Getting ready for homecoming at church

On February 13, 2011, the sanctuary of Elba United Methodist Church will be 100 years old. I learned this when I became church historian last Nov.  I started reading about the history of the church and read an account in the Elba Clipper (local newspaper) dated 14 Feb. 1911, about the first service held in the new church.    I knew immediately that we must have a celebration for the 100th anniversary.

On Jan. 12th, I talked to  Stanley Carter, our  pastor, and he agreed that we should have Homecoming and an anniversary celebration on 13 Feb 2011.  With only 5 weeks to plan, I got busy.  I made invitations for Stanley to sign and mail to several former pastors who live in this area.  I wrote a letter to former members, friends, and others who live out of town and mailed out 92 letters.  Sent press releases to area newspapers.

Just one more week left to get ready for homecoming.  It's going to be a great day.  I've had so much fun gathering information, printing copies of old photos to display, writing weekly articles about the history of the church to insert in Sunday church bulletins, and meeting with committees working on meal planning, decorating, music, the service, etc.

I learned that our beautiful old sanctuary cost $11,000 to build in 1911.  The red bricks were made from red clay in our town and fired in a brick kiln near the banks of the river.  The beautiful stained glass windows were mostly funded by money collected to build a memorial to confederate soldiers on the courthouse square.  When  they couldn't collect enough money for a statue, the money was given to the church to purchase stained glass windows in memory of the Confederate soldiers from Coffee County.

Another window has written on it "Angus Vaughan and wife".   I've always wondered why he didn't put her name on the window too.  It's amazing that those windows are 100 years old and have withstood numerous storms over the years and 3 floods that got into the building.

The old bell hanging in the steeple was cast in 1908 by C.S. Bell Co in Hillsboro, OH.  Church bells could be ordered from Sears Roebuck at that time and cost about $70 (I looked this up in an 1897 Sears catalog).
Our bell is rung on Sunday mornings when it's time for church to begin at 10 a.m.

Our church has so much history.  Many of the older members were interviewed in 2001 after cleaning up from a flood in 1998, and talked about the history of the church.  A video tape was made.  Jim and I made 100 DVDs from this VHS tape to give to each family attending homecoming.

Today I learned that the weather next Friday, 2 days before homecoming, is forecast to be the coldest this year.  But in Alabama, the weather changes almost daily.  It might be 60 degrees on Feb. 13th!!  I'll keep my fingers crossed.   I told someone today that we will have a captive audience:  too cold to go to the lake or beach, no super bowl that day, no races - so people will have no excuse not to come to church.

What happened to January?

January has come and gone and I never got around to writing anything in my blog.  It has been a very cold winter with temperatures below freezing most days and many days in the teens.  Fireplace felt good.

We converted from an electric heat pump to a natural gas furnace. They came the coldest week of the year to install the new furnace.  First they removed all the ducts and put in new ones.  This meant we didn't have central for a week.  Used electric radiator type heaters and it kept the house warm, plus used a lot of kilowatt hours.                                                                  

After the heater was installed, and a new gas hot water heater, we got the painters back to finish painting that they started last fall.  Here you see them in the den painting the ceiling and woodwork.         

                                                                                    

Also in January our new electric stove arrived.  We ordered it in December from Sears.  Bo and Tom came on a Saturday and it took about 5 hours to fit it into the space the old one occupied.  Works like a charm.  Now I can bake and things won't burn. 

We aren't the only people remodeling.  Shown here is my brother Perry's "country condo".  He bought this 66' mobile home off Craig's List and had it brought to land at Pine Level that belongs to Carol's brother. Perry spends a lot of time at Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Pine Level and wanted a place to go when he's out there working.  Carol will have her art studio on the east end, with a lot of natural light. They were adding a deck on front when we went out to check on the progress last week. 

Jim snapped this picture of me on January 31st.  I was seated at my

computer one morning when he said "look up".  This is our work station wall.  The TV we use to watch the news at breakfast every morning, then my computer desk, with Jim's "Man Cave" behind me.  We spend a lot of time each day at our computers.  Jim reads newspapers first thing in the morning and I like to check my email and facebook.  Then I usually have some work to do on the computer. 

