Wrong By A Century
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Wrong By a Century" by Frank Ramirez
"The Return" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * * *
Wrong By a Century
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 1:1-11
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning.
-- Acts 1:1
The evangelist Luke was one of the first to write about all that Jesus did. Some of the most effective evangelists have not written gospels, as such, but songs and lyrics that tell the story of Jesus, spreading joy and the good news at the same time.
William Beery, one of those who told the story of Jesus in his hymns, cheated death at least twice, and the hymnody of the church is the better for it.
Born on April 8, 1852, near Bremen, Ohio, he was the tenth of thirteen children. It is said that the doctor took one look at the newborn and told his mother that he would not survive. Beery would cheat death -- not once, but twice! This time the prediction proved incorrect by a small matter of slightly over a century!
Though he was sickly as a child, survive he did. His family worked together on their farm, and William Beery was no exception. Despite his weakened condition he threw himself into the hard work that accompanied the many chores that were a part of daily farm life. However, he also showed an aptitude for music and played the accordion, harmonica, and concertina -- the instruments that happened to be in the home. However at church he was limited to vocal work, leading the congregation in a cappella singing. Among the strict German Baptists with which he was raised the piano and organ were considered too worldly, even sinful, and vocal solos were out of the questions, so he was deprived of those instruments until he was much older.
Higher education was still a novelty for most Americans, but after a year of teaching in the local one-room schoolhouse, Beery realized he needed more training than just a few weeks of special classes, so he decided he needed to attend college. He quit teaching, took a job in a saw mill, and earned the money he needed to further his education. In 1877 he arrived in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, to take classes at Juniata College, then barely a year in operation. His plan was to study music and English.
Then began his second close brush with death. Fall classes had barely started when a smallpox epidemic broke out in the region and the school was closed. The students were cut adrift, without any support, housing, or food. Everyone was unsure when or if the school would reopen. Many students went back home, but Beery was afraid to do so because he wasn't sure he would ever return.
No one in Huntingdon would take him or any other student in. As one student remembered, "Not even a dog from Huntingdon would be welcome in the homes of the farmers round about.
Smallpox wasn't the only danger. With the cold of winter and freezing to death, along with the possibility of starving looming before them, Beery, along with a few of his fellow students, decided to tramp into to the nearby mountains to see if they could somehow stay alive until school reopened. By good fortune they had traveled around fifteen miles away when they stumbled on an abandoned loggers' camp in a deep gorge known as Old Forge. There they also found some abandoned cabins, a cook stove, a saw mill, and a few very crude bunks.
They settled into the abandoned dwellings and built tables and chairs with equipment at the saw mill. They cut and stacked wood to keep them warm over the winter and started up the stove to keep warm and to cook.
Farm families turned them away out of fear that they might carry contagion -- only one person, a teenager named Martin Grove Brumbaugh (who later became a close friend, and who would one day become the president of the college and later governor first of Puerto Rico and then of Pennsylvania), walked several miles to bring them milk. Somehow they survived. Once again William Beery cheated death.
The school reopened for the spring semester. William Beery graduated in 1882, taught in the Midwest for a few years, then returned to teach music at his alma mater. He also began to compose hymn tunes, and over the course of his life wrote over a hundred. In addition to composing over a hundred hymn tunes, many of them to poems written by his wife, Adaline Hohf Beery, he wrote books, taught seminars in churches, and encouraged young church composers. Beery remained active all his long life. The world changed all around him, and eventually he took advantage of first radio and then television to share his hymns.
In his later years he took to celebrating his birthday by singing one of his hymns on the Chicago TV station WLS. The final occasion was on his 103rd birthday. He died on January 28, 1956, a little short of 104 years! Some of his most famous tunes, such as "Take My Hand and Lead Me Father," "Savior of My Soul," and "Lo, A Gleam From Yonder Heaven," are still found in hymnals.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
The Return
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 24:44-53
Every house smells different.
You don't always notice the differences, unless they smack you in the face when you walk in the door, but they're there if you take the time to sort out your senses. The one you always recognize is home. Particularly when you have been gone for a while, there is that moment you walk in the door, that first breath, when you realize you're smelling home; when the subtle perfume of refuge is on your tongue.
Marge Randall smiled at the scent of her home as she stepped through the back door, breathed it in with closed her eyes while John slipped past her and stepped up into the kitchen and deposited her bags on the linoleum with a grunt. She looked at him and said softly, "It's good to be home."
