorized

In September 1948, there was a huge change in my life. The preschool days of playing long days year-round at the Little House came to and end. The big yellow school bus drove up in front of the house, and I got on. I would be getting on a bus, except for summer vacations, for the next 12 years. I can’t say that I really liked the idea at the time. But I did it, and it apparently worked. Almost 12 years later, I gave a bit of an account of that day in an essay that I wrote just before graduating from high school. I kept the paper, rewrote it for freshman English at Huntingdon College, calling it “Two Days With the Three R’s.” Bill Head, a senior, was editor of the Prelude, a school publication. He was visiting in my room, saw the paper, enjoyed it, and published it in the prelude! My first time in print! Well, I still have it, and here it is:

Alpha and Omega

What is this thing called time? The only time that I can be sure of is now; the only things are the ones that I can touch, see, hear, taste or feel.

I remember that lazy, hazy autumn day as I remember dreams. It was a day in early September, when corn stalks dry quickly, and the sun is still hot, and the sky is all blue, and there is a haze above the trees along the horizon. Doubtless, there had been thousands of days nearly like that day before, but not exactly like it. You see, that was the day that I started to school.

Now on days like that, one’s Mama is usually his best friend. I guess having a big brother does help some, but it’s Mama who knows all the old folks, and knows who to talk to, and tells you where to go, and why you’d better stay.

Mama and I rode the bus to school that morning, and, Wade did too. We didn’t have any car, but that didn’t cramp our style. Away we went, lickity-split, over bridge, bump, dog, mud hole, chicken, and anything else that had the misfortune to be in the road at the time. We occasionally collected a sign or mailbox that was “too close to the road anyhow.”

But we finally reached the school that morning as I have many days therafter, without an accident. Then suddenly, I found myself, due mainly to Mama’s know-how, situated and “orientated” enraptured and possibly captured.

I knew I was in for trouble. She (Mrs. Pierce, our teacher) didn’t give us any hard stuff then, but she said that we were going to learn reading and writing and arithmetic and the alphabet and the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm and I don’t know what all else and we did, too, but not that day.

But everything was going too smoothly. There were lots of other people around me, but I didn’t trust them because I didn’t know them. Then said I unto me, ”I will look unto Mama, from whence cometh my help.” But when I looked, she was gone. So, there I sat, too scared to holler and too big to cry.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I haven’t graduated yet, but I have seen this thing called graduations, working like a giant meat-shear, fall eleven times, so I know how it works. And it’s just two weeks until I am in the last slice on the other side of the blade.

There will be the Baccalaureate, then there will be the senior trip (oh boy) and then there I will stand, mortar-board and all, getting my walking papers. Then, to that to which I was grafted, and to which I grew, I will be a memory. I, not it, will be a memory.

Then I won’t be too scared to holler, or too big to cry.

It is intriguing how some of the thoughts that have found their way into some of my serious philosophical writing on this website were already beginning to form. The eternal NOW; the question of physicality and the senses.

Law and Faith

by Dale | Nov 11, 2020 | Laity Talks

This talk was delivered to a Bench and Bar celebration of Law Day in an Episcopal Church in Baldwin County, Alabama on Sunday, May 15, 1994. I was invited to make this presentation by my colleague, Judge Pamela Baschab, then a Circuit Judge, and who later served as a Justice on the Alabama Supreme Court. The group may have expected a different approach, such as the approach of Judge Roy Moore, and some may have been disappointed with this approach.

Baldwin County –

Sunday, May 15, 1994

“Law Day”

When the relationship between law and faith is mentioned in a meeting of lawyers, there is an immediate knee-jerk reaction that causes us to think of the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State. That idea is embraced in the United States Constitution; and, basically, there are two parts to the idea–the freedom of expression clause and the establishment clause. Basically, the Constitution says in one sentence that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or preventing the free exercise thereof. Despite the existence of this sentence in the Constitution and all of its practical wisdom, there is a growing realization that there is a necessary relationship between law and faith which we will ignore at our peril. Neutrality, the official position of our courts, is as pretentious and unrealistic as the value-free observer in the social sciences. At an institutional level, the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State is entirely sound; however, at a personal level, one cannot separate what he or she believes from behavior in which he or she engages. In order to understand the dimensions of the problem, we must look beyond the mere wording and interpretation of our Constitution. We must look to the history of our culture and the effect of the Judeo-Christian heritage.

When we look to the origin of law in the mythical past of our culture, we find many examples of the gods delivering the law for the benefit of the people. God delivered the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai; and in the Shavuos Celebration, the Jewish people still celebrate the gift of law as one of the great gifts of God. The Code of Hammurabi, the earliest known code of law, is depicted in a stele discovered in 1901 as delivered by the god Shamash to Hammurabi, seated on the top of a mountain. Such examples are numerous. At the time the Roman Empire was entering its finest hour, the great jurist Cicero argued that in matters of law it was necessary first to cause the people to believe that all things are ordained of the gods.

The trajectory of the evolution of law has not been a steady one. In the New Testament, we find Jesus in trouble with the law for healing a man’s withered hand and for allowing his Disciples to eat corn on the Sabbath. In the central redemptive act of Jesus Christ, we are introduced to the concept of grace which overcame some of the legalism that had crept into the law. In the waning days of the greatness of the Roman Empire and after the first invasion from the Germanic tribes from the north, we find St. Augustine writing in The City of God a comparison of the City of Jerusalem and the City of Babylon. Both cities of course were used in an analogical sense, and the comparison shows how God’s grace is the source of human orderliness. In the Eastern Empire a hundred forty years later, Justinian compiled his code of Roman laws. Then intellectual darkness spread over the events that we have come to regard as civilization. Despite a brief Carolingian revival in the ninth century, it was not until the twelfth century that the concept of law began again to stir the hearts of humankind in western civilization.

The great Roman-Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas then described what is now known as the first modern theory of natural law. According to Aquinas, by the exercise of right reason, humankind can discern the existence of law in the created moral order which was established by God. He synthesized the philosophy of Aristotle, which had arrived through the great Islamic philosophers through Moorish Spain, with the Platonic tradition that came through the church. You will notice a slight twist in the kaleidoscope from the earlier belief in a law that originated in the divine mind and was physically handed to the people as a gift. At the same time, both the church and the fledgling nation states were searching for the remnants of Roman law in order to justify their respective positions. The Justinian Code was discovered in the City of Pisa. The University of Bologna, the first university established in Europe, obtained the Code of Justinian and became the law school of the whole of Europe. Through this route Roman law found its way even into the English law through the chancery courts and concepts of equity.

There has been a purpose in the reciting of these events other than simply to remind you of things you have probably known in the past but may not have thought about lately. In the entire panorama of events that I have described, there is a common thread. The Creator God is the author of all human orderliness. This is firmly entrenched in our belief systems and in the basis of our culture. The existence–the authenticity–of law always depends on its acceptance in the deepest system of beliefs of the people. When our attempts at law and justice fall short of the mark, we appeal to a “higher justice,” as Dr. King did in his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail. In doing so, we implicitly recognize a higher authority, as did the patriots in the Declaration of Independence.

At the time that Aquinas described his theory of natural law in the twelfth century, the church and state were engaged in a tremendous struggle for control of the social order. When Aquinas used the term moral order, the church was standing in the wings to pronounce the meaning of morality. In those days, there was no void of metaphysics to yawn at the mere mention of platonic ideals. The universality of law was firmly contained in the belief systems. But, of course, you recall what happened next. The Bubonic Plague–Black Death–swept over Europe in the next century or two, killing twenty-five percent of the population. The Catholic Church became a bit corrupt and received sharp criticism because of the sale of indulgences. There was renaissance and reformation. The age of science ushered in a new basis for the ascertainment of truth in matters natural. The power of social control directly administered by the church was splintered and diminished by the reformation. The power of social control gradually came to be firmly planted in the nation state.

The mighty dreamers of the age of enlightenment introduced the blue print for the modern world. Galileo, Kepler, and Copernicus planted the earth far from the center of the universe. Newton described laws of nature which provided a predictable cosmos that would yield its truths to the scientific method. Descartes said, “I think and therefore I am,” thereby establishing the duality of man as a mind that has a body and establishing rationality as the god that should rule over the emotions and nature. And law became the rule of reason. Thomas More described Utopia; Francis Bacon described the New Atlantis in which the world would be ruled by philosopher kings and by men of science. Thomas Hobbes described life in an imagined state of nature that was short and brutish. He described government—Leviathan—as the artificial creation of the human mind. A little later, Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations. The world was a great clock that God created and wound in the beginning, and deserted for us to discover. These great dreamers searched in vain for natural formulas for human law that would correspond to the physical laws of nature. The nation state, de facto became the source if not the origin of law.