Tomorrow I will write about my latest project - planning for homecoming at Elba United Methodist Church and 100th anniversary of our church sanctuary - Feb 13, 2011. 

Note to Guy:  I'm back in business writing my blog.  Sorry you missed reading it every day.  I'll try to write more.

Happy New Year

The girls with "Uncle Larry"

Christmas in Florence, SC  - it snowed!

Katie got a rug for her apartment

Caroline got the coat she wanter

Nerissa got a crock pot!

One week til Christmas

I can't believe I'm ready for Christmas!  I have a week to just sit back and relax and wait for Santa to come on Christmas eve in Florence, SC at our son's house.

We will be traveling to SC in our little red truck, to deliver a hot water heater to Bill.  We replaced our electric hot water heater (less than a year old) with a gas heater when we installed a gas furnace last week.  We decided to replace our electric heat pump with gas furnace - and it's so much warmer in our house without the fan blowing cold air.

Jim's brother Larry will be joining us for Christmas this year so he won't be all alone in Virginia Beach.  His wife Suzi died last February after suffering a stroke.  We will stay in a motel in Florence and visit Bill and girls during the day.  The girls are all grown up.  Not a single toy on their list this year.

I've been cooking for almost a month, baking cookies, jellies, candies, etc. to take with us on our trip.

I haven't bought Jim  a present yet.  He won't give me a list.  So I am going shopping on Christmas eve and find him something special.  There's so much excitement when shopping on Christmas eve.  Ordering gifts on line and having them shipped to persons on your list is so "un-Christmas".  I love making decisions at the store, purchasing the presents, and coming home and wrapping them.  We are still using Santa Claus wrapping paper that James loved.  Enough for one more year. He got a bigger thrill out of choosing and buying gift wrap paper, bows, and bags than buying the presents.

So come next Thursday morning around 7 a.m. you will see us pulling out of our driveway in our little red Christmas pickup, heading northeast to SC - about a 9 hour trip, depending on weather and traffic.

My cousin Linda  suggested that I put a recipe on my blog every time I write one. Something I make often are oatmeal cookies.  They never turn out the same, even using the same recipe.  I blame this on my oven, and Jim has ordered us a new stove.  It won't be delivered for 2 or 3 weeks - special order from Sears, slide-in oven, to fit space we have for our "drop-in"stove which is very old, went thru a flood, bad thermostat, etc. etc.
                             OATMEAL COOKIES

1 cup vegetable shortening                 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar                                         1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar, packed                1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs                                                  3 cups Quick oats (not instant)

Preheat oven to 350º.

Lightly grease cookie sheet.

Beat shortening and sugars until cream.

Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.

Combine flour, and baking soda.

Add to mixture and mix well.

Stir in oats; mix well. Shape into 1-inch balls.

Place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet, flatten slightly with fork.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until light golden brown.

Let stand 1 minute before removing to racks to cool.

Makes 5 dozen.

Christmas is a Comin'

Snow on the bushes

Can't see it, but it's snowing!

 I love the Christmas season. Today it really feels like Christmas.  It started showing around 10 a.m. and while it didn't stick to anything but leaves, the big flakes came falling down for awhile and was beautiful.It's every child's dream - to have snow for Christmas.  Doesn't happen very often in Elba, AL.

We had snow for Christmas many years when we lived in TX, GA, MN, NC, SC, and Germany.  We really don't miss the cold weather.

Today is James' birthday and that's when we usually put up our real tree.  This year I put the pre-lit  tree up the first day of December.  Since we are not having company this Christmas, I only put 2 ornaments on the tree this year, the electric train ornament from NYC and a special ornament of James'.  Then I used some red bows, lights, red and gold balls.   James always wanted lots of presents under the tree and could hardly wait for me to wrap them.  He loved buying gift wrap and bows.  Our paper always had Santa Claus on it.

We put Santa Claus in the front yard and a big wreath on the house above Santa.  And we hung our Moravian Star, as we have done since we lived in Winston-Salem near Old Salem, a Moravian village.