"It's good to have you home. I just wish you hadn't felt the need to bring bricks home in your luggage." He nudged one of the suitcases with his foot; it barely moved.
"Well, you talked about building a barbecue -- I thought I could give you a head start with it."
"And thank you for that. I appreciate the head start on my hernia too."
She smiled impishly, turned away. "You're welcome." Looking around carefully, then, she stepped past the stove, touched the top of it and glanced at her fingers, looked around the rest of the kitchen and nodded approvingly. "It's very nice, John. You kept up with things."
"Wait 'til you see the bedroom and the linen closet. All the laundry is done, ironed, folded, and put away."
She raised an eyebrow. "Really? You didn't have to do all that, John. It's not like I wasn't coming back from Mother's."
He shrugged, met her eyes for a moment, and then looked away. "I know, it's just that I wasn't sure how long you'd be gone. I don't know what all you had to do there, but I know there was a lot for you to take care of."
She nodded, looking down. "There was. But it's taken care of now, and I'm back -- just like I said I would be."
"And I knew you would be. But life goes on while you're gone, right? I could've just sat here, living on TV dinners and rinsing underwear in the sink, but that didn't seem right. You taught me how to do a lot of this stuff -- you showed me, whether you knew it or not. I watched you."
She winked. "I know you did."
"I didn't mean that. Well that too, but I watched you do these things. I'm a reasonably intelligent man, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to figure out how to operate a washing machine, hang clothes on the line, or operate an iron. A lot trickier than it looks, by the way."
"What do you mean?"
He looked down, sucked air in through his teeth and then looked up, a little shamefaced. "Let's just say I may have added kind of a toasty color accent to that silk blouse you like so much."
She blinked. "You washed my new silk blouse? The one from Prange's?"
"Well, yeah -- I knew you'd worn it a couple times, but for some reason you left it hanging in the closet. I took it out when I did laundry and washed it. Don't worry, I did it with my whites -- hot water, plenty of detergent. Right?" he concluded hopefully.
"You... washed it with your underwear?"
He sighed. "Well, yeah, but that wasn't the main problem, I don't think. It just didn't look right when I pulled it out, so I tried to iron it. That's when it kind of scorched. But it's on the tail, so if you tuck it in, nobody'll notice."
"Right. Thank you," she added, while mentally scheduling a talk about dry cleaning. She started to walk out of the kitchen, with John behind her, when she noticed the oven door wasn't quite shut. Absent mindedly, she pushed on it as she walked past -- but it wouldn't budge. She stopped, pressed her knee against the door, then pushed it with her hand as well.
It didn't move.
Behind her, John scratched his head and said, "Uh -- you might..."
He didn't get any farther. She opened the oven door and leaned down to peer into the oven. Both shelves were occupied by a jumble of sauce pans, frying pans, and a couple of bowls, plus one cookie sheet that was turned the wrong way, so preventing the door from closing. Wordlessly, she took it out, turned it ninety degrees and slid it back under the pans that had been on top of it.
The door closed with a solid thunk.
She straightened up, looked at her husband, and said nothing.
She didn't have to.
He scratched his head again, and said, "I was going to talk to you about that, tomorrow. I got all those washed, but I wasn't sure where they went. I thought I'd ask tomorrow -- you know, after you've had a chance to rest from your trip."
She started to speak, stopped, held up a finger in a "wait" sign, leaned over again and opened the door, scanning the pots and pans. After a few moments she closed the door and straightened up again, turned to her husband once more. "Didn't you get most of those out? I think I just left the roaster in the sink, when I left."
"Well, yeah, technically I did get them out, I guess. But I wasn't really paying attention and I just forgot. And I know you have a system, so I didn't want to mess it up by putting things back in the wrong place." He reached out, took her hands in his and stepped up, kissed her. "I was only thinking of you," he added, when they finished.
She jabbed him lightly in the stomach, and smiled. "Right. But I guess I'm a little glad to know that I was missed around here."
"There's a lot more to running a house than you think. Well, than I think," he amended. "I'm sorry. I'll do better, next time."
"You'll learn," she promised. "And if you can't come with me next time, I'm going to have someone come in to help you, so I don't have to worry about what I'm coming back to." Definitely a good idea, she thought. A little help would make a difference. He did his best... and that's just a little sad. She smiled to herself, at the thought.
"What's so funny?" he asked, as she walked toward the bedroom and he picked up her luggage to follow.
"Nothing," she lied, and kissed him on the cheek. "Nothing at all. Now let's go see all this folded laundry."
