That isn't a very good description of the house, but you might realize that it really wasn't very convenient. Irvin used the far room for his study. The dining room was our bedroom, I think. The room in front of the dining room was a guest room and then the room for the baby as best I can remember. The kitchen was big and we ate there when we didn't eat on the back porch.
We quickly found out that Mrs. Lusher was a widow and never disposed of anything. All of her conversations were preceded by "Before Mr. Lusher died" or "After Mr. Lusher died". We asked what she did with her garbage and she didn't seem to know she must have had some. Well, a black man came along and asked if he could have our garbage for his pigs. We gave it to him willingly. We later had a few chickens who got some of it too. He came by during the fall and offered to sell us some "corn fed pork". We declined.
I had some help from a black woman in the mornings. I was informed by some of the church members that we were not to pay the "help" any more than 25 cents an hour. She really worked hard and if I could persuade her to have some lunch she insisted on eating on the porch and not with us. She helped with unpacking things that Mother and Dad had sent from Waco that we didn't need at seminary. After she finished she asked me not to ask her to do anything like that again. She was so afraid she might break something. She was a very good and faithful woman and I wished that I could do more to help her.
On June 1, 1950 the Presbytery met in Nesbitt and they ordained Irvin. Several family members came up from Meridian and Stainton brought the twins, David and Donnell, who stayed after the ordination for about a week. I think they were about 12 or 14. They loved to go down to the train track and see the train come through and pick up the mail sack on a post as the train went by the post office. They also put pennies on the train track and let the train run over them. When Irvin had time he helped them build or they helped him build some model train cars from scratch. David really liked trains, and I guess Donnell did too. (David still runs out on our porch here at Covenant Village if he hears a train coming when he and Beverley come to visit.)
Mother came about the middle of July to help out with things when Ken was born. Irvin had to ordain elders and deacons on the 16th. He had been to a junior high camp and expected to go to the high school camp the next day. Ken was supposed to arrive on the 16th and my mother thought it was just my stubborness that kept him from coming on the foretold date. Well, I was going over some of the camp dances with Irvin and I decided about noon on the 17th that I should probably go to the hospital. So he called a woman whose daughter was to go to camp and she agreed to take the kids and we took off for Memphis and the Baptist Hospital. They called the doctor.
I was doing very well and one of the aids was a member of the church Irvin served in Olive Branch. She came by to see me. About 4 I felt like I would rather be in a labor room so a medical student who was assigned to me agreed that I should do that. The labor pains were coming more quickly. Mother and Irvin thought about going out to eat some supper sometime before six so they asked the nurse how long it might be. She sent the aid to say they would have a couple of hours probably. The aid said she didn't think it would be that long. At 6 pm. Ken arrived and Mother and Irvin were glad to be there. The doctor told me to be sure that if I had any more children to tell the doctor that I have them in a hurry.
Ken was the first child to be born to the pastor and wife of any ministers since the parents of two ladies who were members of the church were babies in the manse. They were both grandparents when we got there. In fact the son-in-law of one of the ladies, lived in White Haven and was our primary care doctor.
I was not successful in breast feeding any of our children until Robert came along. So after a week when I came home (they kept you in the hospital for that long at that time), we came home. Ken was crying in the night and I couldn't feed him. So Irvin drove to Memphis and got some Pet milk and we made up some formula. That was quite a night.
Then another night, we got a phone call from Vivian. She was in Memphis for the night and would like to come out to see her first nephew and could we come and get her. We bundled up Ken and went to the airport. She had to be back in Memphis to take the train early the next morning so we got up early and took Ken and went back to Memphis. When we got home, the elder in the house across from the church called to be sure everything was all right. He was worried because he had heard us leave in the night, and again early in the morning and had been over and gone through the house to see what had happened.We assured him that everything was fine.
Another thing about Nesbitt was the phone service. We were on an 8 party line. We only got the rings for 4 of the 8 people. Each had a distinctive ring, but who knows how many listened in. We had to be careful about what we said. Shortly after Ken was born Mother got a phone call from Minnesota saying that her Mother had died. We encouraged her to go but she said she would go sometime later. There was nothing more that could be done for her mother and she felt she should help with the new baby.
