(Part 4)

Our Marriage Its Responsibilities Its Experiences:

Having returned from Illinois in July, on Sunday, August 1, 1875 Mollie and I were married; it rained all day. We began house keeping with Mollie's parents, George W. and Mary Bright, occupying a part of their large house. A bit of advice given to us at that time by an old neighbor of the family ran something like this: Well Joe and Mollie we hope you have a long, long road ahead of you, and we know it will have plenty of ups and downs in it. Of course you do not think, now, that you will get angry enough with each other to quarrel, and we hope that you will not, but we hope, too, that you will live together a long time, and we most know that you will have opportunities to quarrel, so the secret is, don't both get angry at the same time. We, Mollie and I, have learned that we could set up a first class quarrel and not half try, if we wanted to; we have also learned that one person single handed can not even start a quarrel, it just wont work. And so we have thus far managed to walk out of it when we see anger brewing, and thus we have escaped many heart pains and angry words. Thanks neighbor Heeter, many thanks for your advice.

We remained with Mollie's parents four years. I farmed his little farm on shares and eked out a living therefrom, but not more. Here and during this time three children were born to us, Irene Ardell, in 1876; Homer Clinton, in 1877; and Flavius Percival, in 1878.

Went To College In Ashland And Returned:

In 1878 Mollie and I joined the Dunkard Church. And late in the autumn of 1879 we moved to Ashland, Ohio, where I attended Normal School at one of this Denomination's Colleges located there, I attended two terms. In June of the following year, 1880, we returned to the farm and lived in the same house for the next three years, farming as usual. In 1882 I was elected to the ministry in the Progressive branch of the Dunkard Church and began to mix preaching with farming. During this time three more children were born to us, Gladiolis Iona, Stephen Silas and Alvin Lesslie.

A Migratory Preacher:

In the autumn of 1883 we migrated with our little family from the home of my wife's parents to Hocking county, Ohio, near Logan. Here I served five congregations during the next few months, in the Progressive branch of the Dunkard Church, two in Hocking, one in Fairfield and two in Perry counties. It was an inclement winter, excessive cold and snow in its forepart and excessive rainfall and high waters later in the season and the exposure of it was considerable and my work strenuous. In the latter part of February my health broke down under the strain.

The Horrors of A Nervous Breakdown:

For nearly eight weeks I suffered the cold, gripping despair of a living death, if that describes it. The chaotic misery of a mind struggling in the wreckage of a shattered nerve system and broken organism is indescribable. Those who have been through it need not be told and those who have not been through it cannot be told.

My wife and my doctor were both as faithful to me in my helplessness as it is possible for one human being to be to another human being, and especially was this true of my wife. Our modern grand children would say: Grandma, you was a nifty little sport, a real hummer, a little honey bee.

My doctor told me that he could pull me out of it, but if I wanted to live I would have to be a lazy man, I lived, and the doctor was right, that accounts for the kind of man I have since proved to be. For forty-six years I have been learning the truthfulness of his prediction.

Migrating to Fairfield County,
And From There Back to Montgomery County:

As soon as I was sufficiently recuperated we moved up to Bremen in Fairfield county. Here I again took up the routine of life, but O how falteringly! and with many misgivings and much apprehension. For the next few months, because of internal dissentions among the brethren, and because of my impaired health, for the next few months I served only two congregations, one in Hocking county, and the other in Perry county. Each of these congregations built a new church house during these few months having lost their right to the old ones by law suit on account of the divisions in the Church.

It was here in Bremen that Homer and Flavius began to go to school regularly. And it was here, too, that Irene left home and started school in Columbus at the Deaf Mute Institute. They all learned very well. This was in 1884. In the fall we returned to the home of my wife's parents for the second time. And for three years I farmed and preached for the progressive Dunkards; during this time I was going through a spiritual transition of which I will have more to say later. Here and during this time two more children were born to us, George Henry, in 1885 and John Wesley, in 1886. More patch work of life!

Another Migration. Deaths and Births:

In the spring of 1887 we moved onto a little farm belonging to my father-in-law one-half mile south of New Lebanon, in Dumb Hundred, and near to the little home once owned by my mother. Again the path of life doubled up on itself and touched landmarks. We lived here nine years and three more children were born to us, Mary Cassandria, 1888; Karl Ray, in 1891 and Charles Bright in 1894.

Here George, John and Mary began going to school where their father and grand mother went; Stephen and Gladiolis began before we moved here and while we were living with the old folks the last time, they went to the Johnsville school where their mother went when a girl.

