By Bill Ellis
Special to ASSIST News Service
SCOTT
DEPOT, WV – (ANS)- Mother’s Day, observed this weekend across our
nation, brings to remembrance many good things about the most important women
in my life.
My Mother, Goldie Perry Ellis, was
20 years old when I was born. As I look back on those early days of my life she
was always “Mom” and it never entered my little undeveloped mind that
she was anything more. It was always enjoyable, as I grew older, to remember
her on special days.
She talked more about her own mother
than she did herself. It was Mom who saw that all my needs were met – food,
clothes, cleanliness, the reading of a special Bible Story each night and grace
at the table before every meal. She also helped me study and learn.
My Dad’s mother, Mrs. Octavia Hodge
Ellis, was with me from day one. I was born in her house where my parents were
living at the time. Her husband had died when my dad was nine years old.
Grandma Ellis started me reading the
Bible when I was six years old. There were not many words in my vocabulary. She
had lost sight in one eye. I remember sitting on the swing with her in the
summer time. There were many words I could not pronounce and if she did not
know the word, she would say, “Just call him Moses and go on.” That
must be why Moses was one my favorite Old Testament characters. When I read,
his name appeared often all over the Bible.
Grandma Perry, Margaret Jane Short
Perry, lived one mile from our house. During my years 12-16, I stayed all night
with her and Grandpa most every Saturday night. I would go early on Saturday
morning so I could play baseball all day long with my cousins and other boys.
On Sunday morning I would go to the Methodist Episcopal Church at Decota. I
liked the boys Sunday School class taught by Pastor Luther B. Mays and I also
enjoyed hearing him preach.
Grandma Perry always made biscuits
for breakfast and cornbread for dinner and supper. I did not learn about lunch
as the noon meal until I was older. When I was a little boy, it was called
“dinner and supper.”
Staying with Grandma Perry and
listening to Pastor Mays led to my accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior five
months after my fourteenth birthday, just after finishing the eighth grade in
public school where teachers read Bible stories and prayer was permitted and
drugs were unheard of.
Kitty’s mother, Sara Zook
Harshbarger, was a beautiful and talented woman. Her meals were always
delicious. She was an organist and vocalist. She was a superb seamstress and
made to perfection all the wedding gowns and attendants’ gowns for her four
daughters and daughter-in-law. All their formal gowns and a lot of their best
clothes were privately “tailored by Sara.” Clothes of the very finest
quality and exact fits.
Kitty is the fifth great mother on
my list of talented and beautiful mothers who impacted my life. She is so much
like her mother. Like all little boys and girls, I am also dependent on her for
just about everything I ever accomplish.
Ruth Graham Bell, the wife of Billy
Graham, said, “As a mother, I must faithfully, patiently, lovingly and
happily do my part – then quietly wait for God to do His.”
St. Paul, in his second letter to
young Timothy, wrote: “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which
first lived in your grandmother, Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am
persuaded now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5).
Mothers and grandmothers are usually
those vital links between children and God.
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