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 9, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Wrong By a Century" by Frank Ramirez
"The Return" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * * *
Wrong By a Century
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 1:1-11
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning.
-- Acts 1:1
The evangelist Luke was one of the first to write about all that Jesus did. Some of the most effective evangelists have not written gospels, as such, but songs and lyrics that tell the story of Jesus, spreading joy and the good news at the same time.
William Beery, one of those who told the story of Jesus in his hymns, cheated death at least twice, and the hymnody of the church is the better for it.
Born on April 8, 1852, near Bremen, Ohio, he was the tenth of thirteen children. It is said that the doctor took one look at the newborn and told his mother that he would not survive. Beery would cheat death -- not once, but twice! This time the prediction proved incorrect by a small matter of slightly over a century!
Though he was sickly as a child, survive he did. His family worked together on their farm, and William Beery was no exception. Despite his weakened condition he threw himself into the hard work that accompanied the many chores that were a part of daily farm life. However, he also showed an aptitude for music and played the accordion, harmonica, and concertina -- the instruments that happened to be in the home. However at church he was limited to vocal work, leading the congregation in a cappella singing. Among the strict German Baptists with which he was raised the piano and organ were considered too worldly, even sinful, and vocal solos were out of the questions, so he was deprived of those instruments until he was much older.
Higher education was still a novelty for most Americans, but after a year of teaching in the local one-room schoolhouse, Beery realized he needed more training than just a few weeks of special classes, so he decided he needed to attend college. He quit teaching, took a job in a saw mill, and earned the money he needed to further his education. In 1877 he arrived in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, to take classes at Juniata College, then barely a year in operation. His plan was to study music and English.
Then began his second close brush with death. Fall classes had barely started when a smallpox epidemic broke out in the region and the school was closed. The students were cut adrift, without any support, housing, or food. Everyone was unsure when or if the school would reopen. Many students went back home, but Beery was afraid to do so because he wasn't sure he would ever return.
No one in Huntingdon would take him or any other student in. As one student remembered, "Not even a dog from Huntingdon would be welcome in the homes of the farmers round about.
Smallpox wasn't the only danger. With the cold of winter and freezing to death, along with the possibility of starving looming before them, Beery, along with a few of his fellow students, decided to tramp into to the nearby mountains to see if they could somehow stay alive until school reopened. By good fortune they had traveled around fifteen miles away when they stumbled on an abandoned loggers' camp in a deep gorge known as Old Forge. There they also found some abandoned cabins, a cook stove, a saw mill, and a few very crude bunks.
They settled into the abandoned dwellings and built tables and chairs with equipment at the saw mill. They cut and stacked wood to keep them warm over the winter and started up the stove to keep warm and to cook.
Farm families turned them away out of fear that they might carry contagion -- only one person, a teenager named Martin Grove Brumbaugh (who later became a close friend, and who would one day become the president of the college and later governor first of Puerto Rico and then of Pennsylvania), walked several miles to bring them milk. Somehow they survived. Once again William Beery cheated death.
The school reopened for the spring semester. William Beery graduated in 1882, taught in the Midwest for a few years, then returned to teach music at his alma mater. He also began to compose hymn tunes, and over the course of his life wrote over a hundred. In addition to composing over a hundred hymn tunes, many of them to poems written by his wife, Adaline Hohf Beery, he wrote books, taught seminars in churches, and encouraged young church composers. Beery remained active all his long life. The world changed all around him, and eventually he took advantage of first radio and then television to share his hymns.
In his later years he took to celebrating his birthday by singing one of his hymns on the Chicago TV station WLS. The final occasion was on his 103rd birthday. He died on January 28, 1956, a little short of 104 years! Some of his most famous tunes, such as "Take My Hand and Lead Me Father," "Savior of My Soul," and "Lo, A Gleam From Yonder Heaven," are still found in hymnals.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
The Return
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 24:44-53
Every house smells different.
You don't always notice the differences, unless they smack you in the face when you walk in the door, but they're there if you take the time to sort out your senses. The one you always recognize is home. Particularly when you have been gone for a while, there is that moment you walk in the door, that first breath, when you realize you're smelling home; when the subtle perfume of refuge is on your tongue.
Marge Randall smiled at the scent of her home as she stepped through the back door, breathed it in with closed her eyes while John slipped past her and stepped up into the kitchen and deposited her bags on the linoleum with a grunt. She looked at him and said softly, "It's good to be home."
