Chapter 7: 1884-1894, A generational shift

“Mama looked bad,” Charity told her husband on the way home. They had just been to visit her parents, and she was worried about her mother’s haggard appearance. Jim remained silent as he tended to the reins of the horses which pulled their wagon.

2 Five days later, they received the news that her mother had passed. Jim and George hooked the horses back up to the wagon while Charity and Frances readied the younger children for the ride to Lawrence County. “What is daddy going to do now?” she wondered as she straightened the bow on Mary’s dress.

3 As she brushed her daughter’s hair, Charity remembered how pleased her mother had been when she had given the child her name. Mary, however, was only three years old and unable to fully comprehend what her grandmother’s passing meant for her mother and the rest of the family. All she knew was that it was a warm September day, and she would rather be playing under the big oak tree at the edge of the yard.

4 The child began to squirm and complain that her mother was pulling her hair. “Frances, can you deal with your sister?” Charity pleaded. Frances immediately took over and whispered something into the child’s ear that caused her to stop fidgeting.

5 “Pa says we’re ready!” George announced a few minutes later. Charity directed the children to the door and brushed away a tear that had somehow managed to escape her left eye.

6 When they arrived at their destination, cousins watched as the children quietly unloaded from the wagon. And, while the adults were preoccupied with hugging and shaking hands, the younger children ran to greet their counterparts who were milling about their grandparent’s orchard.

7 After the graveside service, Charity joined the rest of the family in retreating to the shade of the trees which lined Sugar Creek. “This is such a beautiful and peaceful place,” she thought as she slipped up behind her father.

8 She tapped him on the shoulder and threw her arms around his neck as he turned to face her. “Your mother was a good woman,” he told her. “I know, daddy, I know,” she agreed.

9 He had somehow managed not to shed a single tear, but Charity knew that her father was suffering. “Do you need me to do anything?” she asked. “I can’t think of a thing,” he reassured her.

10 As they made their way back to the wagon, she turned back to look at him one more time. He was talking to her brother and pointing to the place where the new church was being built, and she couldn’t help but wonder when she might return here to bury him.

11 Time stood still for no one. Charity knew that her parent’s generation had begun to exit the stage, and she could hear the footfalls of her own mortality just behind her.

12 She thought about that Christmas dinner long ago, and the agitation and fear which they had all felt as the Yankee soldiers were approaching their home. In her mind’s eye, she could still see her mother lowering her silver into that muddy hole in the orchard. “That wasn’t that long ago,” she thought. But almost twenty years had passed since that day.

13 In July of the following year, her mother’s cousin, Theophilus Lyle Dickey, passed away. Ulysses S. Grant died the day after that. Four years later, General William Selby Harney died and was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. General William Tecumseh Sherman died early in 1891; and his old foe, General Joseph Johnston died a month later. They were part of a generation of people who had shaped the world that Charity and her children occupied, but now that world was moving on without them.

14 And, just as Theophilus’ children and grandchildren were busy shaping a new reality on the far-off island of Hawaii, Charity and her husband were busy building a life for their family around Minor Hill, Tennessee. Over the years that followed, Charity would become a grandmother herself.

15 In the summer of 1888, Frances gave birth to a daughter of her own. She named her Mittie, and Charity couldn’t help but think again about her own mother as she held her little granddaughter in her arms.

16 In the meantime, William McMasters had not given up on life when his wife died. He had immersed himself in overseeing the construction of the new church house on the banks of Sugar Creek and had quietly gone about the business of perfecting the love which he had received from Jesus Christ.

17 Like the country as a whole, Methodists had been torn apart by differing conceptions of who they were supposed to be. Caleb Haines attended the Methodist Protestant Church in Ohio, and there was a Southern counterpart to the Methodist Episcopal Church which William attended at Mount Zion. Indeed, it would be well into the next century before the ruptures within the Methodist faith would be healed.

18 None of that mattered to William, however. He attended church every Sabbath. Sick or well, he was always there. Will was often seated in the front pew, and he never remained seated when it came time to sing.

19 In fact, it was on one such Sunday in the very hot August of 1894 when William finally joined the other members of his generation in death. He was singing number 82 in the Methodist Hymnal when a strange sensation washed over him.

20 “Whither, O whither should I fly, But to my loving Savior’s breast? Secure within thy arms to lie, And safe beneath thy wings to rest…” William suddenly collapsed onto the hard planked flooring before his pew.

21 The singing stopped. A few of the women continued to fan the air in front of their faces, and everyone stared at the lifeless form on the floor. The man who had been standing next to him was now kneeling at his side.

22 “Is he breathing?” the pastor gasped. The man held his fingers in front of William’s nose, and then gently shuttered his eye lids. “He’s gone,” the man almost whispered. “He’s gone!”