Against this background, it was not difficult for Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, a little over 200 years ago, to come forward with the theory of legal positivism. The nation state makes the law. “Law is the command of the sovereign,” they said. “When courts act as an agent of the sovereign, they legitimately make law,” John Austin echoed. Bentham and Austin could not have drawn the same conclusions six hundred years earlier, when the church was still a temporal power to be reckoned with. Their contemporary, Blackstone, still mouthed the ancient theories of natural law but with a strangely positivistic tone. Blackstone’s works were published in America in the 1770s, which were very critical years, you may recall. Bentham and Austin probably did not carry nearly as much weight as Blackstone with the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But the point is that prior to Bentham and Austin, there was no theory of law that did not depend in some way on God’s creative power. Even the pagans ascribed law to the gods or at least to an ominous power of fate, of definite moral and religious bent. Fate was consulted through oracles and augury to ascertain divine approbation. When we reflect on the death of Socrates, we often forget that the administration of hemlock awaited the arrival of the ship from Delos—which fate could surely have aborted.

Natural law is evident in the writing of the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Men who framed the Constitution had a firm belief in the importance of religion. They did not write a clause into the Constitution separating the function of church and state, and guaranteeing the freedom of exercising religion, as an attack on religion or on religious practices. It was about 1940 before anybody even dreamed that the framers of the Constitution had anything like this in mind. David Smolin of Cumberland Law School writes:

“The religion clauses of the first amendment originally were conceived to regulate competition between Christian denominations. It was the splintering of the church and the ugly specter of intra-Christian religious wars, rather than relations with those who professed other religions, or no religion, that produced America’s separation of church and state.”

At the height of the Civil War when this nation was struggling for its own soul, President Abraham Lincoln declared a National Day of Prayer and Humiliation. He did so at the request of the Senate of the United States. His proclamation declared, “Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution requested the President to designate and set apart a day of national prayer and humiliation;” and he went on to set aside the 30th day of April, 1863, as such a day. He called on the people to engage in prayer and fasting. In 1871, Dean Langdale established the case method at Harvard Law School. What better way to study law than to observe what courts actually do? It’s empirical and scientific. In 1882, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Civil War Veteran, suggested that law is what a court does, or that law is a reasonable prediction of what a court will do. This is sage advice, if not taken literally. It, in shorthand form, incorporates the actual forces of the social and moral order that create law. But positivists seized upon these statements to prove that it is the function of courts to make law. The case method is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We might as well conclude that butchers make ham. The courts have adeptly moved from the curtailment of congressional law in Marbury vs. Madison, to the declaration of positive law in Miranda vs. Arizona.

We must recognize our Constitution for what it is. It may be the greatest document ever written to describe a formula for the governance of the affairs of humankind. Today we celebrate the wisdom and power reflected in our Constitution, and the liberty that it protects. It is not, however, an oracle which can provide mystical answers to each and every moral crisis which may confront us.

Until a little over two hundred years ago, there was little or no suggestion in western civilization that law has its origin solely in the artificial activities of the human mind. There was little or no question that law is a part of the handiwork of God’s order of creation. The history of positive law—law created by human artifice—coincides with the history of our country. But there is more to law than our own creative power. Faith in law as a gift of God, a part of the order of creation, is essential to its moral force. We approach law and justice only through the Grace of God. There is no question that whatever orderliness exists in society depends on our faith. It depends on what we really believe–and what we believe is not immaterial.

There is no question that we will live by faith. We cannot possibly scientifically prove the very things that are necessary even to be human. Science does not address the great questions of love, of loyalty, of dedication, of devotion. Science and rationality can invent atomic bombs and weapons of mass destruction as easily as they can invent Salk vaccines. We have no guarantee that the Congress of the United States will always act wisely in the enactment of law. We have no assurance that the Supreme Court of the United States will always make the right decisions in interpreting the fundamental documents that constitute our national existence. We have no assurance that the State of Alabama and its courts and legislatures will always be correct and will always truly enact those measures which are just and needful. The origin of law should not be confused with its immediate human sources. Law is entitled to veneration and respect because it originates in the realm of justice and is created by a power greater than our own minds. We search for just answers because we believe they are there.

To utilize Plato’s parable, we may be forever chained in the cave and always see mere shadows of justice and other ideals, but we must have a faith in a reality that is in the bright light beyond the cave. Like St. Paul, we may see only through a glass darkly; but, nevertheless, we have confidence that there is truth and justice which we will someday see face to face. Unquestionably, law comes into our immediate view through the medium of human beings. Law is always a mere approximation of justice. Nevertheless, justice which is the polestar of our aspirations to law, is the greatest article of faith which was ever posited in the belief system of western civilization. We must not lose the essential connection between our law and our faith.

Lest you think that I have departed from the tradition of our law, rather than giving it powerful affirmation on this Law Day, in which we celebrate law, let me close with these haunting words from George Washington’s Farewell Address.

“Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure–reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

” ‘Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of Free Government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

(20) University of Chicago School of Theology

by Dale | Nov 11, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

After completing her Master’s Degree at Peabody, and beginning her teaching career at Oklahoma University, Miss Dee attended the School of Theology at the University of Chicago in the summer or 1923.

Faith and Action

by Dale | Nov 10, 2020 | Laity Talks

Alexander City Civitan, March, 1994

How appropriate it is that we honor the spiritual leaders of this community. I have opportunities frequently to think of the importance of the work that our spiritual leaders do. After all, people do what they do because of what they believe. That’s a very simple statement, but when you think about it a little bit, it means that law and religion are closely related. Think about it. We do what we do because of what we believe. Do we ever act inconsistently with what we believe? The Bible talks about beliefs. The Bible talks about the fruits of what we believe.

I’m deeply honored to be here. I was here just a few months ago, and you may have invited me back too soon. Everybody might remember what I said last time, and I might say the same thing again! I always run that risk. When I was Conference Lay Leader for the Alabama West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, I didn’t ever have to worry about that. We had 700 churches down there, and I seldom went to the same one twice, so I really didn’t need but one speech. So, I just always said the same thing. It must be terrible to be a preacher and have to go back in front of the same people every Sunday and try to remember what you’ve said. And the longer you stay at one church, the more likely you are to use the same stuff twice, and there’s always some smart-alec who thinks he remembers what you said. But you can always say, well you haven’t done anything about it yet, so….

What we believe affects what we do. We live in a world that is deeply hurting. It is deeply in trouble. We hear about crime. Our President (Clinton) talks about the necessity of putting an additional hundred thousand policemen on the streets. We still hear about drugs. I can attest to the breakdown of the family. I can attest to the breakdown of community. I’m aware of the overcrowding of our prisons. I’m aware of the sky-rocketing medical costs, and of the sky-rocketing verdicts in civil cases. We are living in a troubled society.

It reminds me of a story that I always tell, ***(the first aid story)***

Now, folks, I’m afraid that sometimes that’s what the church does today. We may not even be applying a band-aid until the Great Physician can arrive, in a world that is broken and hurting and bleeding. In my judgment, all orderliness in our society comes from our system of beliefs—our system of faith. Science is not going to produce order for us or tell us how to live together. The ability to live life together comes from our faith system. Religion—which is an important part of our faith system—is about how we relate to each other and to God. Because, you see, we do what we do because of what we believe; and religion shapes our belief systems. That makes religion extremely important.

When we examine the history of our country, we immediately think about separation of church and state. Now, separation of church and state is a sound constitutional principle, but that concept is in trouble today. The founders of our country were not atheists. They were devoutly religious people. They protected freedom of religion. They founded this country with the assumption that the churches would be here and would do what churches are supposed to do and that the people would be deeply affected by religious faith. They put a clause in our United States Constitution which says that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or preventing the free exercise thereof. That’s a powerful clause. In the hands of non-believers, however, it can become a real tool for the secular humanists in our society to go far beyond anything that the founders of our country had in mind in proclaiming the necessity for separating religion from everything that is important. While separation of Church and State is important, separation of law and religion is impossible.

