KATHERINE LOUISE BOYD

“MOTHER’S FUNERAL”

NOVEMBER 28. 1997

LEBANON ROAD CHURCH OF CHRIST

BY

JAMES W. BOYD

 

The following is a transcript of remarks I made at Mother’s funeral. I have also listed the songs as they were sung. These words were intended to be a tribute to both Mother and Dad, and an expression of gratitude for the kind and quality of home they provided for my older brother, younger sister, and me in the days of our youth. 

 

Dad was born on July 14, 1895 and died June 25, 1963. Mother was born November 12, 1902 and died November 24, 1997. They were married for over forty years.

 

My thanks to Pat Gauger for making the transcript of my comments for me.

 

SONG: “JESUS, SAVIOR, PILOT ME”

 

Experience teaches us, and more importantly the Scriptures, “It is appointed unto man once to die” (Hebrews 9:27). But the Psalmist also says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15). In the book of Revelation, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” We come today basking in the sunlight of such teaching because Mother lived in the Lord and she died in the Lord. And we take our comfort in the promises that God has given us in His inspired Word. Jesus said to His Apostles, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14 1-3).

 

To my mind one of the most comforting passages of Scripture to those who are Christian people, who have to bid good-bye to their loved ones, was when the Apostle Paul was writing in First Thessalonians four concerning two classes of Christians; those who had already died and those who were still living. “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede them which are asleep For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (vs. 13-17). And then he tells us why he wrote this passage, “Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.”

 

The Bible student is very familiar with that great chapter of the resurrection, First Corinthians fifteen. Paul wrote, “But some say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” (vs.35-44). Then he concluded this chapter, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? 0 grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 53-5 7).

 

One final passage that is very appropriate, it seems to me, considering the difficulties that Mother had in her last days, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21: 4).

 

Brother Wayne Coats was to preach Mother’s funeral by her request. Because of his operation of late, he is not able to do it, and so we’ll do the best we can under the circumstances.

 

You noticed the pall-bearers when they came in; they are Mother’s grandsons and she requested them to be her pall-bearers. Some of them had to make a tremendous effort to be here. They helped one another to get here. They love their grandmother and they consider it an honor to be able to render this service to her. How proud she would be to see them.

 

We’re going to be led in prayer by Betty’s husband, Jack Copeland. Jack was considered by Mother to be her third son and he is going to lead us in prayer at this time; Brother Jack. .

 

Pray with me please. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for this quiet time and peaceful place where we can asssemble in honor of our loved one that is passed from this life. We are thankfiul for the many things, especially at this season of the year. We are thankful for the life of Katherine Louise Boyd and for the influence and wonderful memories that she has left for us. We are thankful for the members of the family that are able to assemble here today and we ask at this time a special blessing on those who can not be with us and be among us at this particular time. We want to thank You for those who have so faithfully, kindly and patiently attended her every need over the years and especially the last months of her life. Help us, Father, to always love one another and stay close as a family as she would have us to do. Be with all of us that are attending here today as we leave this place and let us carry, each in our own way, the good memories we have had of a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and a friend. And we pray all of this through your gracious Holy name, through Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

SONG: PASS ME NOT, O GENTLE SAVIOR

 

On behalf of my brother, B.B. and my sister, Betty,  we want to say, “Thank you,” to all of you, those of you who have come, those of you who came by the funeral home, but mostly, or in addition I should say, to those of you who through the years loved our Mother and helped her and sent her cards, flowers and visits and food (and I got in on some of that) and you called and you inquired about her. All of our family thanks you for what you have done and to this congregation, which she dearly loved and the people of it, in particular. There are some nearly fifty of us now and I don’t know whether Mother wants to take the blame for all that or not but every one of us thank each of you.

 

Our hearts are not only here today, of course, but our hearts are with B.B. After all, B.B. and Kitty and their family looked after the needs of our dear Mother for thirty or more years and it is a sad thing to us that he is not able to be here, but our thoughts and prayers are ever with him. Each person and each member of our family will remember Mother, and remember her differently because of the difference of the associations we had with her. I got to thinking about people that would remember Mother and her life. Not many, if any, will remember her youth. Mama lived ninety-five years. About a week before her ninety-fifth birthday, which was on the twelfth of this month, I went to her side and I said, “Mama, next Wednesday you’ll have a birthday.” She just sort of looked at me. And I said, “You’ll be ninety-five years old,” and Mother said, “Good grief.”

