MEMORIES OF THE RANCHVALE BAPTIST CHURCH

"BUT AS MANY AS RECEIVED HIM,  TO THEM 

       GAVE HE POWER TO BECOME SONS OF GOD,

           EVEN TO THEM THAT BELIEVE  ON HIS NAME."

                   .......JOHN 1:12   KJV

        ************************

I will always have a special place in my heart 

for the Ranchvale Baptist Church folks and

all the farmers I knew who lived out in

that rural community (area).

Some of the best people I have ever known 

lived out there. Most of them have gone

on to "farm" forever in Beulah Land ...

  "I look away across the sea

       where mansions are 

   prepared for me 

        and view the shining 

   glory shore...my heav'n   

       my home, forevermore."

We had a farm out there...a nice section

of wheat land, one mile east of 

the little  country church. Our farming

days (my dad and brother and I) began

in August 1945, on just about the same

day of the Japanese surrender.

Dad had owned and run single-handedly

the Magic Steam Laundry down on West

Grand in Clovis, all through the "Big One,"

WWII, keeping the airmen at CAAFB in

spiffy starched uniforms.

It was time for a change of occupations

and Ranchvale farming was his choice.

We continued to live in town.  RV was 

seven miles NW, as a crow flies.

In those days, the wheat crops on each

farmer's "place,"  and on which they

depended for a year's income---began 

to mature and need harvesting---all within 

days of each other. 

Thus groups of farmers worked together

on cutting and hauling, for each other,

moving from one farm to another, and

often working until midnight.

Many times have I seen on a hot June 

evening on someone's wheat field, the 

farmer's wives drive up to the combines,
trucks, and tractors and bring out
old-fashioned dish pans full of Kerr quart
jars, full of iced tea or "sweet milk" and
ice cubes, the lids screwed on tightly.

Then there might be fried chicken and

mashed potatoes, veggies....or maybe

sandwiches galore with iced soda pop

bottles.

The weather could "turn off bad" at any

time and ruin the ripened crop with a

hail storm..or heavy rain.

We eventually got another section over

across Running Water Draw, five

or six miles NW of Ranchvale. This meant

that we had to drive our big orange Case

Wheatland tractors from one farm to 

another, oft with the 22 1/2 foot One-Way

plow rigged for "trailing."

This meant going by the RV church, turning 

north and heading  toward the dry draw

where there was no bridge.

It also meant going thru the village, by the

school, the Methodist Church,  and stopping

at Herb's nice little country store on the

northern edge of town. 

To a sunburned, dusty, tired, teenager of

about 15 years, the store was a cooling, 

welcome place, where you could load 

up on snacks and sodas...and visit a

minute with Herb.

So yes, I loved everything about RV,

its people, and I passed the little

country church many times over.

I knew Herbert Bergstrom when he was

a young pastor out there...and in later

years Tom Sumrall, also a pastor.

Little did I realize in those "halcyon" days

of the forties, when the whole world was

young----that someday I would 

study voice for more than four 

years and would become a Gospel Singer.

After graduating from CHS, I went off to

school and never returned but once

or twice to the old farm---once about 1969

to take pictures.

Then I was invited to lead the music at RVBC

for a week's revival. 

After singing in sixty-three or more revivals,
and some Cowboy Camp Meetings, I have
little recollection of what songs I sang where.

But there was one special night when working

in the revival meeting at Ranchvale---that I

especially remember...Dad and a bunch of

men from the Central Baptist Church Men's

Brotherhood came to visit the service...and

I do remember what I sang as a solo:

It was a gospel song of testimony about 

what Jesus did for us...why He came to

earth....

"In loving kindness, Jesus came

    My soul in mercy to reclaim;

And from the depths of sin and shame,

   Through grace He lifted me.

From sinking sand, He lifted me

   With tender hand He lifted me;

From shades of night

   To plains of light

O praise His name, He lifted me."

Some great and fine Christian men 

came out there to hear me sing...

and I can only try to remember

who...

Mr. Hudnall, Mr. Joplin, Mr.Vaughn,
Mr. Bender, Mr. Comer, Mr. Boney,
Mr. Wayne...two rows of men...in suits..
and Dad.

The old rural church has today a rather

mod look. But great memories still 

remain with me...

How can one ever forget the people

of that day...or the kinship you 

develop with the land ...and even the

smell of the soil.