The relationship between law and faith is not new. You remember that Christ had a few encounters with the law himself. He went through a corn field and his Disciples ate corn and got in trouble with the law. He healed a man’s withered hand on Sunday, and He got in trouble with the law. And He said man is not made for the law, but law is made for man. And confronting the law, He said that He had not come to destroy the law but to fulfill the law. But all through the Bible, there is a recurrent theme—and all through our civilization there is a recurrent theme—of the relationship between law and grace. How does fallen sinful human kind become a law-abiding, law-producing people? And that presents some rather interesting things to speculate about. Things that have troubled our theologians. Things that troubled St. Thomas Aquinas; things that troubled the Dutch-Calvinist Movement– Calvin and Luther and all of those individuals.

Throughout our history, our church leaders have struggled for a handle for the problem: How does sinful humankind produce an orderly society? If sinful humankind can’t do it, how do we justify a separation of church and state? St. James said that faith without works is dead, and he was talking about works of the law. But, of course, it is by grace that we are saved through faith. Not by our works. And that brings me back to the subject of faith.

In the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus said, “you will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” If we are Christians, we will produce good fruit. Law and an orderly society is a part of that good fruit. We do it not as sinful man turned away from God through Adam, but through the grace of God. The theologians have talked about a common grace that precedes the grace that is found through the Holy Spirit. I think that in these concepts, we find the basis and the only basis on which we can build an orderly society.

While separation of church and state is a very fine principle, it expresses itself in two or three different ways. One of the ways is when we talk about the Constitution and the Constitutional provisions that I’ve mentioned. I was running for office down in Macon County one time, and my opponent was for dog racing, and I wasn’t. And they questioned me pretty carefully about why I was not in favor of dog racing, and I told them that among other things, it violates the principles of my religion. And my opponent said you are not supposed to let your religion affect your politics. Now, folks, that’s not what separation of church and state means. If you’ve got any religion, it’s going to affect everything you do. So, my opponent, in my judgment, didn’t let his religion affect his politics. I lost that election. That was not a race for judge, and the people got a dog track.

Where does law come from? Why do we do the things that amount to law? I’m not sure that we can answer the metaphysical question “what is law.” But maybe if we explore it from a standpoint of human motivation–if we can determine something about why we do what we do– we can put it all together in a concept that we call law. To that end, I have studied a great deal about human motivation–why we do what we do. I agree with Abraham Maslow that we do what we do to get what we need. It’s a simple proposition. We do what we do to get what we need. We need meaning and purpose in life. St. Augustine said “my soul was restless until it found rest in Thee”. And we cannot find that kind of meaning anywhere except in the right relationship with God Almighty. That is the basis of family; that is the basis of the church. We have to keep the institutional church and the institutional state separate, for sound reasons, but when it comes to individuals who do everything that is done, law and religion cannot be separated. We act consistently with our beliefs, and we do what we do to get what we need. We cannot separate law and religion at their fountainhead in human motivational force. To do so would be to embrace something akin to schizophrenia. Now, there’s danger of that very thing happening. There’s the danger that people can sit in church on Sunday morning and smile and not have religion affect the way they live their lives at all.

Now, the challenge before this group is tremendous. I think that we need to do two things. We need to say we appreciate what you’re doing and what I’ve tried to say tonight is “I understand.” I understand that sacred burden that you carry. Perhaps I understand as no one else here understands the importance of what you’re doing, because I experience that broken world that you are trying hard to mend. I know how important your work is. It is time that we pause and express our appreciation to you for all that you do. Abraham Lincoln paused in the middle of the Civil War at Gettysburg and said “we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground, for the brave men, living and dead who fought here have already hallowed it far beyond our small ability to add or detract.” And the same is true of your sanctuary. The fight that you are making, the battle that you are waging, is of critical importance.

I think sometimes about those old Methodist preachers of the last century–the circuit riders. It might not have been so much their hell fire and brimstone sermons as the fact that they rode those old horses hundreds of miles to get there that caused them to be so successful. If anybody rides a horse hundreds of miles and comes across mountains and through floods and through all sorts of other problems, the people are going to listen at them when they get there! Because the people are going to figure, if he thinks it’s that important, there must be something to it! How important is our dedication to our work? Very important. So, we are here to recognize you; we are here to encourage you; and we are here to tell you that the fight is not over yet. We’ve got to move forward from this point.

I do what I can in this endeavor. I served my church as Conference Lay Leader for five years. I have taken the opportunity to get to know the people over at Emory University who have a Law and Religion Program. We live in a world in which there is a God who understands computers. There is a God who understands Freudian psychology. There is a God who understands whatever we can understand. There is a God who, as Paul Tillich said, is the ground of our being. We can’t minimize our minds and deal with the world that idealizes and idolizes rationality and science. We can’t minister to that world with less than our entire mind. We’ve got to take them as they come.

We’ve got to attract young people to the ordained ministry. I think about it a lot of times. We have so many people going into law practice, when they ought to be going into full time Christian ministry. What they want to do is change the world, and I’m convinced that the only way to change the world is by changing people one at a time. If a young person wants to do that vocationally, then he should consider a fulltime Christian ministry.

Incidentally, I understand some exciting things are going on up at Samford University and Cumberland. They have a law and religion program that is up and coming. We’ve got to marshal all our forces. We must not lose the battle. The light of the world has flickered through the Christian Religion into western civilization for 2000 years. Are we going to let it fade and die out in our generation? Our civilization is built on it. Even secular humanism and its values draw directly on the matrix of ideas and beliefs that have come from our Judeo–Christian tradition.

The most important question that has ever been asked, I suppose, is when God was walking in the Garden, and he confronted Adam and Eve and asked them, “Who told thee thou art naked?” Who tells anybody that they are sinful? It’s the conscience. And where does that come from? It comes from being reared, as Sigmund Freud says, in a home where there’s a mama and a daddy that cause us to distinguish right and wrong.

I’m seeing a generation of people today that is a little different than the generation of people that I dealt with when I first became a judge eleven years ago. I’m dealing with people who have much less a grip on what is right and what is wrong in this world. And the reason for that is because the family is breaking down. We went to no-fault divorces in 1969, and we’ve been having to expand the prisons ever since then. I don’t think I could do a sociological study that would prove my point, but I think the point is there and is well taken.

In the very structure of our community, we are losing moral force. For all of its righteousness, the Civil Rights Movement may have substituted no structure at all for what was bad structure. No relationship….do you understand what I mean by structure? The family structure, the community structure, the relationship that people have and expectations they have of each other. We might have lost something. By gaining something in individual rights, we might have lost something in our spirit of communities in the very effort to do good.

When I get into something, I guess I don’t ever come to a good stopping place. I’m burdened with these thoughts, as you can see. I enjoy the opportunity from time to time discuss them, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here. A fellow hasn’t got but 30 or 40 or 50 more years to do this, so I’m going to talk about it every chance I get. There is nothing more important to talk about. I haven’t seen anybody go to sleep in here yet-not even a blink, but I know how difficult it is to talk about what I’m trying to get across. We must not go to sleep. We must think about these things and talk about them, and we must let that Gospel light lead us into the next thousand years.

It’s been a pure pleasure being here.

21) Ice

by Dale | Nov 10, 2020 | The Little House

We didn’t have a refrigerator in my early days at the Little house: we didn’t have electricity. But we had an “icebox” that sat in the kitchen. The “ice truck” came as far as Uncle Earls place about once a week. It was loaded with ice. The ice was protected by heavy, insulated tarpaulins, on the back of the truck. The ice was in large blocks, maybe 50 or 100 pounds. The ice man could skillfully use an ice pick (or perhaps other tools that I don’t remember) and divide the blocks into whatever size was needed.

“Ice tongs” was a special, scissors-like caste iron tool, with points on the “business end” that could clamp down on a block of ice, so someone could “tote” it, just holding on to the handle. You didn’t even have to hold both handles—gravity would clamp the ice block in place. In due course, the ice block made it from the ice truck to the icebox. The icebox was well insulated, and the ice would keep, without melting, for several days. Other compartments in the icebox were good places to store, milk and other stuff that needed to be refrigerated.

One of the most exciting things about ice was the ability to make ice cream. Uncle Earl had a hand cranked ice cream freezer. They mixed up the ice cream, put it in the central, metal part of the ice cream freezer. Then chipped up ice, and it went into the wooden bucket-like container, between the outer walls and the metal freezer. Salt made the ice get colder than 32 degrees F. A handle on the side was turned, and gears meshed to rotate the metal container.

When it got too hard to turn, the ice cream was ready. OH MY! If you ate too fast, it would make your head hurt!