The Shadow of Death's Wings:

In August 1887, four months after we had moved away from them, my father-in-law died from old age and the lingering effects of a severe paralytic stroke suffered years before; he was seventy eight years old; Daniel Garver preached his funeral and we buried him in the Eversole grave yard beside his only son who had preceded him in death several years.

And three weeks later, in September, death through the ravages of diptheria took Alvin, aged four years, and four days later, Gladiolis, aged seven years; Daniel Garver preached both funerals and we buried them in the Trissel grave yard on Bear Creek and joining on the old home farm of my mother's parents. Grandfather and grandmother Bright, my mother's parents, are buried here and a huge cedar tree stands between their graves. Much of this yard is taken up by their descendants and relatives. Here ends the patchwork of life to many relatives, friends and neighbors; they are all “sleeping in the dust of the ground” awaiting the resurrection of the dead, solemnly promised.

A Heretic And A Squire. O My:

It was while living here, in June 1887, because of radical changes in my religious views of which I will later write, I was asked to resign as a Dunkard minister, I did so and also severed my membership. This act branded me as an arch heretic and dangerous.

In the fall of 1890 I was elected Justice of the Peace for the north end of Jackson township. I served one term of three years and much of my experience was highly enjoyable because useful and helpful, but none of it lucrative. A serious drawback to an honest squire is the domineering whip lash of the ward boss which is more often corrupting than otherwise; and thus it is up through the entire garment of political melody.

I was also elected school director for one year in our school district. But for cause, possibly because I had no experience with children(?), I was dropped the next year. The real cause, however, was, I hired a young harum scarum fellow, it was his first term, to teach our school. The general charge was, Why did you hire that scape goat? our school is bad enough as it is. With all his faults, I knew that this young man knew enough and could tell it, and had executive abilities, and could be reasonable as well as foolish. He taught that school five years and then had to tear himself away from it when he thought it time to change his labors to other fields. He is a banker now. So life goes, he is putting its patch work to gather fairly well.

Migrating From The Farm And Farm Life To Become Mill Toilers

In the spring of 1896, being too broken physically to continue farming, and all my help determined to quit farm life, we left the farm and moved to Alexandersville, Ohio, to become a part of the vast army of mill and factory toilers. Here we found employment with The George H. Friend Paper Company in West Carrollton. We lived two and one half years in Alexandersville, and here Effie Catherine was born, in August 1896. She is our youngest, our baby, and she is thirty-three years old, always lived at home, single and happy, our bread-winner, a trusted office employee of The American Envelope Company, West Carrollton, Ohio.

Our Last Move To West Carrollton

In August 1898 we left Alexandersville and moved down on West Pease avenue, West Carrollton, Ohio, into our new home -- a new eight room frame house. And here for thirty-two years we lived, saw our large family of boys and girls, grow up into man and womanhood, with all the fun and frolic of youth they could crowd into it, and now that they are scattered into houses of their own we do not regret our leniency toward their home life with us. As natural gas, storm sewers, water works, electricity and sanitary sewers made their advent piecemeal we have modernized our house until now we are quite comfortably at home in it, quite nicely settled down in our old age surrounded with the love and care of our children, grand children and great grand children, Mollie Bright and her cousin Josephus Martin, we are, You bet. We look at her old patch work quilts and say: How very much like our lives even to their worn outness and age. We must add that here Karl, Charlie and Effie started to school and finished in the same district. This is more than can be said of myself, wife or any of the other children, except Ivy.

Some Memories Surrounding Our Home And Us:

Our twelve children were all born in Montgomery county, Ohio, eleven of them in Jackson township and one in Miami township. Ten were living at the time and came with us to dwell in this home. My wife's mother, who had decided among her daughters, to dwell with us also came with us here and remained with us as an honored and respected member of our family for more than six years and until her death.

For more than six years thirteen of us were housed, fed and entertained in good, solid, healthful comfort under the willing, cheerful and efficient supervision and care of Mom, the dear old sport and the original Mollie Bright. And she came out on top, or as we now say, she went over the top with flying colors and a shout, the shout being mine exclaiming, not “O Min” but “O Mom”, and the children all joined in on the chorus, even grandma chimed in a little.

This old house has not been blessed with births but it has nursed the sorrows of three deaths. The first was grandma who after several months of distressful sickness died in August, 1904, aged eighty four years. Emanuel Shank held a short service at the house, the main service being at the Eversole Dunkard Church, Daniel Garver officiating; we buried her in the Eversole grave yard by the side of her husband who had preceded her in death seventeen years.