One mile east of the RVBC and 

the village...our land is still there...

it is no longer "ours," except in our

hearts...and Dad's gone on to Beulah

Land.  

The remains of our brand new 1947

GMC wheat truck have been hauled 

away and Bobby Joe tells me:  "The 

windmill at your old home place is

gone..." 

Ah, is nothing permanent...in life?

Yes.

""In loving kindness Jesus came,

     our souls in mercy

          to reclaim."

Bury my heart at Ranchvale.

-----------------

BY MIL

19 May 2018

A MONUMENT FOR BROTHER JEREMIAH

"BROTHER JEREMIAH"

     ( a fine frog preacher )

            wasn't much

as the world views events

   in the Great Cosmic Scheme

of things...

Many probably laughed

    him off....

as a "little frog in a little  pond"

   But I'll tell you

That frog could preach, 

   a settin''out there on 

        his lily pad.  

behind that rock !!!

He'd tell it like it was 

    on that little Kansas farm

in a small forgotten pond

Frogs were fooling around

    on other lily pads

way into the early meaning

           hours---

and making it worse

    the Demo-frogs were always

complaining about the tadpoles

   being separated from their

          MAMA FROGS !!!

Old JEREMIAH preached hard

    and best he could always

to a pondful of CROAKS,

    which are being interpreted

as frog "amens...."

Ah, he is gone now.   And the 

    story of his demise is 

too sad to tell here.     But

   the good news is that

 there is a little monument to him

   on that little Kansas farm

and on a Sunday morning 

    you can still hear

        (they say)

coming from the old pond---

    frogs croaking

"Shall We Gather At the River,,"

    his favorite hymn

There is a lesson here 

   in this story

ever to be remembered:

"You don't have to be

      a big frog 

          in a big pond

to make a difference."

---------------

BY MIL

9 JULY 2018

THE BELOVED KIMBALL....LAST STOP: SPRING HILL, TN

If our old Kimball piano could talk---it'd 

have a thousand stories to tell, and many

thousand tunes to recall.

In its busiest days it played church music 

of all kinds...usually in a rehearsal mode...

gospel songs, hymns, octavo pieces,

cantatas, offertories...and then more than

that, there were the piano students who 

studied with Donna and then Mil's voice 

students.  Who could ever recall them all?!

D.'s parents bought it--used--for her when 

she was twelve and she began taking lessons.

She never looked back.

By the time I met her one summer when she

was almost seventeen, she was already a 

good pianist. It came naturally to her...and 

that fine piano helped.

When we returned from our brief wedding 

trip that cold February day in 1957, almost

62 years ago, it was sitting there on the 

south wall of our little apartment--- a

gift from her parents!

Not too long later, my new wife began teaching her

own piano students and there is no telling how many

she taught over the years until she began her public

school music career.

We were talking the other day and she figures 

some of those young girls, who have played

all these years--some as church pianists--may

be sixty-five years old by now.

I taught voice lessons to a number of young 

girls and boys---and some adults, and

that includes one trucker. Some went on to

be choir singers, soloists, and music 

teachers.

That faithful instrument was a good traveler 

and went with us everywhere, including more

than three years living in Childress, Texas---

and then twenty-four years over on Hannett

Ave. on the mesa, in the shadow of the 

Sandias.

Then D.'s parents down-sized and gave her

a second piano---this time a nearly-new

Baldwin and our beloved Kimball went to

live for a time in Texas...to Laurel Leaf 

Lane, outside Canyon.

Our granddaughter Kindell had the Kimball

there to learn on. There it rested for a dozen 

years. I personally liked it better than the new 

Baldwin.

It was loaded with memories.

But ah..you must hear the Rest of the Story....

Our granddaughter who lives near Nashville,

married last year…to a musician. Recently my

son and his wife hauled our beloved Kimball

to Tennessee in one long fifteen hour all-day

journey...Amarillo to Nashville...

It now lives in a quiet little bucolic town just

south of Nashville. A good sort of quiet

home for a fine instrument... which blessed 

the world...from the day it was made.

How's this description for a poetic home----

"LAST STOP: Spring Hill, TENNESSEE."

(Our fond memories are with you, ever.)

THE TOUGHEST MAN I EVER KNEW: MY "POP"

"His rows in life were lived as straight as his cotton rows
    which were plowed so straight, one would
       almost weep.....at their beauty......"    MIL

MY GRANDDAD..."POP"

           1889-1973

My granddad "Pop" was one of the toughest men

I have every known.