About the time that Chan came along in 1946, electricity arrived at the Little House, and with it a refrigerator, that stored milk for bottles. The refrigerator replaced the icebox, and the icebox moved to the little storage room at the end of the chicken house, where it stayed, and finally, years later deteriorated beyond restoration. The refrigerator froze ice in trays, and we were never without ice. But for a long time after the refrigerator came along, the icebox terminology remained. The refrigerator was the new “icebox.”

(21) Miss Dee’s European Tour

by Dale | Nov 10, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

In 1925, Miss Dee toured Europe as a faculty member on a trip called the “Women’s Student Pilgrimage to Europe,” sponsored by the World Student Christian Federation, and the YWCA. Marion Vera Cuthbert was also a faculty member.

Miss Dee’s “box” contained a great deal more information about this trip, and plan to add much more to this Essay.

Stewardship

by Dale | Nov 9, 2020 | Laity Talks

First United Methodist Church, Tallassee

October 24, 1993

Thank you, Larry. It’s a privilege to share with you—for about eight minutes is what I think they told me I could have—about stewardship. I want to talk about the concept of stewardship. A few months ago, we decided to embark on a building ministry in this church. We decided it was appropriate for us to do a little work on our building, and always the concept of a building ministry is very exciting, and it’s always attractive to give to a building ministry. We want to talk about the building ministry now but in a slightly different intonation of the word. We want to talk about building ministry because what we are really here about is building ministry. After all, why build a church if we are not going to build ministry?

Rev. B. Gene Williams used to use a verse of scripture that goes like this. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He said that experts had told him that that is not a stewardship verse, but he used it for that purpose anyway; and I agree with him wholeheartedly. What we are here about is managing God’s resources. Managing those resources that He has entrusted to us. And that is very Biblical in its origin. Sometimes we think or even say that when the preacher starts preaching about money or about our relationship to material things, he’s quit preaching and gone to meddling. But if our religion doesn’t have something to do with our relationship to the material things of the world, then what in the world does it have to do with? After all, this is a theological concept—you don’t have to go very far in the Bible until you find Jesus telling the rich young ruler “sell all of your possessions and give to the poor”. And saying “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” You hear the parable about the man who tore down his barn to build a bigger barn and the word that came to him was “thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.” So, there is ample basis in Scripture to consider our relationship to the material things of the world. For after all, what profit is there if a man gains the whole world that but loses his soul? These are just a few verses that came to my mind as I was going over my remarks for today.

Several years ago, Bishop Hancock and I made stewardship speeches in every district in the Alabama-West Florida Conference. Of course, Bishop Hancock was the principal speaker. We were to share fifty-fifty, but after the first night, I knew that his fifty-fifty was going to eat up my fifty-fifty, and so I cut it down to about 10 or 12 minutes while we were talking. He told a story that I’m going to borrow from him. He said that he talked to this man one time about tithing, and the man said, you know, you’re talking about giving ten percent, but I can’t possibly…do you know how much money you are talking about? To which the Bishop responded, “I’m going to pray for you, and I’m going to pray that you become poor so that you are able to tithe.”

What does our church do for us? What does it do for the community? We’ll be looking at that a little further as we proceed through the evening, but for me personally, the church is a place and a time of renewal. It prepares me for the events of the week. And our ministry to ourselves is very important. The ministry of each congregation internally, what we do for each other in the name of Christ is extremely important. Our ministry to others is also very important. Having charged our batteries, so to speak, then we have our tasks in the world, and we all—each of us—has our own calling.

We are in the laity season; that is, the season of laity Sundays, and I’ve been away for the last three Sundays delivering the laity message in other churches in other congregations. And the message always is the same: We meet in church on Sunday morning so that we know how to be the Body of Christ in the world. And the work we do in the world is a very important part of our ministry. My work is to be a judge. In the last five years, I’ve dealt with at least seven different people who were charged with capital murder arising within a five-mile radius of this church. All of those, as far as I can tell, with perhaps one exception, all of them were related to drugs. Specifically, in all of them the deceased person was an informer for the police–a snitch, as the drug dealers call them. Now, the last time I went through a term of court in Dadeville, we didn’t have as many drug cases to deal with. I’ll let you figure out whether to worry about that or to be glad about it.

Our ministry in our community is very important. For every person that I send to the penitentiary, we will spend in tax dollars fifteen thousand dollars a year. There was an ad on television a few years ago that went something like this: it had this mechanic on, and he more or less said “pay me now or pay me later.” So, in a sense, we will either do our ministry here or pay later. We talk all the time about we ought to spend more money on education instead of on the penitentiary. We ought to spend more on the Christian religion and we ought to reach out to the entire community.

We have the opportunity in this country to exercise our freedom of religion, and I think that religion has a more important role to play in moral formation than the schools do. So, from my vantage point, it seems to me that stewardship—ministry in the community—ministry in the world—is extremely important. Our ministry is significant and it’s true that we probably don’t do enough. Stewardship is a big concept. It’s a theological concept. It’s a commitment of not just money but of time and talent, resources, services, to the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. It is our total response to God’s Grace. If God has been good to us and we have confidence in Him, then it is through our stewardship that we respond to God. When I made my rounds through the conference with Bishop Hancock, I always closed with a verse from one of my favorite hymns—When I Survey the Wondrous Cross—not the first verse, but the verse that follows:

Were the whole realm of nature mine/

that were an offering far too small/

love so amazing, so divine/

demands my soul, my life, my all.

This is what stewardship is about.

Stewardship is not just a matter of committing X-number of dollars to this church. It’s a matter of committing everything that we have to the Kingdom of God, including the support of this Church. Thank you.

(22) Talks

by Dale | Nov 9, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

Miss Dee was very active in the YWCA. She was very active in the work of women in the Methodist Church, and active in the Church everywhere she went. She was called on from time to time to give talks in these various capacities. We discussed earlier her presentation of the history of the LaPlace Methodist Church in 1934. But in her box, I found evidence of a good many other talks that she had made. She kept the notes. Often the notes were very sketchy, and she did not excel in penmanship! But to the extent that a couple of her talks can be reconstructed, they provide deep insight into the faith that guided her life and career.

Her tour of Europe in 1925 had inspired in her a great hope for the world. A few years after that tour she had the opportunity to refer to it in a talk. I am no able to identify the occasion for the talk. I believe that it occurred after the 1929 stock market crash, as the world was sinking into economic depression, and moving into ominous threat of war. The talk speaks best for itself:

We recognize as never before, says E. Herman in her Creative Prayer “that humanity is a circle which needs but to be touched at one point for a vibration to run through the whole.”

A few years after the first (illegible) War, the Christian Association of America (sic) conceived the idea of sending groups to Europe traveling from one country to another, meeting students, cementing friendships hoping thereby to help build bridges of fellowship and understanding across the great chasm of human relations made by the war.

I went with one such group in 1925. Our party consisted of students, professors and association secretaries from all over the country Maine to Washington St., Canada to the gulf.

We visited several countries including Germany, of course, and everywhere were received cordially, sometimes gratefully. Finally we arrived for a cosmopolitan conference in Gex, France. I shall not go into the story of the conference. We ate together, played together, talked together, worshiped together. There were many rich experiences but I shall share with you only one.

It was the Sabbath. Still and beautiful the little town nestled at the foot of the towering Jural Mt (sic) with the clear shining waters of Lake Leman lapping at its feet. We met in the little chapel of the Catholic orphanage. Artistic hands had made the place beautiful with vines and wild flowers brought from the nearby mountains.

A student from New Zealand was our leader; a German was at the organ; the scripture, I Cor. 12 (which you have just heard) were read in the three languages of the Conf. French, German, English. The hymns sung were written in both German and English. One could take his choice. An American Negro girl who had come with our party led us in a great prayer for interracial, international brotherhood. The Russians came into the chancel and gave in Russian a portion of the ritual of the Great Eastern Orthodox Church. It was then after the singing of a congregational hymn that we had the message based on the scripture brought to us by a French Girl, a German, and a Scotchman. I shall always remember Donald Grant’s (sp?) message that morning.

Humanity, he said, is one a (sic) social organism. Just as the analogy of the body and each member has something to contribute, so each race, each nation has its gift to bring to the cultural religious whole. We dare not for our own hurt prevent any group from laying its gift on the altar of humanity.

Furthermore, to be brief, just as no part of the body can suffer not even the little finger so no race , no tribe, no nation can be in want, in suffering of any kind and every group not feel the vibrations of that suffering in its own being.

