My great-grandfather was a follower, and he listened to Rev. Charles Jessup.
Papa went to visit Tennis in Florida; the last thing he said before he left was:
"We are going to Florida; if nothing happens, be sure to listen to my preacher, Charles Jessup.
" Papa died two days after arriving in Florida.
My grandmother's father and stepmother are buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Town Creek (they were probably Pentecostal, since they listened to Rev. Charles Jessup).
My grandmother said. "I have been baptized 3 times; the first time was in the creek beside Mt Zion Church of Christ (where the family went to church), at a Baptist Church, and at a Pentecostal Church."
I went to the Church of God in Sheffield with my grandmother (when I was a child)
My grandmother never drove a car, so she depended solely on others to take her to church. Mr. Ulman would come by on Sunday morning and Sunday night to pick up my grandmother and anyone else who wanted to go.
I remember one night riding home with Mr. Ulman. My cousin and I were riding in the front seat. My cousin was next to the door. The door must not have been closed completely. When we turned at the red light, the door flew open, and my cousin, leaning against it, fell out onto the street. We weren't going fast, so she got only a few bruises.
My grandmother watched religious programs on TV and read the Bible daily. In her later years, she could not see very well, but she knew the Bible inside out. My grandmother was a Godly woman and never talked badly about anyone. She led a simple life, never had much to give, but she shared what she had. She loved everyone.
My mother went to tent meetings with Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, and many others.
I don't remember her going to church until we moved to Florence. We went to Assembly of God on Spur St until my parents moved to Jacksonburg; then she would meet in people's homes for prayer meetings. She went to different churches, but I don't know where she went; my sons sometimes went to church with her. I was married when the family moved to Jacksonburg.
I remember going to a tent meeting with my grandmother and mother; I was very small.
There was a call to repent, and my mother went up front and joined the prayer line.
My grandmother stayed behind with me.
When the preacher placed his hand on her forehead, he said Be healed." She fell to the floor. I thought she was dead.
My dad would take my mother to these meetings, but he never went inside. I went a few times with her but never trusted those preachers.
I remember my mother was claiming the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues when we misbehaved or when she & dad would argue. She frightened me when she was in this state. She would also leave a large bible in our bedroom, pray over us, and tell us about the devil and how he would come after us if we misbehaved. I could never sleep alone after she finished preaching to us at night.
My great-grandmother Alice is buried at Mt Zion Church of Christ.
She was 31 when she died, when a cyst burst inside her womb. Old Doctor Stutts told her he could operate and remove the cyst, but she said no. Doctor Stutts methods were crude.
My grandmother's grandparents(both died at the age of 40) are buried at Piney Grove Church of Christ. John Thomas and Susan Tidwell Dennis.
Myrtle Tucker Aldridge was a school teacher in Fayette County, and she researched the Dennis, Tucker, Posey, and Tidwell families.
Grandmother Dennis (Rebecca Dennis) was a small, gentle woman with black hair and blue eyes, and she never weighed more than 100 pounds.
She visited the sick, helped lay out the dead, and sometimes rode miles on horseback to help others.
She also served as a midwife. She is buried in a family plot in Perry County.
We must remember that, far back, people were not as enlightened as they are now, and there was a lot of superstition.
The Thomas sisters tied silver dimes to their oxen's horns to ward off witches.
Granny told this: "When mammy was born, she had one convulsion after another.
The midwife in attendance told her mother that if the baby lived till sunrise, she might be able to do something about it.
When the sun came up, the old lady took the baby to the piazza (granny always called a porch a piazza), pulled her mouth open wide, and let the sunshine in it.
Mammy was free of convulsions the rest of her life except when a child was born.
So after that, she had 9 convulsions.
They also believed in signs, ghosts, things being sent on people, or judgment from God.
She died of cholera.
A young doctor, an understudy of an older doctor, was involved.
He gave her two doses of morphine.
The second dose lulled her into a sleep from which she never awoke.
Papa was 5 at the time.
Because of the grief of the family, especially that of his mother, and the noise of his grandmother struggling to breathe, the day she died was etched in his memory.
One of her great-granddaughters said. ' I can just see Aunt Em just humming as she crossed the fields with her song book under her arm. She sang out of the Old Books at Yates School House.
She sang from either Christian Harmony or the Sacred Harp Book, printed and sold by Collins& Co.
In 1844, B.F. White and some of his students compiled a small songbook known as the Sacred Harp. Written in four-shape notes, it was the first hymn or songbook in that style.
Christian Harmony was originally called Southern Harmony, written in 1835, revised in 1866, and still used today. These songs are a form of worship and give singers a spiritual lift.
