Tell Me the Story

Jessica asked me to write a couple of paragraphs about mom and her story this week.  So, I thought I would do that tonight, what little I know.  I wish I had asked questions of mom and dad about their lives.

12-31-1983

Mom was born in Mississippi on January 29, 1934.  I don 't know what city.  I do know that she had to quit school when she was 16 to go to work because her dad was an alcoholic.  Her dad was Ralph E. Ryker.  Her mom was Myrtle G. Phillips.  I believe mom was one of eight children.  I remember her talking about going out in the fields to pick cotton when she was young.

At some point, mom moved from Mississippi to Indiana.  Mom was married once before she married dad.  I believe he was abusive.  I don't know how long the marriage lasted or when she was divorced from him, but she and dad were married in Osgood, Indiana on December 20, 1954 after a 3 month courtship.  I was born 9 months and 18 days later on October 8, 1955.

Mom worked for a chicken processing plant in Osgood.  I don't know when, she was a stay-at-home mom for as long as I can remember.  Dad was a mechanic at a gas station in town.  She used to drive and take his lunch to him.  When she went to get her driver's license, she hit the car in front of her and in back of her during the parallel parking.  She never did go back to try again for her license.

Dad didn't make those early years of marriage easy.  He would come home drunk.  I remember mom talking about having to help him up the stairs to bed and then having to clean up after him when he got sick.  I have a vision in my head of that, too.  Not sure if it is from seeing it or just a vision my mind has made up from the story.  But, eventually, he quit drinking.  She may have given him an ultimatum, I don't know.

We moved several times, once to California where we lived for 10 months and we lived in 3 different places during that short span of time.  We were home sick and came back to Indiana.  We began going to church in the town where we lived in College Corner, which was partly in Indiana and partly in Ohio, near dad's sisters, Aunts Opal, Peggy, Juanita and Joyce, who lived together in a big farm house on the outskirts of town.

In 1965 mom and dad made professions of faith.  And then I did soon afterwards.  We were all baptized at the same time at a Baptist church in Dartmouth, Ohio (maybe).  Not long after that dad got a job driving a truck for Rocket Transportation out of the Greater Cincinnati Airport in Northern Kentucky.  So, once again we moved into a huge house on a dairy farm in Union, KY.  The Big Bone Baptist church was not far and Brother Robert Ginn, the pastor, knocked on our door one day and invited us to church, so we went.  We joined the church and attended there until we moved to a house on River Road in Hebron, KY.  I'm not sure of the year, but I believe I had started my 7th grade at Ockerman Middle School in Florence, KY when we moved and I began going to Conner Middle School.  That would have been 1967 or 1968.

We began going to a church in Constance which was closer to our house on River Road.  In 1974 we had to move after a tornado totaled our house.  We moved into a rental in Union, KY until mom and dad bought a house on Hathaway Road in Union.  We began going back to Big Bone again until the church made Brother Ginn resign the church over the doctrine of election.

Brother Ginn started a mission in Florence that we attended and mom and dad were there until mom went into the nursing home and dad died.  Mom began with noticeable symptoms of alzheimer's in 1998.  Dad kept her at home and took care of her as long as he could.  In 2000, I believe, she went into a nursing home.  She was there until her death in 2005.  We buried her on July 4th.

I didn't appreciate mom when I was growing up.  I regret that as I look back.  She was a godly mother and I thought she was too strict.  But, I'm so glad she was because there is no telling where I would be if she had not been a strict disciplinarian!

Mom's favorite song was, "Tell Me the Story of Jesus" by Frances J. Crosby and published in 1880:

1.  Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.
Tell how the angels in chorus,
Sang as they welcomed His birth,
“Glory to God in the highest!
Peace and good tidings to earth.”

Chorus:
Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.

2.  Fasting alone in the desert,
Tell of the days that are past,
How for our sins He was tempted,
Yet was triumphant at last.
Tell of the years of His labor,
Tell of the sorrow He bore;
He was despised and afflicted,
Homeless, rejected and poor.

3.  Tell of the cross where they nailed Him,
Writhing in anguish and pain;
Tell of the grave where they laid Him,
Tell how He liveth again.
Love in that story so tender,
Clearer than ever I see;
Stay, let me weep while you whisper,
“Love paid the ransom for me.”

One thing I do know when I look back over my life, I can see God's hand directing, orchestrating and leading in our lives.  Thank You, Lord, for Your leading!  Thank You, Lord, for my godly parents!  I'm so glad You know what is best for me!  Even now as I approach the golden age of my parents before they left this earth, You know what is best for me and You are taking care of me!  Thank You, Lord!