 

A number of you will certainly remember her in her adult years and the more active years, and you don’t know how it warms our hearts to hear those of you who were, I say, privileged to sit in her Bible classes and remember the things that she strove to teach from the Word of God, and see your appreciation of them. I do think that she made an impact upon many lives. It is true that most of us will remember her last days, but we know that her last days were hard days. She was terribly handicapped. She was in constant pain.  I don’t know of any better way to describe them than being very, very hard days; hour after hour and day after day; and though we grieve and sorrow as anybody would at the loss of a loved one, a Mother, (they always have a special place), I think you can understand why we are somewhat relieved for our sake and her sake. It is hard to see your loved one suffer, isn’t it? But we’re relieved for her sake.

 

I want to talk about some of the times of Mother, and I want to speak about a time that, of all of us here, only Betty would remember it. I want to talk to you about a time when we were all at home on Overhill Drive. Mom contended that these were her happiest years, not that she did not have joy and happiness at other times. I think we can understand why. She had Dad and they were together and they were in the home and house they had built and she had her three children and Mama was such a family person, as we all know. Now, I’m not going to give you a family history. You would tire of that. But I want to give you a few illustrations of those days  of Mom and Dad and B. and Betty and me back on Overhill. It will give you a little bit of an idea that describes Mom and Dad, and it is meant to be a sincere tribute to them both.

 

When we moved to Overhill, I was seven years old, so my memory goes back further than Overhill. One of the first things I do remember about my Mother was her reading Bible stories to my brother and me when we lived on Polk Avenue (it’s Donelson Pike now) from Hurlburt’s Bible Story Book. I still have that book and Betty’s not going to get that. That is where we learned about the great Bible characters. That’s where we were taught, right at her feet. It was a very interesting and happy time, at least I remember it so well.

 

We didn’t have a supermarket in Donelson at that time. We bought our groceries at Hill’s Grocery on Hermitage Avenue. I don’t know whether it’s even still there or not. But it was back during the time when you put three children in the back seat and ten dollars worth of groceries - you could’t hardly turn around it was so crowded! And that always suited B.B. because he would get down in the floor of the seat and as he would ride home, he would constantly worry us all to death guessing where we were on the way home. “Are we at this point?” “No, B.B !“ “Are we at that point?” “No, you missed it again!” But we had that every time and that was fun.

 

I remember Mother for her big hats and I always will, and it’s very appropriate that one of her hats are here on the casket today. She wore those big hats to church and on special occasions. As you know, Mama was a very dignified lady. She was very stylish I thought, and she had very good taste, and if you don’t think so you just keep it to yourself because I know she did. Mother knew how to put things together, and she knew how to dress up when the occasion came, and I remember her for her big hats, and many of you do, too.

 

But I can’t remember a time that I’d come home from school that Mama wasn’t there and I think that’s something the world needs to turn back to again, but that’s another matter. Usually, she was there in the kitchen to meet us. And she always kept on top of the refrigerator  a cookie jar, and that thing was constantly filled with homemade oatmeal cookies with raisins. Seldom did the well ever go dry. She would keep them there. If she wasn’t in the kitchen to greet us, you would know exactly where she was, because upstairs she had her foot-treadle Singer sewing machine, and you could hear it when you came in the door. They were sort of hard times and they didn’t go out and just buy what they wanted to, and Mama made Betty’s clothes. She would repair just about everybody else’s. But I remember her being there when I came home from school.

