Getting ready for annual Church Charge Conference

Sanctuary completed Feb 10, 1911

Once a year in November,  Elba United Methodist Church has an annual church charge conference.  This year it is scheduled for Nov 13 and our District Supt. will be present and preaching that morning.  The conference will probably be in the afternoon.

Since 2009, I have been serving as Membership Secretary, as well as Church Historian.  As Membership Secretary, I am responsible for maintaining the Church Permanent Register.  Names are entered in the book when they join the church, or when they are baptized as infants.  All of our church records were destroyed in the 1990 flood and another flood in 1998.  The church secretary dried the old church records to put together a new register. The older records were destroyed but some of the names from the last 40 years were preserved and a handwritten register was made.

I asked  the church secretary  to order some software for me to use to put together a new permanent registrar.   Currently there are 261 members.  An audit of the membership two years ago revealed that many had transfered to other churches when they moved away from Elba,  never notifying EUMC of their transfer.  I made a lot of telephone calls to verify members and make changes when necessary.

I have printed a church directory, and various lists from info I have on hand.

As Church Historian, I chaired the 100th anniversary of our beautiful sanctuary in Feb 2011.  It was also Homecoming Day and we had a large attendance.  I had so much fun working on the history of our church and furnishing bulletin inserts for 4 Sundays leading up to the big day, Feb. 11th.  The inserts had info about the church bell and steeple, the stained glass windows, old photos of members, and other items of interest.

Hot Pepper Sauce and Turnip Greens

A late crop of hot peppers came along on two pepper plants that have been producing pepper all summer.  I run out of things to do with hot peppers so I guess I'll use these peppers to make more pepper sauce to give away.  We love hot pepper sauce on veggies.  But one bottle will last you a year!  You just keep adding vinegar to it.

I might make some hot pepper jelly to give away at Christmas.  Jim and I could sit down and eat a half-pint, served over cream cheese, for one meal.  We love it with water wafer crackers.

I picked all of these peppers today and there's still blooms and tiny peppers on the tall plants.

I cut up one of the large peppers and remove seeds before chopping
 it to add to cornbread I am baking. Next year we will just plant one hot pepper and one bell pepper.  That's more than enough for our needs.

I have to remember to wear rubber gloves to chop these 'red hot fellows'.

You must have hot pepper sauce to serve with turnip greens.  Today I gathered a large amount of turnips to put in the freezer for cold winter days.  First they must be washed to make sure they are clean and free of insects, etc.   Then I blanched them in hot water before freezing.  I had qt bags of turnip greens to put in the freezer.  Later when the roots are larger, I'll gather them and put them in the freezer to add to the greens when I cook them.

Guess what we had for dinner tonight?  Fresh turnip greens, with cabbage slaw, fresh green beans from KY, rice, hamburger steak with carmelized onions and green peppers, sliced tomatoes, pear relish, and for dessert, blueberry cobbler.  All this to celebrate the fresh turnip greens!!

Sisters Get Together

Sisters:  Nell, Susan, Judy, Alice, Carolyn

Five of our six sisters spent an evening in Black Mountain, NC last night (Fri, Oct 14, 2011) and went out to eat at a barbecue restaurant.  We were joined by 3 brothers-in-law, Jim Gilmer, Jerry Thrasher, and Bob Fletcher.  Also joining us for dinner were Carolyn's daughter Beth, her husband Matt, and 7-month-old daughter Natalie.

Judy came from Sarasota, FL to help Carolyn operate Arbor House B&B while Carolyn's husband Dave went to Myrtle Beach to play golf for a few days.  Alice and Jerry who live in Charlotte and  Susan and Bob who live in Greensboro, NC, drove up to Black Mountain so we could all be together on Friday night. We drove to NC on Friday on our way home from KY.

We got up early on Saturday and ate at the motel and were on the road home by 8:30 A.M.  Arrived back in Elba late in the afternoon.  Stopped several times on the way home.  It was a nice drive and we were happy to be home again after being gone for 6 days.



                         



Leaf Peepers!

Geraldine, Jim and Regina

We joined the caravan of "Leaf Peepers" and traveled as far north as Vanceburg, KY in northeastern KY. We spent the first night, Monday October 10,  in Chattanooga, arriving in Olive Hill, KY Tues. afternoon.  We visited Jim's Aunt Geraldine who lives about 15 miles north of Olive Hill - in the mountains.  The leaves were ablaze with color - the peak of the leaf "season".