The creche is in place on a hall table and we turn the light on in the stable and leave it burning until January.
One of the camels has a hole in his back where it cracked during one of our moves.  Joseph's head keeps falling off despite super glue.  The cow only has one horn left.  We've had it since 1970-  40 years ago!  James' teachers made the figures for children in his special class when he was in school in Paris, TX.

Carolyn turns 60!

I can't believe my "baby sister" turned 60 on Nov. 20.  I was 16 when she was born, the youngest of 7 children.

Last weekend I flew to Charlotte, NC and my sister Alice met me at the airport so that we could drive to Black Mountain, NC on Sunday to attend our sister Carolyn's 60th birthday party on Sun. night.

The party was so much fun. She rented the Rec Dept center on Lake Tomahawk for the occasion.   She planned her own party but some others helped supply the food.  She baked her own cake, to resemble
Mt. Washington, N.H., where she hiked a couple of years ago.

This is how Carolyn looked when I got married and lived in Germany.  We came back to the U.S. when she was only 4-1/2.  She asked me if I was her sister or her aunt!  I left home to go to college in 1952 when she was only 2 years old, and never lived at home after that.

Our mother died when Carolyn was 12 and in the 5th grade.  The other 4 sisters and I helped "raise" her.  I think she turned out pretty good!!

She is the most artistic person in our family - in many ways.  A great artist, decorator, cook, gardener - you just name it and she can do it.

She asked people to donate canned goods instead of bringing her a present and you should have seen the big basket of food we delivered to the fire house for distribution for the needy for Thanksgiving.  What a great idea.

Carolyn and Dave will soon be grandparents again - next March (Beth and Matt).  This time a girl.  Little Jack was a year old in July and belongs to son Doug.

Pictured here are the six sisters (plus a friend of Carolyn's).  I am the oldest and Carolyn is the youngest.  This was taken in May at Beth's wedding.

Soccer Grandparents

Last weekend we traveled to SC to see our 15-year-old granddaughter play soccer at the SC State Cup.  Two weeks earlier we went to Charleston, SC to see her in the play-offs and they won and went to the big games.  So like any good grandparents, we packed our suitcases and took off to Spartanburg for the final games.

Jim and Nell with Nerissa

On the way up there we went to Clemson, SC to visit her sister who is a senior nursing student there.  We visited her at her apartment on Lake Hartwell and later took her out to dinner.  We took our laptop computer with us so we could listen to the Elba High School football game on the Elba radio station.  It was amazing that we could go to a website, and put in some info, and voila!  There was Elba Tigers football coming out of the speakers!!  Nerissa listened to the game with us (not exactly Clemson Tigers that she was used to). We were so excited that Elba won in the 2nd round of the play-offs for state title.
They will play again this Friday night and I will be sitting in the Memphis airport on a 2-hour layover between flights when the game is going on.  I'll have to keep checking via telephone calls.

Nerissa and Grandpa on her balcony

 Nerissa lives in a beautiful condo with two roommates.  This photo of her with her "grandpa" was taken on their balcony overlooking the lake.

The condo is not far from the Clemson campus.  Most of her classes are in hospitals this year.  She said she has to get up very early to get to the hospital a few miles away.

We will see her again during Christmas holidays in Florence, SC, along with her sister Katie from College of Charleston and our little soccer player, Caroline who is in the 9th grade at West Florence High School.

Caroline in the center, #39

Caroline is in blue, #39, in the center.  She is a really good player and loves playing soccer.  She is hoping to get picked for the high school varsity team early in the spring.  Soccer is a very fast moving game.  It wore me out just sitting and watching!!

She had some good cheerleaders including her grandparents, her dad Bill, and her Aunt Alice and Uncle Jerry from Charlotte, NC - who came on Sat. and Sunday.

Unfortunately they were defeated (1 point) on both Saturday games.  But they were great on Sunday morning and won that game.  They didn't get to play for the state cup on Sun. p.m.  But just getting to the state level was a great accomplishment.

They played in Spartanburg, SC on Saturday and the games on Sunday took place in Greenville, SC.

Caroline's Cheerleaders
Uncle Jerry, Grandpa, Dad, and Grandma

Caroline - a winner!  Florence, SC "Strikers"
Very tired - but happy!!