I think it is time I started my blog. Lylabeth and I attended a King Family reunion in New Braunfels this past weekend. We almost didn’t go because none of our kids and grandkids were able to attend. Abby, my brother Dwight’s daughter, got on my case and so we went. One of the things we did on Saturday night involved me and my brothers, Dwight, Dwain and Roger. Mom asked us to tell stories about growing up on The D-K Farm because most of the grandchildren and their wives and children came along after Dad had sold out and moved across the road from the old farm. Anyway, Mama thought it would be good for them to get a sense of how it was. We all told stories of things we did and some things about how we lived. After we finished, Lylabeth challenged all of us to write these things down so others in the family who come along later can know them too. This will be my attempt to get with the program.
One of the things I told about on Saturday night was our Grandpa Alvie Barnhill. He was a Godly man. One of the most Godly men I have ever known. We were blessed to have him as a grandparent. He taught me lots of things: how to fish, how to hunt squirrels, the joys of reading, lots about farming, and what living a life that reflected Christ was all about. I am attempting to be the kind of grandparent he was to me to my grandkids.
I told this about him on Saturday night at the reunion. My family along with both sets of grandparents and lots of aunts, uncles and cousins, all went to the Iago Federated Church. (for more on the church read Lylabeth’s blog) When Grandpa B was called on to lead the church in prayer, he always knelt in front of his seat to pray. I never knew anyone else who did that. Somewhere in the prayer he always included a request that we all worship in spirit and in truth.
Grandpa B was a big tease and he loved a good joke or prank. He smoked a pipe and one Christmas one of my cousins got him a really long stemmed corncob pipe. We asked him if he was going to smoke it and he said he was just going to save it and not smoke it. Awhile later, I walked out of the dining room into the living room. From the living room you could see into Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom. Grandpa B was standing in front of a dresser in his bedroom with the new pipe in his hand. When he saw me he blew out pipe smoke and I hollered, “Grandpa is smoking his new pipe”. Just then he raised his other hand holding his regular pipe, which had been hidden behind his leg, and puffed on it. He had tricked me into thinking he had the new pipe lit when he was just holding the new pipe and blowing smoke from the other one. He got a big kick out of doing things like that.
Mama and I lived with Grandma and Grandpa Barnhill for the first two years of my life. I was born in 1944 when World War II was going on. My Dad was in the U. S. Army and he went overseas just a few days after I was born and didn’t come back home until I was two years old. I think because I lived with them for the first two years of my life, I had a special bond with them. I know that their home was always special to me. In my teen years, I was kind of a problem child and my Dad and I had lots of conflict. It was mostly my fault but I made it through with Mama running interference for me. Anyway I spent a lot of time during those years angry and upset. I could always go to Grandma and Grandpa B’s house and the minute I stepped in the door, a peace would come over me and I would settle down. There was just something about their Godly spirits that became part of their home for me and helped me in times of distress. When they went to be with Jesus, I went back to the house a few times and it was just a house. A house with lots of good memories, but that feeling was gone because they weren’t there anymore.
Grandma B was special to me too. She was not a great cook like my Grandma King, but she had lots of other talents. She was a great seamstress and made me lots of clothes over the years. When we stayed at their home, she always had things for us to do. One of the things I remember most is doing leather craft. She had all the tools and we made billfolds, belts and other things. She helped me make a leather covered two ring notebook with my name on the front that I carried most of my jr. high and high school years. We also did a lot of paint by number. She would buy the paints and the templates that had hundreds of little circles, squares and all kinds of little shapes. Each space had a number in it that corresponded to a paint color. You would paint in the shapes with the right paint and when you finished, you would have a painting of something. All kinds of pictures would materialize in front of you. Grandma B didn’t believe in idle hands. She always had something for us to do.
We alternated Friday nights and Saturdays with the two sets of grandparents. One or the other would come to our house and pick us up on Friday afternoons. We would go to their homes to spend Friday night. Grandma and Grandpa B were one of the first people in our families to have a television set. They got the set when I was about 12 years old. The first TVs were had a black and white picture. Color didn’t come along until much later. It was always a treat to get to watch TV at their house.
Breakfast at their house always included Grandpa B reading a chapter from the Bible right before we ate. I remember hoping that it was a short chapter because I was always hungry.
I was blessed to have great grandparents who loved me unconditionally. Now that I am a grandparent, I know that I am a better one than I would have been without the role models I had to show me the way. I hope my grandchildren will remember me as fondly and thankfully as I remember my grandparents.
I will write another blog later about my King grandparents.
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