Next was Charlie our youngest boy who died in January 1915 in his twenty-second year. He was a favorite member of both a base ball and football team. A died a victim of the latter being hurt in a game in Cincinnati about two months before his death, this and a malarial complication caused his death. Dr. C. E. Kerney of The International Bible Students Association preached his funeral. We buried him in Evergreen grave yard near here, his grave is in sight from our kitchen window.

And last, Lou, our son John's wife, who died of tuberculosis in June, 1916. Silas Arnold of The Bible Students preached her funeral; we buried her in Evergreen beside her little son, Perry Thomas, who died three years prior to this, and near Charlie's grave on the same lot. These, together with two other little grandsons, children of Homer & Clara and Karl & Eva, are sleeping over there in their little corner awaiting the resurrection of all the dead.

Both of our married daughters, Mrs. Harry Hartley and Mrs. Clark Chamberlain, had their wedding or marriage ceremonies performed in the old family living room surrounded by their loved ones. Ours has been a house of joy and a house of sorrow, hence a human domicile. Our children were all married except Effie, she, poor girl, is our meal ticket.

Ivy and Harry live with Mom, Effie and I, five of us, just a nice sized little family, with our oldest and youngest with us in our dotage. I do not know how Mom and I could get along were it not for these two invaluable girls of ours whose ambition seems to be to vie with each other in caring for Mom and Dad. The dear girls, how Mom and I do appreciate their unselfish devotion to us. And the dear God knows about it, too, and is secretly placing some marks of commendation on the patch work of their quilts.

Some Family Records And Genealogies:

Perhaps a little more family genealogy should here somehow be woven into this narrative. I will attempt to record it in the order of the births of our children: Harry Hartley and Irene Martin were married here at her home in 1907, they now live with us, they have no children.

Homer Martin and Clara Clymer were married at the home of her parents in northern Indiana in 1901. They moved to Ohio and are now living in Dayton. They have one son dead.

Flavius Martin and Blanche Hopper were married in a church in Cresent Spring, Kentucky, where her mother lived at the time in 1910. They located in Parchment, Michigan, but later moved to West Carrollton and now live next door to us. It is quite helpful to have them so near. They have two children, Myrtle and Frances, both go to school and learn fast.

Stephen Martin and Nellie Yoerdy were married in West Carrollton in 1909, they lived in West Carollton a while, then moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and from thence to Parchment, Michigan where they now reside. They have seven children, Harry, Dorothea, Blanche, Howard, Richard, Marian and Jeane. The two oldest are out of school and are working, the rest except the youngest are all in school.

George Martin and Arnetta Laekner were married in the M.E. church in Miamisburg where her parents live, in 1913, they settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan and are still living there. They have five children, Arnetta, David and Donald died in infancy, William and Josephus are living and making good headway in school.

John Martin and Lou Pierce were married in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky in 1904. John was just a kid ran away from home and married. They remained in Mt. Sterling a short while and then came to West Carrollton. Mom jokingly told them that she expected them to be good kids or she would have to turn them over to the truant officer and they would both have to go to school. They settled down in Carrollton. They had two children, Perry Thomas and Mary Ardella. Perry is dead and Ardella lived with Mr. and Mrs. Locke in Dayton. In June 1916 Lou died, in 1917 John went into the World War and over to Flanders. In 1919 he was mustered out of service and came home. Later he married Mabel Johnson, Mrs. Locke's sister, eventually they divorced, and John is now living in Sturgis, Michigan, and unmarried.

Mary Martin and Clarke Chamberlain were married in the home of her parents in 1908, they settled down in West Carrollton, and except several years in Indianapolis, they have always lived here. They have four children, Lena, Ruth, Mary and Arthur. The girls are all out of school and Lena and Ruth are working and Mary is married and has one child. Athur is in school.

Karl Martin and Eva Christman slyly slipped over into Kentucky and got married in 1912, and were married several months before they announced it. They were sly kids, but they make a go of it. They settled in Parchment, Michigan and stuck there. They have two children, Charles, who is dead, and Robert who is very much alive and having his row in school like a trooper.

These children of ours range in age from thirty-three to fifty-three years, and these grand children range from three to twenty three. There are twelve grand sons, five dead and seven living; eleven grand daughters, one dead and ten living; seventeen grand children living and six dead, twenty-three all told. Verily Mom is queen of quite an insteresting tribe -- quite a patch work quilt.

A Scrap of Church History:

From 1878 to 1884, and longer, the Church of our choice, the Dunkard Church, passed through the storms of factional controversies and divisions at the hands of ambitious church leaders, and split into three separate and more or less distinct sects -- “Old Order”, “Conservative” and “Progressive” branches. The animosities created by this tempestuous upheaval are yet in evidence to a considerable extent after all these many and long years.