 

But it is true that the church was very much the center of our home. Mother was a teacher. Dad was a teacher. He was a song leader, a deacon, an elder of the church eventually, as B.B. became. For years the Boyd family made the communion bread. Mrs. Ida Boyd, my grandmother, made it, and then Aunt Bess and Aunt Nell made it, and then finally it fell Mother’s lot to make the communion bread. I remember one Sunday, we were at worship and the brother that was at the table picked up the tray and the bread wasn’t there. Well, he just turned and looked at Daddy and Daddy stood up and, (they didn’t sit together because Daddy was usually leading singing), and he just stood up and looked at Mother and Mother just looked down. I guess Betty and B.B. had caused such a stir that morning, I suppose, in getting off that she forgot it. But I remember that so vividly and Dad dashed home and we all just sat there until he got back and we continued our worship. But worship was a very serious business and they taught us reverence.

 

 

You know, anything that happens in church is funny that wouldn’t be funny anywhere else. But   I remember at the little Donelson church the floor slanted. Back then nearly all the contribution were coins, very little paper money but coins, and they would put it all in one tray right at the last. Evidently just as they had put it all in one tray, the brother that was holding it dropped it. Well, you can imagine, coins just started rolling down that thing just like an army coming in. You could just hear them rolling down and I just nearly burst. I held it about as long as I could and I thought I was doing pretty well, and then right where the floor leveled out, there were some air vents. And here came those coins, clickety, clickety, clackety, clackety! Well, I lost it. I just laughed right out loud and I never will forget that because it was impressed upon me later when we got home that it really wasn’t as funny as I had thought it was. And they did that for a purpose and this tells us of something of Mama and Daddy. Worship to God was serious. And we should be reverent and we are in the presence of the Almighty. It’s not a pep-rally. It’s not a religious Hee-Haw. It’s a time that we adore God and they impressed that upon us in a number of ways.

 

I know we learned a whole lot at church but it was, indeed, at home that we learned about God and His love for us, His care for us, His provision. We learned about Christ and His sacrifice and being our Savior. We learned the Bible to be the Word of God. It was at home that we were taught about the church and the difference between the Lord’s church and the human denominations. It was at home that we were taught the plan of salvation and we were impressed with having a personal responsibility and an accountability. It was at home that our priorities were established and our values and we were taught morality and we were taught reverence, and it was at home that we were disciplined. Mom and Dad were disciplinarians. They tried at least, and I always knew, though I didn’t always agree, they were fair. They tried to be fair in disciplining us. There was one thing I soon learned, that when B.B. or Betty were being disciplined, which was so frequently the case, that you didn’t gloat. You didn’t dare show any joy that they were getting what they deserved because if you did, the next one was your turn.

 

But at our house, we had great fun. I mean great fun all the time. Now, all families have good times at Thanksgiving and Christmas and the Fourth of July and we had all that, but I’ll tell you, dear friend, just about every day was a great fun day at our house. Dad built us a recreation room down in the basement. Clara May Benedict just mentioned that a few moments ago. We had a good time all the time.

 

My favorite room, and it’s not for the reason you think, was the breakfast room. Now, I know you think it’s because it was where we ate and that was wonderful because Mother sure could cook. But that breakfast room was a special room, and I’ll tell you one thing that was rather humorous that happened in the breakfast room one time. Mother could make the best chocolate cakes. She’d make thick chocolate icing and it was our custom we would eat all the inside of the cake and save the icing till the last. On this particular occasion, the telephone rang. B.B. had already eaten his cake and his icing was there on the plate and the telephone was for B.B. So he left. Sure enough when he came back his icing was gone. He just immediately, I guess from past experience, thought I had taken it. He was coming around the table (my Daddy had taken it) and B.B. was coming around that table for me.  Betty and B. sat on one side and I sat on the other because Betty was sometimes hard to get along with, so they put those two over there and me over here. And he was coming around after me, and Mother jumped up and grabbed him. She said, “Bowling, tell that boy you got that icing. Don’t you let them start a fight over that.” Mother saved the day for me that day!

 

At this breakfast table in the little breakfast room is where the family would talk and we would plan and we would be questioned. Very seldom were we disciplined at the table because they made it a pleasant experience. It was pleasant enough to eat Mother’s food but they always made it a place where we learned they cared and they really loved us and we had guidance and we had encouragement and we had a great security. That’s where we prayed together and it was just a special room because we ate breakfast together and we would eat supper together almost every night.

