Observing All Saints Day - prayer, communion, music

Today at church (Elba United Methodist), Pastor Stanley Carter read the names of our departed "saints" for the past year. This was followed by silence while we remembered them and others outside our church. The choir then sang a choral arrangement of "The Old Rugged Cross". After a short message, we had communion with small groups going to the altar rail to participate in the Lord's supper.

We came home and had lunch and then went back to the church for our annual Charge Conference with our new Supt. in charge. This is where we get assignments for the coming year. Jim has been appointed as Chairmen of the Trustees. He will be on the Administrative Council, Financial Committee and is currently the church webmaster. http://www.elbaumc.org/   I resigned my post as trustee since we didn't both need to be on that committee. I am in a new "position" - membership secretary. This coming year I plan to put all church members, addresses, and other info on an Excel spreadsheet. Two floods in the 1990's destroyed many of the local church records. I hope to dig deep and try to update our membership. This will take a lot of time and energy but so vital to our church in the future.

We had to leave the conference before it was over in order to take James home to stay with a sitter while Jim and I traveled to Dothan to attend a concert at the Episcopal Church of the Nativity on Holly Lane. The church choir celebrated the lives of the departed through the singing of John Rutter's Requiem. It was also important for the church since they were celebrating the life of Pat Byrne, a member of the choir for almost 40 years.

Jim was in our church choir that presented the Requiem when we lived in Albany, GA and this time he got to listen to someone else sing. It was a combination of Latin and English. Rutter's Requiem was a beautiful way to spend All Saints Day. A friend of ours from Enterprise, Rex Everage, was singing in the choir and invited us to attend.

At the beginning of the program there was a beautiful violion solo by Jenny Gregoir, concertmaster for Mobile and Gulf Coast symphonies. She played Ralph Vaughan Williams "Lark Ascending". I loved the bassoon music, the harp, flute, violins and cello - plus others.

The featured soloist Fay Schiffer, from Enterprise, was magnificent. Our friend Rex confided to us that he thought she raised pigs! The strings played an encore at the end - uplifting music after listening to the beautiful Requiem. We were invited to stay afterwards for a nice reception and to meet the choir and musicians.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and the church was filled with dancing colors with the sun shining throught the beautiful stained glass windows.

We enjoyed our trip back to Elba as we watched the big bright sun going down in the western sky. It got dark before we reached the city limits of Elba, AL.

All Saints Day 2008 was a busy, but memorable one.

Pumpkin's on the (Elba) Square

October 29th was trick or treat night for kids in Elba. Parents brought their children downtown to show off their costumes and to let them get treats from area merchants, businesses, clubs, churches, etc. who had booths set up around the courthouse square.

James wore his Uncle Sam's costume since he had worn it to work all day. By the way, he won "Best Costume" at their party at work.

Our church (Elba United Methodist) handed out candy to the little gobblins and James helped them. After a short while, he told our pastor Stanley that he wanted to walk around and look at what everybody else was handing out and he took off. I'm glad he doesn't like sweets and he didn't carry a bag around to collect goodies . Pictured: Nancy and Stanley Carter, Martha and Joe Guerrero,James & Candace Vaughan

He wanted his picture made with some of his friends. He is pictured here with his cousins, Betty and Bo Sauls, and our friend Laurie Chapman, the blonde with the fuzzy dog ear hairdo.

After he finished looking at all the booths he went with Jim and me across the street to the Just Folk coffeehouse for chili and to listen to 2 of our Opp church friends from when we went to church in Opp, as they played their guitars and sang old favorites. James enjoyed the music and was greeted by so many of our friends and had his picture made several times.

Halloween has come and gone for another year. We didn't carve the pumpkin this year and it's still sitting outside. We'll leave it there until Thanksgiving.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

I don't think of snow falling in October. This is the month of beautiful colored leaves, especially in the mountains. But last night it snowed in Black Mountain, NC where my sisters Alice and Carolyn live.

My sister Carolyn sent me these pictures via email this morning and the snow is beautiful. It covered the apple tree in the back yard (center of big photo) and the red apples looked pretty surrounded by the snow. The snow melted today when the sun came up.



Another October snow I remember was our first winter living in Wayzata (Minneapolis suburb), MN. We had moved there from Texas during the summer. On October 11th I remember going to Ridgedale Mall and parking my car and going inside the mall for awhile. I was there for a couple of hours and when I came outside around 2 pm, my car was covered with snow and it was snowing so hard I could hardly find the car. It snowed all afternoon and I was so nervous trying to find my way back to Lake Minnetonka near where we lived. I knew our son James would be getting home from school around 3 pm. So I had to try to make my way back home. When I got back on the highway, the snow had melted and I had no problem getting home.