My wife and I joined the Dunkard Church in the early part of this trouble and therefore passed through most of it, in the end identifying ourselves with the Progressives. I was in the service of this branch at the time I was preaching in Hocking, Fairfield and Perry counties, Ohio. The harrassing experiences of this faith trying transition augmented the severity of my physical breakdown suffered at that time, and aided greatly in retarding my recovery therefrom.

Seeing the Church of my choice splitting itself into opposing factions, and, in the heat of partisan anger, hear her time honored leaders, in the spirit of politicians, hurl their bitter and hate-gendering anathemas into each other's camps, led me to doubt the integrity of my Dunkard faith and its partisan leaders and their blind followers. I was groping for something better, more reliable, more lasting.

A Watch Tower Copy Fell Into My Hands:

In this state, broken in body and mind and doubtful of my religious standing, while living at Bremen, a copy of The Watch Tower, an independent, fearless and uncompromising bible exponent, providentially fell into my hands. It was in the home of Augustine Palmer, in Hocking county near Logan, a deacon in the Progressive church, where this unexpected blessing overtook me. This copy was sent to him as a sample, and, as he did not appreciate it, he consented for me to take it home with me. That was the beginning and the end is not yet; for forty-six years I have been a close and constant reader of The Watch Tower.

A Vista of Hope Opens To My Troubled Heart and Mind:

I did not know fully what I was carrying home with me, but what I had already read therein led me to hope that it would be helpful. In fact I later found therein where I could procure a panacea for all my physical, mental and moral distempers, and especially a remedy for my spiritual disquietude and uncertainty.

Gradually I learned through its columns that the long cherished theories of orthodoxy and churchianity -- “Trinity”, “Immortality of The Soul” and “Eternal Torment” tenets -- were not supported by the teaching of the Bible, and were in fact denounced thereby.

A Galaxy of Bible Tenets:

Gradually the following fundamental tenets of the Bible envisioned themselves: “Creation”, “Justice Manifested”, “The Abrahamic Promise”, “The Birth of Jesus”, “The Ransom”, “The Resurrection”, “The Hidden Mystery”, “Our Lord's Return”, “Glorification” and “Restoration”. These enterweave themselves into a loving, wise, just and powerful scheme of human deliverance and reconciliation at the hands of Jehovah God through his Son, our Lord, Christ Jesus, and our Saviour.

An Earnest Contention For More Light - And A Field of Action:

It was while this joyfully and gradually learning these glorious Bible truths, and while as gladly though timidly imparting them to others, both by preaching and by giving out literature, that I was invited by my Dunkard brethren to resign my ministry in the Dunkard Church, because of, what they dubbed it, my heresy.

This I unhesitatingly did, yet with considerable fearfulness and apprehension. I also withdrew from membership with that and all denominations, denouncing them and their creeds as man made and without the authority of God's Word, The Bible. And with all its heart-pains and severances I have never in all these years regretted the step which I then took. Our parting was fraught with many heart-aches and much sorrow on both sides, and but little or no manifestation of bitterness and anger. For this I am thankful, and remember kindly those from whom I parted at that time. This was in June 1887.

From 1887 to 1898 was an exceedingly trying period to me. To be suddenly severed from all church activities and associations, and to as suddenly step out into unfriendly and strange environments alone, without sympathy, without aid from human sources, as an abandoned heretic, requires more than human aid to sustain one's moral courage to proceed. I repeat, those were indeed trying years, and only the grace of God, the visits of The Watch Tower and the many letters from Charles T. Russell, editor of The Watch Tower, enabled me to humbly traverse them.

And to live to see the time when you can meet and fellowship with thousands of like precious faith in fields where you once stood alone, and to know that your own feeble efforts were a little helpful in causing this change, is worth all the trials of a life time. As my mind reverts and flits hither and thither over the bottom lands and hillwards of the group of states bordering on the Ohio river, I think of many in many places whose hearts have been watered with truth by my feeble efforts. Between us is a mutual friendship of which the world knows naught, and is reward enough for our services if no other awaits us.

This is a patch work quilt -- I like to look at, I like to think of each and every patch in it, and how they were patiently shaped and joined together in a design of brotherhood under the Fatherhood of God. But, much as I like this vision, I must turn from it, and to present and future services, for, apparantly, my life work is not yet done, God who guides me, only, knows. Amen.

Copyright © 2010 James V. Gill

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