Born in East Texas during hard times on a cotton

farm...all he ever knew---was work, work,work...

Sometimes you made a crop...and sometimes you

didn't. Like all folks, you needed a living.

There was no "guv'ment,," as RONALDO MAGNUS

always called it---to bail you out.

But he was never...repeat never... on food stamps.

There was always a pig or two in the sty.

He never read a book. After all he was blind in his

left eye.

Sheltering under a tree in an East Texas storm, when

a boy, he and the tree were hit by lightning...and his eye

ruined.

I have many favorite memories of him---walking miles

behind a mule and a plow, milking down at the barn

during WWII.  Hanging washed milk buckets under

the grape arbor to air...carrying slop buckets full of

kitchen leftovers to "feed the pigs."

"Hog Killing Day," every December 26, when he gifted

every one of his kids with a pig.

Sharpening his Chicago Brand knives once again. When

he passed on, the blades were getting very thin...but were

almost certainly the sharpest knives in the world...fit

for a barber, butcher, surgeon...or a sharp West Texas

cotton farmer.

He never had a telephone or a TV, unless in his final

few years...he got a pickup finally, late in life.

He wouldn't have been a tweeter, or a texter, or

most definitely not a Facebooker, "spilling his guts" to

the world every day, making it easier for the

dossier-people.

He played his cards close to his vest.

He would most certainly have picked El Trumpus as

the lesser of two evils, tho' in those times he was an

old-fashioned Democrat.

It would have been risky for a couple of gov'ment

men to have pulled up in his cotton field when he

was hoeing his cotton and insinuate he was "a

White Supremacist."

Or called him an "ignorant DEPLORABLE."

For he was a kind and "practicable" man but couldn't

waste any time. Making a living in those early wonderful,

but difficult American times --was not a piece

of cake..

Across the rock fence from his back door every

summer he had the finest garden in that reddish

sandy soil of Dawson County. There were green beans,

black-eye peas, cucumbers, squash, cantaloupes,

watermelons, okra, tall corn, and I can't even

remember it all!

Every holiday, sometimes even in winter, the men

sat on buckets, saw horses, old chairs out by his

big garage and hand-cranked ice cream in an old

freezer....with farm fresh milk.

He had a ten dollar gold piece, smaller than a dime,

hidden in the back of the kitchen pantry...after

gold was called in. Kept in a pint jar of corn starch.

He never locked his doors, except maybe when

out if town. Not even at night.

He kept an old Stevens 20 gauge pump shotgun

in his closet, in one corner...empty...and his

son's old Cloverine Salve, 22 single shot rifle

over in his bedroom corner, by his trusty floor

Model Philco. The .22  was mainly for hog time.

Ammo for either was scarce and hard to find.

Anyway, perps  didn't hang around those old farms.

They knew better. Grand juries knew what was right

and wrong.

He rocked in his rocker, often eating corn bread

and milk ("crumble in") and listening to staticky

radio...Fibber and Molly on Tuesday evenings and

H.V. Kalyenborn for the news, every night. Fifteen

minutes worth...

His first tractor was a Farmall, bought in circa 1940

and parked under an elm tree, on his lawn.

I heard him ask my dad, one day out by that new

tractor. "What do you think of FDR?"

He wore blue bib overalls all he time, except on

Saturdays, when all the farmers in the county went

to town at noon, to get shaves, shines, and haircuts...

and then clog the side walks, on the shady side

of town. Khakis were the Saturday clothes of choice.

His legs were black and blue and dented from a

lifetime of being kicked by mules. I saw them.

Dented.

He was never much of a hugger and those folks

of the time felt their love deep like a river but

were not demonstrative...as real rivers oft run

deep.

He did hug me once or twice and I will never

forget it...he had a kind of clean earthy outdoor

farmer smell...as befitting a real human being.

So I make this memorial piece, a tribute to a

real American.....on Father's Day, 2018

He sent two sons off to fight in WWII and I being

only a kid, noticed the worry in his face, especially

at milking time...as silence fell over the land.

----------------

BY MIL

FATHER'S DAY, 2018

   ***********

(His second son, my beloved and talented

uncle, a graduate of Texas A&M and a Captain

in the USAAF, was hit by lightning on a tractor,

not  a hundred yards from the home place. My

Pop got him down and into the old pickup,

but he never made it to the hospital. He was 36.)