GRANDMA SAID TO MARRY A PREACHER

Grandma Said to Marry a Preacher


“Bethy, if you want to be happy in this life, marry a minister.” At the age of 92, Grandma Flanagan was a beautiful woman. She was blind and bedridden, her long hair wound in a braid up on top of her head, a beatific smile always on her face. Her mind was as sharp as it had been on her graduation day from the Lucy Webb Hayes Deaconess School in Washington, D.C., in 1910. Yes, that was the same Lemonade Lucy known to the country as the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, the woman who refused to serve alcohol in the White House. She was a hero to my Grandmother.
I was devoted to Grandma and fiercely protective of her, especially when it came to my own inadequacies. I had to keep her from being disappointed in me. Marry a minister, sign the temperance pledge, take time for daily devotions, visit the homebound, tithe one’s money, and pursue education? I was a teenager, a wild free spirit, an adventurer who knew few bounds. Thankfully a love of learning and a yearning to spend time in spiritual discussions with Grandma kept us close. Her gnarled hand gliding across the quilt, reaching for mine, was a signal to sit down and hear a story.
“Yes, Beth, I married your grandfather when I was 39 years old and never intending to marry. He was a widower, a minister with six children, and I felt it was my calling to leave my work in the immigrant lumber and coal camps and join with him. My own father married us in his church at Rosby’s Rock. Someday I hope you can travel to that little town and see where the B&O Railroad tracks were joined on Christmas Eve, right in the middle of the Civil War. Now where was I? Ah, yes, your mother’s birth a year later was a gift from God, surely as much a miracle as Elizabeth giving birth to her son, John, who became John the Baptist. And now you are here with me.” She squeezed my hand. “It wasn’t long after I took on that role, that Reverend Flanagan was put in the TB Sanatarium up in Terra Alta. Yes, I had my hands full with the children and the church near Wheeling, but everyone helped. The church folks were my family. Of course, Grandpa was soon well enough and we were moved down to Salem, in Harrison County, where we were commissioned to help them build a new church building. But that’s a story I’ll keep for another day. I’d surely like to hear you sing a hymn right now. Could it be “How Great Thou Art” - you do that one so...robustly.”
Why is it, almost 40 years later, on a sunny winter’s day, hiking down a lane in the Blue Ridge Mountains, that my Grandmother’s words come back to me? “Bethy, if you want to be happy in this life, marry a minister.” I ponder my life of adventure, of love and divorce, of working many jobs, of relationships that have come and gone, and I realize what she meant by those words. Although she may have been literal in her intent, she knew as well as I, that ministers are simply human, with the same fallacies as each of us. I have known ministers as family members, as friends, as mentors. I spent a few months getting acquainted with Reverend Jim Bakker, much humbled as he left prison, Tammy Faye remarried, no money, and an indomitable spirit to write a book and get his life back on course. As a broken man, he was a true minister. And as I thought about Jim and others, I realized Grandmother was saying that to marry a life of ministry is the key. We are called to contribute, to care for others, to grow as a person, to learn to listen, to humble ourselves, to exalt in this gift of living. And to reach our sometimes bruised and gnarled hands out to others and tell them the story that never ends.

Mundaring Rotary Club Memories

Greetings to the Mundaring Rotarians - Western Australia,

How blessed I was to come and live among such fine Rotarians and their Rotary Anns, as they were known at that time, so long ago - 1975! The club was young then, but active and welcoming and dynamic. I was your first Exchange Student and couldn’t have wished for a more perfect fit than with the 28 men who each became my friend, my ‘uncle’, or even my father. I lived with 4 families over the course of that year and loved every one of them - the Chappells, the Trevillians, the Hills, and the Richmonds. Their homes were in Parkerville, Glen Forrest, and Chidlow. Our lives, my life, revolved around what was then the ‘small’ community of Mundaring and the trip ‘down the hill’ to Midland, where I attended Governor Sterling High School. Heather and Brian Hunt became my ‘counselors’ and dear friends. With the fear of forgetting names and leaving out special times with so many of the other fellows and their families, I must point out the generosity of several of the Rotarians who took me on family trips: The Lambs, The Marshalls, Henk Westoff and Pip Colburn. Someone from the club arranged for me to ride in a huge sheep carrying truck up to Moora, where the Rotary Club there took me to the ocean and fishing (see picture above!). The owner of MMA (the airlines at that time) was a Rotarian in Perth, who gave free flights to several of us exchange students around the state during that year, and I especially remember spending some time at Exmouth and Port Hedland. Frankly, I had more adventures than I did ‘schooling’ – and the better education for it, I do believe! I was lucky to cross the Nullabor by car (before it was completely paved) with Doug Hill and his son, Geoff (in picture above). Ted Marshall and his family took me down to the southern part of WA where I saw the amazing rock formations and climbed the Gloucester Tree (see above photo). Where better to turn 18 and celebrate one’s birthday than on Rottenest Island, an amazing week spent with the Trevillians and their darling Christy. My stay with the Richmonds on their goat farm and experiencing a vegetarian lifestyle was another fine lesson in the diversity of Australian home-life. I remember going to a big Rotary Conference in Geraldton, with Pip and Henk as my drivers, stopping at monasteries and other sites in the middle of ‘nowhere’ and being thrilled by the history (and if you were fortunate enough to have known those two men, you know it was quite the trip with much laughing, joking, and singing!). One final act of supreme kindness was the Mundaring Rotary Club arranging a train trip across Australia with two other exchange students during our last weeks in Australia. We were met at the train or bus stations by Rotarians and their families in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney – treated like royalty in their homes and states at every stop!
My year as an Exchange Student had a profound effect on shaping my life. I have family in Australia whom I consider as much ‘kin’ as my own family. I have made friends that have lasted a life time. Some of them have come to visit me here in the United States (Heather and Brian can tell you about their adventure staying in our little house on Lake Champlain in Vermont - what a fine time!). The Hill family brought me back to Australia for one of Doug and Olivia’s grandchild’s wedding a few years ago. Wow – it was real life deja-vu! The memories of 28 years ago came to life once again. In the recent picture above, I am beaming. I knew that I had come home again and was amongst true friends who had welcomed me into their lives and into their hearts all those years ago.... a shy West Virginia girl who had come waltzing to Australia and found the dance divine!