I love the first snowfall of the year and we've lived in many places where it snowed. We lived on a wooded hill in Winston Salem, NC in the early 1980's and when it snowed the trees were beautiful. It was a little tricky sometimes getting up the hilly driveway from our "tucked under" garage on the back of our 3 level home when there was snow and ice.


While the early snowfall is always exciting and beautiful, I think I lean more to the beautiful fall foliage and cool nights and pretty frosts that look like a sprinkling of snow early in the morning.

It all began with Uncle Sam's Hat

Last year our son James bought a nice Uncle Sam's hat at Fayetteville, NC when we attended a celebration for General Lafayette for whom Fayetteville is named. When we got back home, James put the hat in his room and from time to time he would wear it around the house.   Guess who James wants "to be" for his costume party at work at the Coffee County Training Center on Oct. 30th? Uncle Sam. He wants a costume to wear his hat.  I looked in catalogs at WalMart and found a pattern. But, it only came in kids sizes, not a large man's size. I googled McCalls pattern book and found a picture and made a copy to go by. I didn't have any idea about where I would find heavy weight red and white stripe cloth. 

I stopped at Carolina Fabric when in Black Mountain NC last week, and found the striped cloth there. I bought a yard of red for a vest, later at WalMart. Nobody had bright blue cloth, heavy weight cloth, to use for the jacket. Then I remembered I had several pieces of blue I use for table cloths occasionally. Last Thurs and Friday I cut out out the costume using some old patterns I have on hand and I finished making the costume last night. I cut out some stars from white felt and to add to the front of the vest and to the hat band.


The costume was complete except for one item - you guessed it, the hat! It can't be found but we know it's here someplace. Sound familiar? He has to wear this outfit since I made the costume just for him to wear with his Uncle Sam's hat. Since we can't find his hat, I got busy and made a one just in case we don't find his pretty fur one.


I asked if he would try on the costume for me to take his picture and he was reluctant to, until after his costume party at work on Thursday. Although he is 51 years old, he is very much a child at heart and loves special holidays - especially Christmas.


I have been calling PC Penney's for several weeks, asking when the Christmas catalog would be in the stores. Seems that this year it is late and will appear the first week of Nov. Thank Goodness!! He loves looking at Christmas catalogs. He loves to shop for gift wrapping paper and ribbons. We usually end up with more paper than gifts.

Mountain Fever

Every fall I start having "mountain fever" and long to go to see the beautiful fall leaves in the NC mountains. We lived in Winston-Salem, NC in the 1980's and we would ride up to the Blue Ridge Parkway on Sunday afternoons in the fall to see the beautiful foliage. We used to go to church retreats at Montreat Presbyterian Church Conference Center. Jim and I are pictured at Lake Susan in the center of the complex. The leaves were beautiful last Sunday afternoon when we stopped by. 

Last weekend we were in Black Mountain, NC, visiting with my sisters Carolyn and Alice and their families. Carolyn and her husband Dave own a beautiful B&B called Arbor House. They remodeled an old home and it contains 4 bedrooms with baths, a large lounge, dining room and decks where you can observe 7 mountain peaks. The B&B overlooks a large city lake. You can walk down the hill and travel through Carolyn's beautifully landscaped yard to get to the walking path around the lake. Or sit on your deck and watch the wildlife in and around the lake and observe people walking on the path around the lake. You can go online and read all about Arbor House (http://www.arborhousenc.com/).

Sunday afternoon we drove up a mountain to visit the Blue Ridge YMCA Assembly. This white 3-story conference center building has been there a long time. There are many other buildings and cabins at the assembly grounds. It is filled to capacity during the summer with different groups coming to camp here. Visitors can stay on weekends when campers go home.

We left Black Mountain on Monday morning and drove to Asheville and stopped at the Farmers Market where we saw "tons" of produce for sale. Tomatoes, mountain cabbage, and of course a large variety of freshly picked apples. We bought a large box of golden delicious apples to eat and to give away to friends.

Then we went west to Waynesville and on to Franklin where we visited my cousin Linda and her husband Chip Westbrook,  just south of Franklin at Otto. They were spending the week at their mountain cabin.

They like to go there for long weekends in the summer and always spend a week there in October and enjoy the festivals, music, etc. in the area. They prepared a good lunch for us and we were joined there by another Elba couple who have a home in the same area. We left after lunch to drive back to Elba (a seven-hour trip).

My mountain fever is gone for awhile (until spring when the mountains are covered with flowers).

23rd Curtis School Reunion

In 1985, my classmate of 12 years, Janice Cowen Hudson, and I decided to hold a class reunion for the old Curtis school. It had closed in 1967 and a few years later the building burned. We didn't know if there would be much interest, but there was and today we had our 23rd reunion.  What a great time! 