Mrs. Lusher was a very nice lady and we noticed as time went on that she was not referring to "Mr. Lusher so much. One time she decided to go to Lakeland Florida. There she sat on a park bench in the middle of town. A widowed man came and sat next to her and they talked. He lived in Gainesville, and worked at the county court house. They exchanged information and after we had moved to Naples Florida, Mrs. Lusher got married and thoroughly enjoyed going to the court house and listening to different court cases.
Ken always like to explore things and I'm not sure just what happened, except that we got a call from the grocery store. There was a small cotton patch between our property and the one store in town. The patch had been plowed for planting. The manager called to say that Ken was there and we might like to come get him. We did. I'm not sure who was supposedly watching him, but Ken thought it was a big sandpile, at least that was what he called it.
Ken in the real sandbox Ken's first birthday
Life went on in Nesbitt and Irvin preached in four different areas of the county. Each church was different. One was also served by the Methodist church. It was in Eudora, MS. We had a Vacation Bible School there. The Methodist minister was a rather short man, and as he followed Irvin into the sanctuary one time the children started calling the Methodist minister "Zacchaeus ". Then they often sang the song about "Zacchaeus was a wee little man".
The church in New Bethlehem was noted for it's adjacent cemetary. It was also closer to Memphis, TN. They had a very dedicated church family and it was a joy to go there.
Olive Branch MS was the home to Bethel Presbyterian Church and it was the largest of the congregations. They were another very dedicated church and one which should have been self supporting. One of the elders once said to Irvin something about "all church receive Mission money don't they." He got that straightened out and when we left it did become a self-supporting church. They have added new areas to the church and we still hear from several members there.
During one of the church meetings, the people were talking about pledging and such and Ken and another child walked down to the front of the church. The other child had one of his parent's billford. Irvin said: "Shall we consider this the first contribution?" We mothers went down and got the kids.
Nesbitt was the one in our "front yard". One time when Irvin's mother came to visit she painted a picture of the church while sitting on our front porch. It is a wonderful reminder of a wonderful time. The congregation was not really large but very committed. The twins and some of the children of one were all members. They did a lot of mission work and were a pleasure to serve.
The Natural Gas company in Memphis was bringing Natural gas to Nesbitt. We had a big propane tank in the yard, but had let it get low since we wouldn't be needing it much longer. We had some very cold weather and ended up having to move in with "one of the twins" and her husband since our house was unheated when the tank ran dry. The railroad people had gone on strike and we couldn't get more heat. Irvin and the husband went out each morning and thawed the water pump and brought in water to use during the day. We had tubs of water all around the kitchen, and Ken in his walker would go around sticking in his little hand. I don't remember how long it took to get back to our house but we certainly appreciated having a place to stay until they got this fixed and we had heat again in our manse.
Life went on and soon another child was on the way. What with the cotton gin nearby and the flowers coming out, Irvin was having a lot of hayfever. Ken still had not slept through the night and the doctor had put him on a medicine for allergies. We later learned that it gave him nightmares which wakened him. Our baby was due on April 16, 1952. My Mother had come to be with us and all was fine. We went to New Bethlehem to visit some ladies and show Mother the beautiful azaleas and dogwood trees in their yard. It was about 5 and I had started having some labour pains. I said that we needed to leave so I could get to the hospital. They asked that we stay for some supper, but I declined. We took Mother and Ken back to Nesbitt and got them set up for the night and Irvin and I headed to Memphis. At 8:10 Jean was born! It was published in the Memphis paper and the ladies we had been visiting had to be assured that it was right about the time. I was just glad we had made it.
During the fall we talked with the head of the one of the National Missions agencies, Dr. Earl Jackman.. He said he had an opening in Florida. The doctor had told Irvin that his allergies would be better on the southern coast of Florida and so we decided that we would move to Naples for that position and see if Ken and Irvin would be any better. We moved right after Christmas and told the mover to call one of the hotels where the lady was a Presbyterian and she could tell him where we were going to live. The Synod headquarters were in Lakeland and we stopped there. Had dinner with the executive and his wife and then went to Sarasota where my cousin Joan and her husband lived. He was a pediatrition and Jean had a fever. We thought it was another strep throat and he treated her an put us up in a motel. The next day we headed for Naples to find a house to live in.