It was then our leader called upon us to join in the Lord’s prayer each in his own tongue—Hungarian, French, Austrian, Polish, Australian, American. All the varied accents were there.

Our Father we prayed

The Kingdom come

Thy will (not England’s America’s Germany’s)

Thy will be done

Give us this day bread (and throughout Europe little children, men and women were holdup (sic) pleading hands for bread

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive

What a prayer. Germans were sitting next to Eng and French, remember.

Shall we join in that prayer?

I have copied this talk that was written in Miss Dee’s own—not so great—handwriting. I have respected her deletions and additions, and even some things that appear to be the kind of writing errors that I might make. Regardless of where and why it was delivered, it was a powerful and courageous message! She still harbored hopes that catastrophic war could be avoided by the earnest effort of Religion.

But that was not to be.

22) Water and Wells

by Dale | Nov 8, 2020 | The Little House

When I was born, we did not even have a well, let alone indoor plumbing. Before the well was dug, we had to get water the best we could. Sometimes we got it from the branch, in buckets. But usually we would get it from Uncle Earl’s. He had a well as far back as I remember. You had to draw the water from the well with a bucket and rope. The rope went over a Whirl, and from there into the well, so that you could pull down—not up—to “draw” water from the well. They made special “well buckets in those days. It was a sort of tall, skinny bucket. The bail was twisted in a loop at its apex, so you could tie the rope on there, and the rope would stay in the middle rather than sliding from side to side and spilling the water as you drew the bucket from the well. The tall skinny bucket was not inclined to float when you lowered it to the water, it would turn over on its side so that the water would run in, and when it filled and went under, you were ready to draw it out.

At one point in time Uncle Earl had a windlass on his well. Somehow, in the local vernacular, windlass got converted to wi’less. Of course, nobody had to spell that word, so I don’t know how the abbreviated word should be spelled! Totin’ (another well-known country word) the water from Uncle Earl’s well could be quite a chore. It was about a quarter of a mile from Uncle Earl’s well to the Little House, and a two-gallon bucket of water probably weighed 15 pounds. Needless to say, a wash tub, or five-gallon bucket full weighed a lot more than that. By the way, water buckets were also an identified product. It was not just a bucket—it was a water bucket, and was usually enamel. But I’m digressing, and I’ll have discuss the water bucket and dipper in another essay. I was talking about getting the water from Uncle Earl’s well to the little house. Daddy improvised. He built a sled with runners on each side made out of two by sixes. The 2X6’s stood upright, and boards were nailed across them. Only the two-inch sides of the 2×6’s touched the ground. Daddy’s mule was named Pete, and he stayed at Uncle Earl’s barn at night with Uncle Earl’s mule Molly. But Pete could be hitched to the sled, and drag it around the road to the Little House. And I didn’t mention the milk cans. Daddy had driven the milk truck, so we had milk cans that held about five gallons. They had lids, and were very nice for hauling water! And some where I will need to mention syrup buckets, and we used them for water sometimes. They didn’t hold but a gallon and a little fellow like me could carry one of them!

But the time came when we had our own well. I must have been three or four years old when Daddy got it dug. There was a Black man named Buck Tolbert in our community who dug wells. He also drove the school bus for Black children who attended the segregated Black school. But again, I am digressing and that will require another essay! Buck Tolbert dug our well. He used short handled picks and shovels. The well was about three or four feet in diameter, and after he had dug down four or five feet, there was an improvised wi’less that served multiple purposed. You understand, of course, that a wi’less had what I learned in physics to be a “mechanical advantage.” Less strength was required to lift stuff out of the well with it. So the wi’less was used to get Buck Tolbert into and out of the well! And while he was digging, a helper used the wi’less to pull five-gallon buckets of earth from the bottom of the well to the surface. Buck Tolbert had to dig down about twenty five or thirty feet before he found water, and then had to keep digging in the mud to assure a plenteous supply.

The well digger was protected from cave ins. The well curbs—concrete cylinders about three feet in diameter slid down into the well as he dug. There are no doubt a lot of details that I don’t remember (not to mention some that my imagination from the memory of an event that occurred seventy-five years ago) but that is the basic story of the well digging. I want even mention the fact that the five-gallon bucket came loose while Buck Tolbert was at the bottom of the well, but miraculously, he was not injured!

(23) Miss Dee at Boston University

by Dale | Nov 8, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

Miss Dee enrolled in the Boston University School of Religious Education in the fall of 1928. She was enrolled as a graduate student as a candidate for the MRE degree. The box contains records only for 1928-1929. It included a photo depicting a “group of girls at School of Religious Education Boston.”

Miss Dee usually identified herself in photos with an “x”. Although her grades at Boston University were excellent, She did not complete the degree but moved on to Lubbock Texas in 1930 to teach at Texas Tech. These are her grades for the fall of 1928:

She continued to do well in the Spring Semester in 1929, but this report card shows a Nashville address. Apparently she had made arrangements to move on:

Of course there was a tremendous downturn in the economy in 1929, but we can only speculate as to whether that caused her departure from Boston University without a degree.

The Calling of a Layperson

by Dale | Nov 8, 2020 | Laity Talks

I approach the topic of today’s talk with “fear and trembling” to use Kierkegard’s application of St. Paul’s phrase. The topic is “the calling of a layperson.” We are all a bit reluctant to assign to God the reasons for our behavior, and with good cause. We are careful always to present ourselves in the best light, and to say that we are doing something because God called us to do it can threaten the image that we want to project in a number of ways. Instinctively, we know that others, particular persons who don’t know us well, will be very skeptical of such a claim. We tend to identify persons who claim that kind of relationship with God with the fringe element. If someone goes so far as to say that the voice of God told them to do something, he or she is a candidate for institutionalization. It is not just the amorphous “they” who say these things–it’s us! We who profess to be Christians are just as skeptical of claimed calls from God as everyone else. Yet nothing could be more important to us than to know that we are doing what God wants us to do. So how do we discern God’s will in and for our lives?

I trust that you will understand my fear and trembling as I approach this topic–especially since the only real way to delve into the matter is by telling you about my personal experience. Now before you start calling in witnesses as to my mental infirmity, let me assure you that all my still small voices, all my voices from a whirlwind, all my burning bushes, all my visitations from angels have been metaphorical only! I think that in the Old Testament, there was even a dumb ass that rebuked Balaam. Given the nature of my work as a judge, I’m not at all sure that I have missed out on that completely. But before I launch into specifics, let me make a bit of a philosophical point.

When we look to the past, everything seems to be clear enough. We can see, at least in most events, why things occurred as they did. Even in tragedies that cause us to question the ultimate victory of good over evil, we can usually understand causation in some sense. Even as we ask why it was necessary that a good person die or suffer, we can usually understand the physical cause for the suffering. If we can’t explain things, we believe that the explanation is there and we just haven’t figured it out yet. We can explain, or at least rationalize, things that have occurred in the past. Not so with the future. Our vision for the future is as uncertain as the weather forecast. Most of the time, we can’t get it right even one day in advance, let alone for a month or a year or a century. There are too many variables. The future always appears chaotic.

Yet the call of God is the call of the future. More specifically, it is the call of the present–the eternal now as Paul Tillich called it. It is the call to engage the future in the present moment in the meaningful, creative way that is prescribed by God.

Well, I guess that I have beat around the burning bush for as long as I can. Let me be specific. At the first of this month, I attended the first meeting of the Connectional Process Team in Chicago. The Connectional Process Team is a group of 38 persons chosen by the General Conference of our Church to strategize for carrying out the church’s mission in the future. Our work could affect the very structure of the denomination. For me, it is strange that I find myself in this position. Is this work a calling?

Next Thursday, I will chair a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Huntingdon College. If anyone had told Coach Posey and me thirty-six years ago when he recruited me to Huntingdon after finding me out in Shorter in a peach orchard that I would someday be the Chairman of the Board, we would have both laughed. Am I called by God to do this job?

I serve on the Episcopacy Committee for the Southeast Jurisdiction, and will chair a task force that will deal with rules and ethical standards governing the election of Bishops. In the past, I served as Conference Layleader of our conference from 1985-1990, and I currently serve as Lay Leader of the Montgomery District. I’ve written a book, entitled Conscience and Command, in which I attempt to deal with the complex interface between law and faith. I have served the Church in lots of other capacities, at Local Church, District, Annual Conference, Jurisdictional and General Church Levels. It is not necessary for me to bore you further with the details in order to present the question.