 

Mother and Dad were very insistent that we do our homework and our piano practicing -we won’t discuss that too much - that was a sore spot with me sometimes. But after homework and after piano practice - we had a basement and you would come down the steps and at the foot of the steps is Mother did her ironing. I can see her now when she ironed everything that we wore. And we children would sit on those steps and listen to the radio with Mother and we would hear one night Cecil B. DeMille’s Lux Presents Hollywood. Now you folks don’t know anything about that, some of you, but that used to be a radio program. There was Fibber McGee and Molly and Amos and Andy. We would sit and listen and Mother would iron. Sometimes Dad would listen with us. Sometimes Dad was out making calls, but we always looked forward to when he came back in and nearly every time you know what he had? He had a quart of ice cream. I know he couldn’t afford it but we couldn’t afford not to have it. So he would come in and again we would have another great family time.

 

Mother was a great flower gardener and she was a charter member of the Lebanon Road Garden Club. It’s the second oldest chartered garden club in the state of Tennessee and Mother was a charter member of it. Mother could grow the most beautiful flowers and she would have these red roses over the front doorway of our house. I remember on Mother’s Day, you know you would wear your red rose, and we would go out and she would pick one and pin it on us children. Down where the driveway met Overhill Drive was a telephone pole. Mother had a white rose bush there and you wear a white rose when your Mother has passed on. I can remember Dad going down to get his white rose and it always nearly broke my heart every Mother’s Day to see Dad go down and get his white rose. Well, I remember well, I went down with him sometimes and one time (and I remember this especially), I asked Daddy, I said, “Daddy are you sad that your mama is gone?” He said,  “Well, you always are but,” he said, “I’m so glad that you get to wear a red one.” There he told me what he thought of my Mother and I knew later what the writer of Proverbs said about the worthy woman, “Her husband praises her.” And I never will forget that because it said so much about them both.

 

Mother and Dad were very much involved in civic activities. Mother put in the first hot lunch for school children in Donelson Elementary School that there ever was and borrowed the money to buy the steam table with her own signature, and didn’t have the slightest idea where it would come from if they had to pay it off. She worked in that cafeteria and believe you me, I was just King Tut when I went through that aisle to get our hot lunch and Mama was back there taking care of it. She was in the PTA and Dad was in the Civic Club and they were in all the Booster Clubs.

 

Folks, music was very prominent in our home. I’ll never minimize that. They could sing; we would play. Mother was a very accomplished pianist. In fact, Mom and Dad sang and played over the radio during the depression to help supplement their income. They literally had to sing for their supper and those musical talents have been handed down to some other generations too, haven’t they? And music has always had a very prominent place, not only at recital time, (I’d rather rub that one out), but we had family fun, and at church. Mom and Dad, I suppose sang for more funerals than could be counted and I deeply appreciate you people who are here today to take your time and your talent to honor Mother by the beautiful way that you are presenting these songs that were favorites of hers.

 

We had a lot of fun and a lot of games that we would play. One of them was we would tap out songs and try to guess what they were. Like “Home on the Range” - “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam.” (Tapping). Well, you get the idea, and then someone was supposed to guess which one that it was, you know, just by tapping. Well, I didn’t know many songs and I couldn’t tap very many of them correctly. But I did know “Home On the Range” and I would do it nearly every time. I remember one time, (and Mother was a very good referee), “All right, Jimmy, it’s your time to tap,” and before I started to tap B.B. blurted out “Home On The Range.” Well, that teed me off a little bit and we got into it. We really got into it right there! “You’re supposed to wait till I tap it.” Mother had to separate us, and needless to say there was no ice cream that night.