We honored a family that moved away from the community before their children graduated from high school, and we all lost touch with them. Last year one of the girls came to the reunion from Dothan to see her cousins that were being honored. We asked if her family would like to be honored this year.

They were so excited when they arrived today, coming from Atlanta, GA; Gardenia, CA; Dothan, AL. One sister from Baton Rouge, LA was unable to attend. There are pictured here, children of Howard and Ann Foley Danley. This photo was taken today and the man on the right, Tom Cowen, was their neighbor when they were young. 

We were all excited on Oct. 12, 1958, when one of the bus drivers, Dick Daniels and his wife Dot had twins, Jim and Judy Daniels. We sang happy birthday to them. They were home visiting their mother and celebrating their 60th birthdays tomorrow. I think they were surprised that we remembered!!

These 3 friends, Sara Young, Bessie Griffin and her sister, Loris Cauley, were so happy to see each other and talk about what they are doing these days. One is still teaching china painting and the other still gardens near Pensacola, FL and uses the riding lawn mower to cut her grass. And of course they are both driving and running their own errands. This would be common lace except for the fact that Sara Young and Bessie Griffin are both 91 years old. Sara's 71 year old son came with her from Opp. Bessie's sister Loris was there with her son Kenneth, who brought them to the reunion.

One visitor remarked that he would see if he could get invited back; that he had never seen such a spread of the best southern food he had ever eaten. So many homemade cakes and pies. And I counted 5 bowls of chicken and dumplings (the homemade kind). Kenneth Cauley brought a big pan of fried sidemeat (pork) and this was the hit of the day!

The reunion was held in a big pavilion that my friend Janice Cowen Hudson and I raised  money to build in 1998, behind New Ebenezer Baptist Church. The 10 large picnic tables which we had built can hold 8 people, and all were all filled. Approximately 90-100 attended.

Afterwards a classmate invited us to his house to talk some more and have a light dinner. For various reasons (medical and just aches and pains of aging) some had to go home and were unable to attend. There were 3 of us who went to our friend Ralph Crocker's new home. We were "stuffed" from all the reunion goodies, but still managed to eat finger foods. I put the photos that I took at the reunion today on a CD and took it to Ralph's house where we had so much fun looking at them in a slide show.

Many of us won't see each other again until next October (and some we'll never see again as they are getting very old). The school reunion is as the name implies - a great reunion for classmates who went to Curtis school.

Eulogy for Mary Logan Gilmer by Jim Gilmer

Eulogy Jim presented at his step-mother's funeral:


Our mother was born and raised in the rugged hills and ragged “hollers” of northern Kentucky, at the time, a very isolated section of the state, in Lewis County. It was a time and place that required families to be self sufficient, for families to help other families in time of need, for a strong faith in the Almighty. Cash money was practically non-existent for most families. Government assistance programs as we know today didn’t exist.
Folks had to take care of themselves and each other. Mother was 9 years old when the Great Depression enveloped the country in 1929.


The Logan family had been in those hills and hollers since the late 1700’s. They were of Scots-Irish descent. Throughout their long history in Kentucky, mother’s ancestors had a strong streak of stubbornness, and toes that did not like to be stepped on.

Mary Gilmer in her late 80's

Mother’s character was molded to a large extent by the place and era in which she grew up, and by her Logan family genes. She had a strong will, unswerving principles, and practiced the art of frugality in her personal life. Yet she was very generous with kin and friends alike. However, those to whom she was a benefactor would at times feel the pull of attached strings, as mother would insist that the beneficiaries of her generosity use the proceeds wisely.


Mother was a strong believer in the power of education, as those of you who knew her can readily attest. She completed her AB degree with honors in 1957 at Morehead State University in Morehead, KY, while our father, J. T., stayed at home here in Harrisburg and worked and took care of Larry. After mother had completed her degree, she immediately started J. T, our dad, on his education journey. At the age of 46, dad began his education under mother’s tutelage, at the 7th grade level, and six years later, in 1963, at the young age of 52, dad received his bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State Teachers College.


Mother was a teacher for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system for about 25 years. She first taught at Hickory Grove for about 14 years, and then at Cotswold until she retired in 1981. Some of her former students have told me that mother was a good teacher, but very strict – she expected her students to apply themselves.


She was an active member of this church for over 60 years, and most recently was Church Historian and a member of the Session.

Mother devoted the past years as a tireless volunteer at the Cabarrus Senior Center, and the Lunch Plus program here in Harrisburg. (Mother is on left in photo)
Mother had countless “best friends” in the church, the Senior Center programs, and in the community. She was always ready to help some one who needed help, and to give advice. There might have been a few times mother gave advice when not asked!


Mother led a life of contribution to her work, her family, her church and to the community. She loved her family and friends dearly, and we all loved her. I believe she was the epitome of that “good and faithful servant”.