How can I be sure that any of this is the will of God, as opposed to my own ego and pride? By the way, I don’t work for the Church full-time–I am very much a full-time Circuit Judge. I tried jury cases last week and will try jury cases next week. At this time, I am riding herd over 12-15 Capital murder trials which I hope to complete within the next year.

I feel an intense call to judicial education. In November, a group of approximately 40 judges will gather at Tuskegee University to study the impact of black history and literature on law. Why? O. J. and Rodney King did not create the racial divide that exists in this country, but their cases certainly evidence that division. The implications for the legal system is ominous. I have spearheaded the effort to have judges explore the differences by studying the available literature. What we believe impacts on our behavior. Faith–beliefs–are recognized through fruits–behavior. I believe that for every lay person, the most important calling of all is our vocation. This is where the paddle hits the water. If the Christian Religion is going to continue to be relevant to the world, it must take to the highways and byways. It must pursue us in our daily tasks, and impact on our day to day activities. It has been in church for too long.

So how did I come to experience my call to these activities? It would be possible to suggest very plausible and rational explanations for all these activities, by looking to the past, but that would be a mistake. It is precisely because of the unlikelihood of the various turns that my life has taken that I feel comfortable in the knowledge that I am responding to the call of God. I suspect that it is only that faith–that belief–that provides the strength and energy for the response. The rational explanation would say that I was born into the Methodist Church, attended a Methodist College, attended law school, maintained a strong interest in the church, and wound up in the present positions. But that is much much too simple. The real reasons are much more complex, and cannot be reduced to principles. They happened in very precise ways.

If Coach Neal Posey had not found me in that peach orchard, I never would have attended Huntingdon. Of course there were many other things that pointed me in that direction. I am convinced, that if Moses had gone around the other side of the mountain, there would have been a burning bush around there. Strangely, I suspect that if George Wallace had not visited Huntingdon in 1963, just when lots of things were happening in my home county of Macon, I would have ended up in medicine rather than law. If T.B. Hill had not left a note on the bulletin board concerning a job opening in Montgomery, my life may have taken a different course. I felt a strong call to remain close to home, and an intense interest in the social order of things and the role of religion in it all. If, if, if.

After I had practiced for a few years, with more and more activity in Macon County, Eddie Mallard, the black circuit clerk in Macon County suggested that I run for Circuit Judge. What a strange call! Then after being elected, and serving for two or three years, there was a letter from Huey Emfinger, from Red Bay Florida, whom I did not know, telling me that my name had been suggested as Conference Lay Leader, and asking for information. I’ve learned since that often there are folks who seek that office, but strangely, I was selected although I had no real prior experience suggesting that I should be selected. I could go on and on with similar narratives of the strange events that have directed my steps to the place where I now find myself. The Connectional Process Team is a particularly strange occurrence. After a couple of days at General Conference, I was a bit down-hearted about the goings- on. By phone, I told Betty that I felt I had to try to do something about it. Donde Ashmos from Texas and I were on the same legislative committee. We visited, and discovered a certain amount of mutual concern. One morning, she pointed out the possibility of the creation of the Connectional Process Team, and suggested that we should try to get on Connectional Process Team, since it would be dealing with some of our concerns. I mentioned it to Bishop Morris and a couple of other folks, and it happened. The interesting thing is that it happened after I had made a commitment to the need, not having any idea how I could serve.

Events that have surrounded my elections to General and Jurisdictional Conferences have been strange. In one instance, I gave up my nomination from the District to allow another person to serve, only to learn that one of the other nominees would not be able to serve, so I was elected anyway. At the Jurisdictional Conference that year, I had a great deal to do with bringing Bishop Morris to this conference.

I wrote an article for the Alabama Lawyer describing the judicial education project at Tuskegee University that I mentioned a moment ago. A judge who chairs the education committee of the Judicial Section of the American Bar Association read the article and invited me to submit a proposal to his committee for inclusion in the Annual Meeting of the Section next August. In his letter, he mentioned Judge Deannel Tacha, who serves on the 10th Federal Circuit Court Court of Appeals, and who is immediate past Chair of the Judicial Division. In the same mail, I received the final listing of the membership of the Connectional Process Team, and Judge Tacha was one of the members! I had the opportunity to visit with her at the meeting in Chicago. I believe there’s a still small voice in that story somewhere, and I’m listening with great interest.

But still, how do I know that all this is the will of God? Last week as I was on my way to court in Lafayette. As always, I drove from Tallassee, across the Saugahatchee Creek, whose long valley cuts far into the piedmont area that embraces most of my circuit. The ridges are in rows like dominoes, and fog envelopes the valleys. Often I see deer, and turkeys, but on this particular morning it was a squirrel that caught my eye. He scampered accross the road in front of me, carrying a pecan. He made it across, and I’ll probably never see him again. He experienced what he was trying to do very directly. He was trying to get across the road with that pecan. I’m not quite as direct in my purposes. I reflect on the meaning of my activities, and he probably doesn’t reflect on his. But the first thing that occurs to me in my reflections is that the squirrel is just as close as I am to the infinite magnificent God who created us both. The only real difference is probably my awareness of the distance between us and the God of the sparrows and lilies and the hairs of our heads. But despite the infinite distance between us and that God, I am sure that God is both there and here. And once you get to that certainty, everything else is neither here nor there. To act, act in the living present, as Longfellow suggested, is all that we can do.

I believe that it is not in the easy, rational explanations of our activities that we find our way to God. It is in the strangeness, the mystery of the circumstances, carefully considered, that we realize that our call could have come from no other source than God. And only armed with that conviction can we really act out the assigned role. The witness within is the Holy Spirit–the Comforter sent by God’s only Son. This is the way of discernment. Every day, in a thousand small and strange ways, the Grace of God reassures us that we are on the right course. That is, provided that we are on the right course. If we are not, we receive reminders of that also.

Even as we sit here, radio waves and television images surround us. But they are not decoded, and we do not receive them. Naturally we do not think about them often. An old country gospel song says “turn your radio on, and listen to the music in the air, turn your radio on, heaven’s glory share.” Jesus often said “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” The reason we don’t hear the still small voices, the voice of God saying “whom shall I send, and who will go for me,” or the voices from whirlwinds, saying “where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth–when the morning stars sang together,” or the voice from heaven saying of Jesus, “this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased,” or the voice of Jesus himself saying “go make of all disciples,” or even the occasional well deserved rebuke from a dumb ass, is because we are not tuned in. The circumstances surrounding the call evidence its authenticity as unerringly as the creation itself testifies to the existence of the Creator. The voice of God thunders all around us but we lack ears to hear.

Thank you for indulging me these moments to share my innermost convictions with you. I hope that in some way they will be helpful to you in your faith journey

23) The Oak at Uncle Earl’s House

by Dale | Nov 7, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

One of my favorite places at uncle Earl’s house was the Oak tree. It was no ordinary oak tree. It was huge, even in the nineteen forties when I was very small. Writing this in 2021, it seems almost dreamlike, those days of tree climbing, over seventy years ago. The tree had two fairly low limbs that grew out southward, toward the house. They had growth together to form a nice sized platform, about eight feet above the ground. It was a perfect nature made treehouse!

The tree is located at the end of what is now named Segrest Lane, and marked the place where, coming from the “big road,” we turned right to go to the Little House where I was born.

The picture shown above was taken southeast of the tree, so Segrest Lane is to the right, and the lane to the Little House is to the left. The “natural” tree house is on this side of the tree.

The tree has a story. The story is that it grew from a sprout on a stump. The tree that preceded it had been cut down, but, as often happens, grew sprouts from buds. My great-grandfather removed all the sprouts but one—and that one is now the tree! And quite a tree it became.

Here is Uncle Earl and the tree. The “tree house” is composed of the limbs to the right. At one time it was considered the largest black oak tree in Alabama!

Uncle Earl sold many watermelons (and other vegetables) from beneath this tree. Thousands of watermelons enjoyed its shade!

(24) Teaching at Texas Tech

by Dale | Nov 7, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

The 1960 Kathrine Tyson article mentioned that Miss Dee taught at Texas Tech for 4 YEARS. When I found that article in Miss Dee’s Box, it was the first I ever knew of her teaching at Texas Tech. The Box had little additional content about Miss Dee’s years at Texas Tech. There were two pre-Christmas front pages from orders of worship at the First Methodist Church of Lubbock. The pastor in those years was J. O. Haymes. I found in the box an undated letter from a family with whom Miss Dee apparently became acquainted in Lubbock that was obviously written many years later. It mentioned that Pastor Haymes had retired and moved to Lubbock. It also mentioned Miss Dee’s “little home” so she may have been back in Shorter when she got that letter.

