Tuesday, August 2, 2011

STORM CLOUDS GATHER

Where does one begin to share his or her life?  In our family, so many people had such a great impact; it is hard to know where to begin.  So, I’ll just jump ahead a bit so that you will know why we arrived at where and who we are as a family.

My father and mother were evangelists who frequently traveled between upstate South Carolina and Florida in the Lake Okeechobee area where, during the winter months, they would work for farmers in the bean fields.  It was on one of their returns to South Carolina, while traveling through the low state area, that my father contracted malaria and died, leaving my mother and four small daughters stranded on the road.  The youngest was six months old.

We were transported in the hearse, which came for my father, to my grandparents' home in Pickens where we lived for some two years in the Mount Bethel Methodist Church community.

So, my stories will share with you the hardships, as well as the joys, of growing up in a house full of girls.