Don't know much about my grandfather's family(on my mother's side), but I do remember that my grandfather (Buster) was afraid of the devil and Hell, and he told scary stories about bloody bones.
Church history of my dad's family
My dad's parents went to the Baptist Church later in life. I don't remember them going to church when I was growing up.
My dad went to a Catholic Elementary School in Sheffield. Never remember him going to church. He did join the church after he moved in with one of my sisters. (He was in his 90s).
Distant cousin of my grandfather Rumble
Henrietta Ellen Denyer married John Templement Coolidge Davis, and they started the Yonge Street Mission in Toronto, which still exists today.
The Mission started humbly enough with a "Gospel Wagon" which handed out food and clothing, then progressed to a rented storefront on Yonge Street. The founder was John Coolidge ('Hallelujah') Davis.
My grandfather's parents were gone by the time I was born never heard much about them going to church, but I am sure they did.
My grandmother's grandparents: Ennis & Pasmore Families
The schoolhouse served as a meeting place for the many religious faiths. They held church services in homes until then. The ministers traveled many miles, some by horse and buggy, others on horseback, from one community to another over trails that were rough and lonely.
A couple of years later, in 1910-1911, the church was built and dedicated as a Methodist Church in 1911.
Mr. John Fleming organized a choir. The Presbyterian congregation held services twice monthly. Their minister usually came in from Scott, a nearby village. The Methodist minister came from the Wilkie charge, as Phippen had no resident minister.
The first Sunday school was organized with Mr. Wesley Ennis as superintendent, who came with his family from Ontario(my grandmothers, grandfather)
Mrs. Martha Ennis was always an active worker in church affairs. Mrs. Ennis was one of the four on the first quarterly board of the Methodist Church in that district, when services were held in various farmhouses.
She also helped arrange the erection of the Methodist church building after the town of Wilkie was established, and was president of the Ladies' Aid at Phippen during the period she lived there.
In the spring of 1929, she came to Battleford with her husband and lived here until the spring of 1933, when they moved to North Battleford, where they have since resided.
A surprise and birthday party for Thomas Pasmore
On Thursday, August 22nd, about 3 O'clock in the afternoon, Thomas Pasmore, Esq .'s house was taken possession of by all his children and their respective families, about fifty in number. Some arrived by train and some by other conveyances. The nine children were present, with twenty-eight grandchildren, four sons-in-law, and two daughters-in-law, as well as Lieutenant Sullivan of the Salvation Army, Miss Nimock, teacher, and Burke W. Lambrecht of The Advertiser.
Tables were soon erected upon the lawn, and spread with the good things of this world, and surrounded by happy Company; they did ample justice to the good things set before them. After supper the grandfather arose and, in speech replete with sympathy and feeling, thanked God for the blessing of health and strength which he and his partner enjoyed, and hoped they would all survive to meet him on the "other side of the river."
The Company then sang "Shall we gather at the river," and Lieutenant Sullivan led in prayer. Mr. Lambrecht, on behalf of the children, presented Mr. Pasmore with a beautiful armchair and Mrs. Pasmore with a fine rocking chair, and read the address which appears below. Mr. Pasmore, in reply, thanked his children for their fine present, but said no gifts they could bestow on him would do him so much good as to see them all striving to make Heaven their home. About 9 P.M. this happy Company broke up, much pleased with the good time and the reunion gathering, which they had so much enjoyed. Mr. and Mrs. Pasmore are still hale and hearty and look as though they might yet enjoy many such birthday scenes. It is about half a century since he left old England, and over four decades have passed in Blenheim Township. A few years ago, Mr. Pasmore left his two valuable farms in charge of his sons and since resided in our village.
The following is the Address: Drumbo, August 222, 1890
Dear Father and Mother:
On this birthday, we thank God for sparing you thus far, and we gather to honor this day with a joyful reunion. We are thankful to have had a good mother to care for us in infancy and youth, and now, as old age sheds its blessing and honors on your head, we pray that you never forget the great debt of gratitude we owe you.
And Father, as this day specially reminds us that you have arrived at the end of the seventieth arch of the bridge of life, we desire to thank you for your loving care and Godly influence, and to recognize the duty we owe to you of helping you by deeds of love and kindness, over the remaining arches of the bridge.
As a token of our love, accept these presents. May their use bring you physical comfort, and pleasant memories in connection therewith bring mental comfort, and may God, who has been your guide in the past, still give spiritual comfort.
May we all live so that when the toils of life are past, we may, as an unbroken family, meet where we shall never grow old but shall possess the bloom of eternal youth in our Heavenly Father's Kingdom.
So you can see I was brought up among many different religious faiths, but with only one Heavenly Father.
Our lineage has brought us this far, but only belief in Jesus Christ can save us.