24) Wood Cutting

by Dale | Nov 6, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

The only heat we had at the Little House was a single fireplace in the front room. Daddy usually cut the wood for the fireplace with an ax. Often, he would bring long trunks of trees to the yard in a “woodpile,” and would cut them into firewood length with his ax. He laid the trunks across a “chop block” to hold them in place. The chop block was a fairly large piece of oak or hickory. Chopping wood produced “chips,” and it was my job to gather the chips in a bucket. They were useful in getting the fire started. They went just above the paper and kindling, in the fireplace and then came the firewood that Daddy had cut. When Daddy cut trees for firewood, it was usually oak or hickory. But we also got other kinds wood from time to time. I remember “slabs” from some sawmill, and I remember cutting up pine tops after timber had been harvested. “Lightwood”—very flammable wood from pine stumps—was plentiful, and that is what we used to start fires. Daddy would painstakingly split it into “splinters”—very small pieces, using his ax and the “chop block.” He used only one hand on the ax, about halfway down the handle (like “choking” a baseball bat) and hold the lightwood with the left hand and split the “kindling.”

I remember at least once getting to go with Daddy and a whole bunch of men into the swamp for a wood cutting. They used cross-cut saws, axes, and wedges. They used an interesting device for rolling large logs. The log rolling tool is still available:

There were mules and wagons. A fascinating project for a five or six year old!

(25) Miss Dee’s Writing

by Dale | Nov 6, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

While she was teaching at Texas Tech and afterwards, Miss Dee wrote books for Bible study by Methodist women. I have three of them, but believe that she wrote two more. A number of articles that she wrote over the years were published in various places. I have additional material, and will expand this essay in the future. I would appreciate any knowledge that anyone can share concerning her writing.

(26) An Interim return to Shorter to Teach?

by Dale | Nov 5, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

There is a bit of a hiatus in my chronology of Miss Dee’s Career in the mid 1930’s. She taught at Texas Tech for four years after leaving Boston University. She was back in Oklahoma in 1939, but I am not certain what all she was doing there. She took a course, but I am not sure that she was teaching. Then in the early 1940’s—the war years—there is evidence that she was doing things at Emory University and Gammon Theologicl Seminary, but I have not completed my investigation of these clues. She returned to Shorter on her final mission in about 1945.

I have only three clues about what she may have been doing in the mid-thirties. One is that was in Shorter in 1935, and made a talk at the La Place Methodist Church when it celebrated its centennial in 1934. Then in 1936, she dedicated one of her books for Methodist Women to her cousin, Mamie Pinkston Lightfoot. She always stayed with that cousin and her husband, Dr. P. M. Lightfoot on her returns to Shorter. Standing alone, these two incidents would make no real suggestion; she may have just been visiting. But in 1936, she took a course from Alabama Polytechnic Institute—now Auburn University—that qualified her to teach in Alabama. Actually, the course was taught in Tuskegee, through Auburns extension service.

The new school building for the public school for whites in Shorter was built in 1938, at the location where the old school had been. My Dad would have been driving a school bus to the old school, and that is where he met my Mom. Oh, how I wish I had begun this project many years ago, so that the information about Miss Dee in the mid-thirties would have been readily available! I think maybe that at the heart of the depression she came back and taught at Shorter.

25) Wade Goes Visiting

by Dale | Nov 5, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

My older brother, Wade, was born in 1938. Before his birth, the B & SE Railroad crossed the 80 acre tract on which the Little house was built, about a quarter of a mile below south of the Little house, next to Calebee Swamp. The railroad had been closed and rails removed in 1936, but the right of way, with cross ties was still very open.

In 1940, Uncle R. V. and Aunt Ruby lived over on the road that ran through the swamp. We called Uncle R. V. “Uncle Snap.” Mama and Daddy had no means of transportation other than walking at that time, and Wade was two years old. The shortest way to get from the Little House to Uncle R. V.’s house was to walk the quarter mile from the Little House to the old railroad right of way, and then west on the right of way to the road where Uncle Snap lived. The total distance was probably a mile and a half or two miles. Mama and Daddy and Wade had made that walking trip several times.

Wade had a cat. One day, Wade and the cat decided to visit Uncle Snap! So, Wade, age 2 made the trip, walking alone, with most of the journey adjacent to the swamp! The cat accompanied him. Uncle R. V. or someone there saw Wade coming from a distance, and sent his son, Ralph, running to find Mama and Daddy. Both of them thought Wade was with the other. All ended well, and Wade and the Cat made it back home safely.

When I think about the story, even now, it gives me chills.

(27) Emory University and Gammon Theological Seminary

by Dale | Nov 4, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

Miss Dee took a course in pastoral psychology at Emory University in 1943. There may be evidence that she was teaching there. There also may be evidence that she taught at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta. I am still investigating these possibilities, and will appreciate any information that anyone can provide.

26) Mules

by Dale | Nov 4, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

The Encyclopedia of Alabama, which can be found on the internet, reports that, “By 1930, when the mule population peaked, mules outnumbered horses 332,000 to 65,000. In monetary terms, Alabama mules were valued in 1930 at $32.4 million, or about $97.00 per animal, whereas horses in the state were valued at only $4.3 million, or about $66.00 per animal.” By the time I was born, Alabama’s mule population was diminishing, but almost every farm in our community had one or more. Daddy’s mule was named Pete, and Uncle Earl’s mule was Molly, and the stayed together at Uncle Earl’s barn, or in the pasture. Uncle Earl had owned Jack and Rody before my time.

Mr. Frank Pierce owned Dan and Queen. Queen was the skinniest mule I ever saw. Her vertebrae protruded a lot, and her ribs were very visible. I don’t know how old she was, but she was probably ancient. Uncle R.V. owned Pet and Emma. The bus driver, Mr. Frank’s brother, Mr. Mortie Pierce, owned Minnie. There were lots of other mules. They were the power of the rural farming tradition in Alabama. They were, for the most part, very gentle docile creatures.

I remember the harnesses, the bridles, single trees, the way they hitched to the plows, the way they hitched to the wagons.

But times were changing. In the late forties, Daddy and Uncle Earl bought a Super A Farmall Tractor. Daddy sold Pete to a Black man named Henry McClaney, much to his regret. Pete starved to death. In time to come, Henry McClaney killed three of the women who lived with him. I think he was a mental case, but Daddy had no idea how things would turn out.

Just think about 332,000 mules in Alabama in 1930. A way of life. Loving relationships. But each of them came to the last end of the last row.

(28) Miss Dee’s Final Mission

by Dale | Nov 3, 2020 | Mary Christine DeBardeleben, Uncategorized

Finally, after a stellar career as a pioneer in women’s rights and progressive rights for Blacks, Miss Dee returned to the public school at Shorter to teach.

27) Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida

by Dale | Nov 3, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

During the entire time that I lived in the Little House, Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie lived in an even smaller two room shack that was bout one hundred yards behind Uncle Earl’s house. They were brother and sister or Grandma Segrest. There father was the Reverend J. E. D. Braswell, a Civil War veteran, and a Methodist Circuit Rider. Aunt Ida had been married, but her husband, Charlie Wynn had died. Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie were very old, although they were about the as old as I am while writing this account and creating a website! But in those days, families cared for the elderly. So, Grandma’s family was taking care of them. What is now evolved into the Alabama Department of Human Resources was known then as the Welfare Department. Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie were “on welfare” and received a very small monthly pension. Neither was eligible for the then recently invented Social Security, as best I remember.

One of the family concerns was how they would pay for a funeral for Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie when that time came. So, they “took out” a burial policy. I think the company was called “Brown’s Service.” Burial policies were popular back then; a part of the way of life. All of Daddy’s family contributed a few cents every month, and the “policy-man,” who was Foy Thompson, I think, came around every month for the payment. It must have worked. They got buried.

Uncle Willie was a bit of a preacher himself. But his health was not good. He had suffered with a hernia since childhood. He explained that he got caught between a wagon and a gate post while the family was living at Oaky Streak in Butler County, and that caused the hernia. But he loved the Bible. His eyesight was so bad that he could no longer read. After Wade learned to read, one of his daily chores was to go and read the Bible for Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida. He would also read the funny papers for them. They loved “Little Orphan Annie” with her dog, Sandy, her benefactors, Daddy Warbucks, Punjab, etc.