"It's good to have you home. I just wish you hadn't felt the need to bring bricks home in your luggage." He nudged one of the suitcases with his foot; it barely moved.
"Well, you talked about building a barbecue -- I thought I could give you a head start with it."
"And thank you for that. I appreciate the head start on my hernia too."
She smiled impishly, turned away. "You're welcome." Looking around carefully, then, she stepped past the stove, touched the top of it and glanced at her fingers, looked around the rest of the kitchen and nodded approvingly. "It's very nice, John. You kept up with things."
"Wait 'til you see the bedroom and the linen closet. All the laundry is done, ironed, folded, and put away."
She raised an eyebrow. "Really? You didn't have to do all that, John. It's not like I wasn't coming back from Mother's."
He shrugged, met her eyes for a moment, and then looked away. "I know, it's just that I wasn't sure how long you'd be gone. I don't know what all you had to do there, but I know there was a lot for you to take care of."
She nodded, looking down. "There was. But it's taken care of now, and I'm back -- just like I said I would be."
"And I knew you would be. But life goes on while you're gone, right? I could've just sat here, living on TV dinners and rinsing underwear in the sink, but that didn't seem right. You taught me how to do a lot of this stuff -- you showed me, whether you knew it or not. I watched you."
She winked. "I know you did."
"I didn't mean that. Well that too, but I watched you do these things. I'm a reasonably intelligent man, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to figure out how to operate a washing machine, hang clothes on the line, or operate an iron. A lot trickier than it looks, by the way."
"What do you mean?"
He looked down, sucked air in through his teeth and then looked up, a little shamefaced. "Let's just say I may have added kind of a toasty color accent to that silk blouse you like so much."
She blinked. "You washed my new silk blouse? The one from Prange's?"
"Well, yeah -- I knew you'd worn it a couple times, but for some reason you left it hanging in the closet. I took it out when I did laundry and washed it. Don't worry, I did it with my whites -- hot water, plenty of detergent. Right?" he concluded hopefully.
"You... washed it with your underwear?"
He sighed. "Well, yeah, but that wasn't the main problem, I don't think. It just didn't look right when I pulled it out, so I tried to iron it. That's when it kind of scorched. But it's on the tail, so if you tuck it in, nobody'll notice."
"Right. Thank you," she added, while mentally scheduling a talk about dry cleaning. She started to walk out of the kitchen, with John behind her, when she noticed the oven door wasn't quite shut. Absent mindedly, she pushed on it as she walked past -- but it wouldn't budge. She stopped, pressed her knee against the door, then pushed it with her hand as well.
It didn't move.
Behind her, John scratched his head and said, "Uh -- you might..."
He didn't get any farther. She opened the oven door and leaned down to peer into the oven. Both shelves were occupied by a jumble of sauce pans, frying pans, and a couple of bowls, plus one cookie sheet that was turned the wrong way, so preventing the door from closing. Wordlessly, she took it out, turned it ninety degrees and slid it back under the pans that had been on top of it.
The door closed with a solid thunk.
She straightened up, looked at her husband, and said nothing.
She didn't have to.
He scratched his head again, and said, "I was going to talk to you about that, tomorrow. I got all those washed, but I wasn't sure where they went. I thought I'd ask tomorrow -- you know, after you've had a chance to rest from your trip."
She started to speak, stopped, held up a finger in a "wait" sign, leaned over again and opened the door, scanning the pots and pans. After a few moments she closed the door and straightened up again, turned to her husband once more. "Didn't you get most of those out? I think I just left the roaster in the sink, when I left."
"Well, yeah, technically I did get them out, I guess. But I wasn't really paying attention and I just forgot. And I know you have a system, so I didn't want to mess it up by putting things back in the wrong place." He reached out, took her hands in his and stepped up, kissed her. "I was only thinking of you," he added, when they finished.
She jabbed him lightly in the stomach, and smiled. "Right. But I guess I'm a little glad to know that I was missed around here."
"There's a lot more to running a house than you think. Well, than I think," he amended. "I'm sorry. I'll do better, next time."
"You'll learn," she promised. "And if you can't come with me next time, I'm going to have someone come in to help you, so I don't have to worry about what I'm coming back to." Definitely a good idea, she thought. A little help would make a difference. He did his best... and that's just a little sad. She smiled to herself, at the thought.
"What's so funny?" he asked, as she walked toward the bedroom and he picked up her luggage to follow.
"Nothing," she lied, and kissed him on the cheek. "Nothing at all. Now let's go see all this folded laundry."
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 9, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
