BY-WAYS - 6/11/42 - Visit to Saltsburg. Memorial Service

The name of the column takes on its full significance - at least to the writer, when she visits the pleasantest by-ways in the world - the friendly lanes and doorways of her home town and country. How can she possibly crowd into one column all the jewels gathered in one week?... The faces of loved ones, meeting Virgil and her in Pittsburgh ... The beautiful Memorial Service in Edgewood cemetery... the immortal Gettysburg address, which this year takes on a deeper, more sacred meaning; the solemn charge of our speaker, congressman Tibbott, that we must see to it that our heroes shall not have died in vain; the infinitely sad sounding of taps, and the echo that seemed to come from across the ocean.

Strawberry shortcake and good fellowship with Martha and Lloyd Robinson and Billy and Stanley; a chat with Eva and Pearl Kennedy - and a stroll through their attractive house and garden (y' oughta see their new rug - AND roses). Fried chicken dinner (supper) at Ina's. (Virgil and I ate enough to last us all summer - because we don't have even a nodding acquaintance with chicken in Cleveland. You would think they laid golden eggs). Ina and I took quite a beating at "500" ('gainst our husbands, who can't bear to lose). Sunday school --- everybody singing "Fling Out the Banner" as if they meant it ... The privilege of sitting at the feet of Mrs. Simon Hine, who not only knows her Bible and Bible history, but inspires her whole Friendship Class by her teaching and by her Christian living. Church service ... dear, familiar faces ... Mary Carson, who can call forth such rich music from the organ ... a good choir, that can really sing. (And if you will excuse me for saying so, the Cleveland churches can't boast any better tenors than Howard Ewing) ... The very nice solo, "If Christ Came Back," by Mrs. George Shoemaker. A fine, scholarly sermon by Rev. MacCarroll, "Jesus and Prayer." Out of the 111 verses in the Sermon on the Mount only eighteen are without rabbinical precedent. Of these eighteen, half of them constitute the Lord's Prayer - that shows the importance that Jesus gives to prayer. It is not enough to live by the Golden Rule; even crooks can do that. "Unless our lives are undergirded by prayer, they lack the power to implement it." (Quoting Mr. MacCarroll). Visitors from Apollo ... Virgil's leave-taking at 5:30 ... music ... later a Seth Parker program of hymns with Mary and Harry Dunmire, Marjorie at the piano.

Ina reminds me at this point that I left out the trip on Saturday to the "powder works" - alias Federal Laboratories. Old friends there as watchmen, but they wouldn't let us in - even with Mother Lytle along to vouch for our un-arson intentions. On down to Tunnelton, to visit the Nathaniel Nesbitt's. "Big Nat" is no longer the aged father, but the teenage son. Indiana Teacher's College hasn't spoiled Martha Jane a bit. Here is one of the pearls of wisdom that fell from OLDER Nat's lips, "Your friends overestimate you, and your enemies underestimate you; if you can find a medium, that might be a fair estimate of one's character" (or words to that effect). Monday morning - and heavy dashes of rain ... Irma Buchanan Lynn dashing for cover. Lunch at Neta Martin's ... and when she tells you she's just going to open a can of soup, don't believe a word of it. She has the grandest sandwich spread (that went with meat loaf). Anybody want the recipe? I had to DRAG all the news from Melvin about his graduation "cum laude." He gave me a copy of the incomparable address given as a farewell message to the Class of '42 of W. and J. by the school president, Dr. Hutchison. I am leaving it (temporarily) with Mr. Walker - and I just hope he can find space to print it in toto. It will help every young man to go forth to war with a new purpose in his heart; and help every citizen to work and sacrifice with burning zeal.

Mother and Daddy Wilcox ... who were just that to me when I lived with them while teaching in Saltsburg ... Mother W. laid up with lumbago ... but her brave, kindly spirit rises above a bed of pain. Mr. Wilcox - up in the "gay nineties" now - still devoted to his "Chub" ... A very special visitor there, Mrs. Ida Frye Parker of Scottdale, who was one of my mother's dearest friends. My mother has been gone nearly 47 years; but memory has kept, unsullied, in Mrs. Parker's heart, the love of one woman for another. Mother Wilcox must be sorely tempted to stay right in bed - for Mrs. Parker has promised to stay until the lumbago victim is able to be up again. Mother Lytle ... ah, she ought to put a hook on her screen door - for the moths flit in and out. They hover near the warm candle of her hospitality - and then out into the world again. For years I have been running - flitting - in there any hour of the day or night - and Monday was no exception. But Monday evening she began quoting scripture, and what do you think she said? ... "Remove thy foot from thy neighbor's door, before he tire of thee." Now, just how would you take that, if you were in my place? She gave me food for thought - but it has given me indigestion.

Here is the bottom of the page - and I'm not half through. But just wait until next week. I will be a regular Walter Winchell. In a weak moment Ina and Marjorie asked me to stay until Saturday - when M. and Merle would take me home and make a flying visit. So here it is - Saturday morning - and I am afraid Clyde and Ina have been saying "Amen" to Mother Lytle's scripture quotation. Good-by, my friends - until next week.

Affectionately - gratefully,
Florence B. Taylor

Next - 6/18/42 - Still Visiting in Saltsburg

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