There was no running water and no well at the house where Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida lived. Taking them water in a bucket from Uncle Earl’s well was a daily chore. And, of course it had to be drawn from Uncle Earl’s well.

They were regular customers of the rolling store. Often someone had to make their purchases for them. Uncle Willie’s shopping list always included Brown’s Mule Chewing Tobacco, and Dr. Hitchcock’s laxative. It came in a yellow can. Aunt Ida dipped snuff, and I think she preferred Bruton. It came in a neat little glass jar.

28) Baling Peanut Hay

by Dale | Nov 2, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

One of the more memorable events of my early childhood at the Little House has to do with baling peanut hay. Uncle Jody owned and was still living in the house that Daddy and Mamma eventually bought up on the “big road.” Across the big road and southwest of his house was a big field, maybe sixteen or eighteen acres. He planted peanuts there.

When time came to harvest the peanuts, the plants—vines— were pulled from the ground, with the peanuts still attached to the roots. They were then “stacked,” using poles that were upright, with a couple of cross pieces nailed at right angles across the bottom. The peanut plants were placed on the stack, roots and peanuts outward. There the peanuts and the plants dried. After the peanuts dried, they were picked off, and that was the main harvest. But the vines made pretty good hay. Now I may have some of that wrong, you understand. They may have harvested the peanuts, and then stacked the hay.

In those days, the hay baler didn’t run around the field making hay. The baler was placed in the middle of the field. I don’t remember exactly how it was powered—maybe a power take off from a tractor. The vines were manually brought from the stacks to baler, and stuffed into the baler. I think that there was a lot of manual labor in the process of tying the baling wire, etc., but I was only four years old, and was excited to be involved. The square bales, about three or four feed long, and maybe fifteen inches on each side, came out of the end of the baler.

Several men were involved in the process. Some were getting the vines from the stacks, some running the baler, some feeding it into the baler with pitchforks, and some stacking the hay. I don’t remember if they were actually picking the peanuts off the vine at that time or not. I don’t remember who the men were, with one notable exception. Twig Ray was there. Everything went well for me, until I had a call of nature. Since we didn’t have a bathroom at that house, and I was accustomed to going “out of doors,” as the expression went, that was no particular problem. The only problem was choosing the location. Behind the hay stack seemed ideal, and seemed to work well. Seemed to. But then Twig Ray accidentally discovered the site. REALLY accidentally. His words, “Who S— where I was going to step!” are indelibly etched into my memory!

Memorable indeed. Mortifying!

29) Purchasing the Land

by Dale | Nov 2, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

In 1936, Daddy bought the one hundred sixty acres that included the spot where the Little house would be built. Later in 1936, he and his siblings built the Little House. That is also the year that Daddy and Mama were married. While building the Little House, they lived in the little two room house where Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida would be living after I was born. The one hundred sixty acres also included the place that I am calling “Uncle Earl’s place. Uncle Earl’s place was a place where their family had lived in the past, but I do not know the history of its ownership before Daddy bought it, other than that he bought it from the bank of Tallassee, in the heart of the depression.

Interesting thoughts occurred to me while writing this essay. Nineteen thirty-six was also the year that the B&SE Railroad that went across the one hundred sixty-acre place was taken up. Roberts Blount was one of the owners of that Railroad, and he was also president of the Bank of Tallassee. Daddy did not deal with Roberts Blount, but that does not exclude the possibility of a connection. The bank had probably been involved in financing the property, and owned it as result of foreclosure.

The one hundred sixty acres was a traditional quarter section of land. Daddy sold the east half of the section to Uncle Earl. The old residence where Grandma and Uncle Earl lived was on that Eighty acre tract, as was the two room house where Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida lived.

In those days there were names for the fields. The field between the Little house and the old railroad bed was “Eleven Acre.” In our southernese, that was pronounced “lemacre.” The filed across the railroad and next to Calebee Swamp was “cross the track.” On the east eighty that Daddy sold to Uncle Earl, there was, south to north, “salt bottom,” “hickory cut,” and “the level.” There may have been other names that I don’t remember.

An interesting bit of history of the place is that an old stage coach road traversed the place from east to west. It crossed Eleven Acre, on Daddy’s eighty, and was between salt bottom and hickory cut on Uncle Earl’s eighty. Although it had left very defined right of way evidence of usage, and was extremely hardpacked, I know of no written history of that stage coach road. Knowledge of it seems to be totally oral, and came through the family. They knew that it was a stage coach road. I strongly suspect that it was one of the many manifestations of the Old Federal Road, which is recognized as such on the south side of Calebee Swamp, at the approximate location of US Highway 80.

Of course, all of this area was a part of the Creek Indian Territory, and was not vacated by the Indians until the 1830’s. We frequently found arrowheads in the fields. I remember a lot of them turning up in Eleven Acre, near the old stage coach road.

30) Picking Cotton

by Dale | Nov 1, 2020 | The Little House, Uncategorized

Daddy and Uncle Earl farmed cotton and corn. They also raised gardens for food. The corn was mainly for food for the mules and cows. Cotton was the main cash crop. There were lots of tenant farmers in Macon County, but not in our part of the county. A finger of blackbelt soil extends into Macon County, and there was a lot of tenant farming there. Over the years I have learned that a “one horse tenant farm” was generally considered to by 7 acres of cotton and 14 acres of corn. A tenant farmer and his family could manage that much.

Daddy and Uncle Earl were not tenant farmers, but they both managed about what a tenant farmer would have managed. They worked together, so the total amount may have been the equivalent of two tenant farms, during my early years. Later on, in the fifties, they farmed separately, although they shared the Super A Farmall tractor for a while.

My earliest recollections of picking Cotton go back to the mid-forties. I remember picking cotton on Uncle Earl’s place, on the field called “the level.” Everyone was involved. At four or five years of age, I probably spent as much time laying in the mule drawn wagon, looking at the cumulus clouds in the September skies as I did picking cotton! Those were non-stressed, comfortable days for me. I was still sorting out the things that I saw, or imagined. In the sky, I could make out all kinds of shapes and forms in the late summer clouds. But there is something else that I remember. Crooked, silvery objects, that moved through the sky. Uncle Earl said they were “crooked ladies.” I think they were actually some kind of sediment on the surface of my eyes, but they were fascinating, and I remember those days with nostalgia.

I had a “cotton sack” to pick cotton in, just like the grownups. Mama made my sack out a the cloth sack that 25 pounds of flour came in. Near the top one side of the sack, they put two small rocks, and folded the cloth over them, and then tied the cloth around the rocks with strings. The other ends of the two strings were tied to a cloth band. The band went over my left shoulder, and the sack on my right side. I don’t remember if I ever got a sack full!

My other job was packing the cotton in the sacks of the grownups. They put me in the top of the sack, and I packed the cotton with my feet! When the cotton sacks got full, they would be emptied onto a “sheet.” The sheets were composed of four fertilizer sacks, that had been “ripped” (seams removed on three sides) so that they were approximately square pieces of cloth, about 3 or four feet square. Four of them were sewn together to make a sheet, about six or eight feet square. After a big pile of cotton had been dumped on the sheets, the opposite corners of the sheets were tied together, and then the sheet could be hung on the steelyard scales to be weighed. A sack held 40 or 50 pounds; a sheet a couple of hundred, as best I remember.

Here’s a picture of what was identified on the internet as “antique” steelyards:

The long shaft was called the steelyard, or balance. The top hook went over a tree limb or some kind of scaffold. The sheet hung on the bottom hook, which is actually to the left of the top hook in this picture. There were two balance weights that were called “pees”; a “big pee” and a “little pee.” Both were used for weighing the cotton at the same time. The long end of the steelyards was calibrated with numbers to give the balance weight.

Daddy’s last cotton crop was in 1954, after we had left the Little House. I was twelve years old. Uncle Buddy, Daddy’s brother, who was in his mid-fifties, challenged me to a cotton-picking contest. I picked 210 pounds that day, and that was a lot. Many grownups could not pick that much. But Uncle Buddy picked 211! Black women who sometimes worked with us were very good at picking cotton. Lola Story and Eugenia “Pie” Menefee sometimes picked four hundred pounds or more in a day. I remember at one point in time, the going wages for picking cotton for hire was 2 cents per pound, so they could earn a whopping $8 per day! As best I recall, it took about 1500 pounds of “seed” cotton to make a five-hundred-pound bale at the gin. The seeds were two thirds the weight. They were valuable, and often paid the cost of ginning.

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