PAPA'S HELP OF OTHERS

Papa was a hardworking man and he expected hard work from others, but he had great compassion on these who had come up against hard times. He met a lot of people in that condition in his life-time and did what he could to help them out of their crises. I remember a nephew he helped who had an alcohol problem, who later got on top of it and established himself. He came by to settle up with Papa and Papa accepted an electric fan in payment of the debt. We used that fan for years in our home. On another occasion we refurnished our home with furniture that he had received in payment of a debt. l never knew the whole story, but I decided he must have made some pretty good deals.

Sunday afternoon was a good time to visit the sick and infirmed. I remember going with my parents to visit the “poor farm,” the county home for the indigent. Often we visited Mary Hoffer and her mother. Mary was a young women who had been an invalid for many years. They were evidently destitute. I don't know what Papa did far them, but I am sure that he helped financially. Mrs. Hoffer nursed Mary for many years, but when she died, Mary went to a healing service and was miraculously healed. I often wondered about that. I remember also visiting the country home of Dr. Cooper, our dentist and a faithful member of our church. His hobby was taxidermy. A deer head that he had mounted graced the wall of Stainton’s bedroom for years. After his first wife died, he remarried. Sometime later Dr. Cooper was killed in a fall out of a pecan tree.

During the depression many beggars came to our back door. Papa and Mama usually had a pile of wood for them to chop if they were able, but never turned anyone away hungry.

Irene and Henry Thomas were their particular responsibility. They were desperately poor black people. We politely called them “colored people” or Negroes in that day. Many white people and black people, too, called blacks “niggers” in that day, but that was not considered acceptable by our standards. Irene helped Mama in the house from time to time and “Tom” worked in the yard occasionally. The standard wage was 50 Cents a day plus a good meal for Irene and 15 Cents an hour plus a meal for "Tom." Irene always spent part of her pay for a box of snuff, which she dipped habitually. They were always given old clothes or left-overs to take home with them for their big family of children and we usually gave them something special for Christmas. Irene used to walk her children several miles to school to keep them safe from attack. The white children from the country rode the school bus. In spite of all her handicaps, she saw that her children got an education. One became a nurse. Irene had a horrendous goiter on her neck for many years. Papa arranged for her to have surgery at the charity hospital. This was a real act of mercy Papa and Mama gave them, mercy which made a new woman out of Irene. Many people lived better lives because of the help Papa and Mama gave them.