 

We had a fair amount of teasing going on. Betty, of course, was our little sister. I remember very well - I don’t know whether she will or not - if she has any of these things memorized differently, I’ll just tell her she was too young to remember. But I remember that B.B. was going through the house and he would look at Betty and say “Betty is a baby - Betty is a baby.” Well, you can imagine. She just flew into a rage and started hollering and screaming and yelling to stop that. Mother would hear all the commotion. Here comes Mother. She would get onto Betty for carrying on and she would get onto B.B. for singing that like he was doing. I didn’t dare say anything, but I was enjoying every bit of it. And she would say, “Now B.B., don’t you sing that to her anymore!” And he didn’t. He obeyed her. But then he would come through and, “Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, - hum! Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, - hum.” And it would start all over again.,

 

But you know, looking back those times were fun. We had our rooms upstairs. Betty had a room at one end of the house and hers was a bigger room but B. and I shared a little bit smaller room but we had an outside upstairs porch and that is the reason we wanted it. B. and I shared that room all the time, and he had a radio. He had worked for that radio and he was just like an old mother hen for that radio, and unless you were authorized you just didn’t fool with that radio. Occasionally when he was going to be gone and I was there he would be so gracious to say, “Jim, you can play the radio.” Now wasn’t that big? And so I would. Of course, I played it a lot of other times that he didn’t know about also. But, we shared that room.

 

Dad had made us a desk with drawers in it facing each side. It was an old business desk of his, and he took off the top and turned one set of drawers around so each side had a set of drawers.  The desk was in the middle of the room and that’s where B. and I would study and get our homework. We shared the desk for a long time. B. was always a real good student; just about as sharp as a briar. It helps to have an older brother who is ahead of you in school, who is really smart. You run into a snag; why he pulled me out of a many a one.

 

I can remember in the times that we tried to play sports and Mom and Dad, I don’t believe, missed a game that B.B. ever played or that I ever played. I don’t believe they ever did. Mother told us later on when we were trying to play football, she said “I’d take a deep breath every time to see if you all stood up.” She just agonized over it, but they were always there.

 

We cut grass a lot; all over the neighborhood. I cut Mrs. Bradley’s yard. I cut nearly every yard that was there in Bluefield. Dad took an old Maytag gasoline motor off of a washing machine and put it on a lawnmower and I had the first motorized lawnmower in Donelson, TN. Then I could get to where I could cut Mrs. Bradley’s yard in an hour and I’d get a dollar for it. I would cut four or five yards a day with that and I was rolling in money with that motorized mower. There was something else Daddy made us, and this tells you how they took care of us. Daddy made us a little three wheel car that would run by a little Briggs-Stratton gasoline motor and you steer it like this and what more fun. Now, Kitty might can tell you more about this little car than I can, because after church on Sunday night and Wednesday night - and that’s when Lebanon Road had at least three cars a day going over it - B.B. would take Kitty home. She lived up where used to be S-curve, and he would take Kitty home on Beelzebub. Wouldn’t you love to have been in the back part of Beelzebub? That was the name of the little car, Beelzebub, you know, the Prince of Devils? Daddy gave it that name because he said it would run like the devil and was sometimes as hard as the devil to start. But that’s what he called it. And they did a lot of courting in Beelzebub. Betty and Mother would go to the grocery store in Beelzebub and I got to take it to school and was always thankful to Dad.

 

I saw Billy Hooper last night, he’s a cousin, he may not admit it, but I’ve already said it. And he said, “Jim, you know, we grew up in the best neighborhood.” And we did! That neighborhood around Overhill Drive was a wonderful place for us to ride our bicycles at night and some ten, twelve, fourteen or fifteen of us would be riding bicycles at night and we knew when to come in. The Tennessee Central Railroad came through there and there was a train that would come through around ten o’clock every night. You could hear the first whistle as it crossed McGavock. You could begin to hear it coming and you could hear him blow his whistle until he got all the way around over to Stewart’s Ferry Pike, and we knew when that whistle could no longer be heard, you’d better be home. You couldn’t say I couldn’t hear it because you could hear that whistle all over everywhere.

 

When we got home we would usually go out on the screened-in porch that Daddy had screened and we would have more good times. We had our chores. We cut grass and we raked leaves and carried out the trash and we did windows and we did dishes, too. We had a habit there at our home on Sundays taking turns drying the dishes. Now, Mother always washed but we dried the dishes and I never did like that particularly. But it was my turn to dry the dishes and I was drying and I announced to Mother that I was going to run away from home. I had just had enough of this. So it didn’t seem to phase her a whole lot. She might have thought, “Whew, at last!” But I was just a little boy. I was going to run away from home. She said “Well, where are you going?”

