by Mary Wakefield Buxton –
URBANNA —
I
did not grow up in a religious home. Father was an atheist (he joined the Episcopal Church at age 89) and Mother acquiesced to Father. I grew up under the auspices of the First Congregational Church in Vermilion, Ohio, however, because my older sister Alice went to church every Sunday. Whether this was because of faith springing forth, or whether she just wanted to check in with her many boyfriends I was never sure, but if Alice went to church, so would I.
Alice once tested her theory of whether there was a God. She commanded her clock radio to turn on if there was a God. To our astonishment, the radio turned on. Could Father have been wrong?
Our minister was a gentle, kind and intellectual gentleman with perfect grammar. Like Father, he was soft spoken and sweet-natured, the best sort of man.
Our church built on the town square was a white frame building typical of New England architecture. The first floor contained dining area, kitchen and classrooms and the church was upstairs. In the low protestant style, it was bare of all religious ornaments.
In those days little girls with mothers planning for them to become lovely ladies wore frilly dresses and straw bonnets covered in flowers, white gloves and shoes with matching pocketbooks. Today I don’t own a pair of white gloves and I never carry a pocketbook. How times have changed!
I sat by Alice in a front pew and had to be careful of my manners because Uncle Al (whom we called “Black Bear”) who headed the family company and his wife, Aunt Lydie, sat in the back of the church. They kept their eyes on us.
A terrible memory of a little girl, bored with sermon, suddenly haunts my pen. She is stretched out on the pew with her head on Alice’s lap studying her patent leather shoes and marveling how the lights in the church’s ceiling sent starry reflections down on her shoes. Nary a religious thought passed through her head. I can still feel Alice’s pinch.
As a child I had many things to think about, mainly, whether there really was a God, after all Alice could have set the clock radio to come on just at that very moment but more pressing, if there was a God, that meant Father was wrong. Was that possible?
I remember (it was 1952 and I was 11 years old) when our minister told the congregation not to take the Bible story in Genesis literally as it was only a figurative explanation of the origins of life on Earth. It is amazing that such an idea was expressed in a Christian church in spite of the fact that Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” had rocked the religious world nearly a century before. I knew my father was an evolutionist and would have approved. My minister also said Christians were good “for good’s sake” and not out of any fear of going to hell, another revolutionary idea.
At age 12, I attended confirmation classes and memorized the Ten Commandments and the 23rd psalm to recite in church with Black Bear and Aunt Lydie smiling at me. My minister presented a Bible with my name embossed in gold.
When Alice joined the choir, I loved seeing her dressed like an angel come down from heaven in her white and maroon robe topped off with a bow at the throat. The choir leader was a strict man who took music seriously and held a thin baton that he tapped on his podium to keep attention. Amazing grace explains how he kept a bunch of giggling teenagers on proper notes.
Alice took voice lessons and one evening at the annual Mother-Daughter banquet, she sang “Songs my Mother Taught Me.” There wasn’t a dry eye in church.
In high school Alice and I joined the Pilgrim Youth Fellowship and she led religious services on Sunday evenings. Once she appointed me pianist to accompany the group in singing hymns in the candlelight service. Unfortunately neither of us realized what a candlelight service entailed. Lights were turned off and the church was as black as a cave. I squinted hard at my music panicking as my fingers tried to locate the correct keys to the hymn.
“Alice,” I whispered, “I can’t see my music!”
“Play!” She commanded. I played all right. But I should have prayed. My chords sounded like music of a madman. The group tried to follow the ensuing cacophony. After one verse Alice threw down her Bible into an awaiting pew heaving her body after it. “Would somebody please turn on the lights!” she pleaded. With a little help from Tom Edison the service continued.
Our church eventually needed more space for its growing membership and a contemporary church was built nearby. I went off to college but returned to Vermilion for my wedding in the new church in 1963. My old minister, long retired, returned to marry us.
My old church is now an antique store. I stop by every time I return home, walk up the steps, stand and look at the remains of altar, choir loft and pews where I once sat. I can still hear the gentle voice of my old minister who believed we are good because we choose to be good.
© 2020
Note: Mary Wakefield Buxton will be signing her books next to the Urbanna Post Office during “Urbanna Days” from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Nov. 6 and 7.