It rained all day Monday and most of Tuesday on our way to KY.  But Tuesday afternoon the rain stopped and the sun came out and the colors were brilliant.

We had fun in Laurel community visiting with Jim's aunt and cousin. Those two ladies have been canning all summer, getting ready for ice storms.  Last year they were without electricity for 11 days and this year they are prepared.  They have lots of canned veggies, etc. to eat if they are shut in from ice or snow.  We went to the local farmers market and bought beautiful tomatoes (picked ripe from the farm nearby), green beans, bell peppers, and fresh apples from the orchard on the top of the hill!

School days remembered - Curtis School Reunion today

Nell Gilmer speaking to the group

Sara Young, 94, visiting with Mary Ann Donaldson

Today was our country school (gone since the 1960's) reunion.  We held the reunion in the picnic pavilion behind New Ebenezer Baptist Church near where the old Curtis Jr High School was located.

People started arriving around 10:30 A.M.and it was a steady stream of people arriving for the next hour.

My friend Janice and I have chaired this reunion for 26 years and every year we say "This was the best reunion ever!" -   except for the year right after Hurricane Katrina when we had so many love bugs invading our area.  A few times it has been cold the
second Sat. in October, but usually it is warm by the noon hour.

We honor a family that attended Curtis school and sometimes an outstanding alumnus.  Today we honored my cousin, Jimmy Blankenship, an only child in his family.  He moved to Alexander City, AL when he was in the 7th grade and spent the rest of his life in northeast Alabama.

We printed a picture of grades 1-3 at Curtis school in the school year 1945-46 on front of a postcard that we used for the reunion announcement.  Today we honored people in the photo, along with Jimmy.

We had 75 in attendance, including spouses, and others. People still bring dishes of the past, i.e., chicken and dressing, homemade dumplings, fried chicken, all kinds of vegetables including sweet potatoes, peas, turnip greens.  The dessert table was laden with a big assortment of goodies and cakes.    Sweet tea is still the drink of choice at these reunions.

People kept visiting long after they had finished eating.  Lots of people helped put things in order and clean up the area.  It was indeed a "reunion" of old friends, old memories, and so much to talk

'Possum in the 'simmon tree; Raccoon on the ground

I  remember as a child hearing a bluegrass song on the Grand Ole Opry
that went something like this:  "Possum in a 'simmon tree; Raccoon on the ground.  'Possum said to raccoon, Throw them 'simmons down!"

We had wild persimmon trees on the farm and if we tried to eat them before the were ripe, it would cause our mouth to pucker up something terrible.  But ripe persimmons were juicy and sweet.  They were always better after the first frost.  We had a hard time getting them before the wild animals ate them up.

Our neighbors have nursery stock persimmon trees in their yards.  Two days ago I picked some of the fruit to slice and put in the dehydrator to dry.  It only takes two days to dry them to make them crisp and sweet.

When you slice the persimmons, there is a beautiful star design.  There are no seeds in the cultivated persimmons. If you wait until the persimmons are fully ripe, the slices are bright orange.

I plan to use some of my dried fruit to make a kitchen wreath for Thanksgiving.  I will use sticks of cinnamon with the persimmon slices, all strung on raffia and hang it in the kitchen window.  Then I will use the leftover to make delicious persimmon bread.

Preparing for another cold winter

Jim and our "free" firewood

My brother Perry cleared the woods along Beaver Dam Creek where he has property near the by-pass in Elba.  He cut the limbs of the hardwood trees for us to use as firewood in our fireplace.  Jim and I loaded this trailer and brought it home and unloaded it, to use this winter.  We love our warm and cozy fireplace when it's cold outside.

You can see the by-pass bridge behind the trailer.  A new bridge has been built for the extra 2 lanes that will be built later.

This is the cabin Perry is working on.  He added the deck first.  This is the back side, facing the creek and woods.  He recently added the windows and the view is beautiful from inside the cabin.

The next photo is a view of  the creek  which borders his property.  He cleared all the underbrush in order to see the creek.  This creek flooded the town of Elba in 1998 when it broke the levee.  There's about 5' of water in the creek when there's a heavy rain.