“I’ll find a place.”

“Well, what are you going to eat?”

Well, Mr. Moore had a restaurant down in Donelson and I said, “I’ll eat at Mr. Moore’s.” She said, “Well now, Mr. Moore doesn’t give food away. You’ll have to buy it and where you going to get your money?”

I said, “I’ll get a job!”

Mother said, “Where’ll you get a job?”

“I’ll get a job at Mr. Moore’s!”

Mother said, “Well, how will you get a job at Mr. Moore’s? You can’t cook!” I said, “I’ll wash the dishes.”

She said, “Well, you’re washing dishes already. Why do you want to run away from home?” So I never did talk about running away from home anymore.

 

During these years of which I’m speaking, folks, the saddest I ever saw Mother was the time when we had to send B.B. off to the Navy. I didn’t see Dad cry.  I’m sure that he must have, but Mother really cried hard on that occasion. I saw her, of course, very sad after Dad’s death and she was very sad after B B. was overtaken with his present illness, but I’m talking about those earlier years. I really didn’t fully understand. It was rather exciting to me. He was going off and he was going to wear a uniform. The whole room would be mine and he couldn’t take his radio and I had that and the desk was totally mine.

 

But that was a hard time for Mother and in fact, it almost made her ill worrying about him as you can imagine. But thank God he returned and we spent our time together in college until he and Kitty married. Years went by and one by one each of us would leave out. I did and then, of course, later on Betty did.

 

The place on Overhill  was home as long as Mom and Dad lived there. Then Dad died over thirty-four years ago, and shortly thereafter Mother sold the place and, of course, that was a tremendous change for all of us. Now, I must maybe apologize to you. These things may seem trite to you. They may seem trivial. They may even seem inappropriate and out of place, but they are not to me. And I present them to you and to her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren as a very sincere and genuine and from-the-heart tribute to my Mother and my Daddy.

 

I think, and it may be rather simplistic to analyze it this way, but Dad with his tremendous optimism and his continued enthusiasm,  he kept our head in the clouds; and Mother with her more serious manner and her more strictness,  she kept our feet on the ground, and that’s the combination with which we were blessed. One kept our heads in the clouds and the other kept our feet on the ground, and really did the best they could and they blended together. What great blessings we received! You know God commanded folks in the Old Testament and the New, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” That to me has been the easiest commandment God has ever given to obey and it is easy to obey when you have parents like we had.

 

Now, don’t misunderstand, I’m sure Mom and Dad had their rough edges. I imagine seeing together some of the rough times, they had to have some rough edges. I suppose that you would really had to be a part of that home to know how wonderful it was, and to know how we cherish these memories so near and dear to us. They provided us guidance and stability and purpose and hope and will all the days of our lives

 

One final and personal note; I have been trying to preach for over forty-five years, and like other gospel preachers when I stand up to preach, I have a duty to God to get it right. I have a duty to myself. I have a duty to those who hear me. But I have an extra incentive. I have an extra motivation to get it right. I have a duty to Mom and Dad.

 

They taught us; they instructed us; they guided us. They set the example before us, and they said more, I suppose, by what they were than even by what they said. You see, today is somewhat the end of an era in a way for our family because she’s the last of that generation of our immediate blood kin here. So we come to this day, sure our hearts are heavy and you share that with us and we’re grateful, but our hearts rejoice and we can say, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Would you bow with me for prayer?

 

Holy Father in Heaven, we thank Thee that Thou art our God, and that Thou dost love us and care for us. We thank thee for Christ, our Savior. We thank Thee that the Spirit has revealed Thy all-sufficient Will and Word in the Scriptures. We are thankful for those who have loved us, and who have taught us, and persuaded us and encouraged us to walk in the footsteps of Christ. We are thankful for the Lord’s Church, and that we can be members of it. We are thankful for home and for our families, and on this day especially, dear Lord, are we thankful for Dad and Mother. In Christ's name.

 

SONG: “IN THE MORNING OF JOY”

 

SONG: “GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN”.

 

Mother’s body was buried alongside Dad’s in Mount Olivet Cemetery, November 28, 1997.

 

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