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12 Memories of a Long Life
got so large that Pittsboro was not thought to be able to support it. Well, the people came in wagons, buggies, very few carriages in those days, most of the preachers came in buggies, a few on horseback. My father took several horses to feed and tend to. Well, on Sunday, as I was to go, the Methodist Church was so crowded the aisle had chairs, my mother in one, I sat in her lap. Bishop George F. Pierce was in the stand. I remember just how he hooked, his hair white, parted on the left and combed back or up, his full face as he opened his Bible and his text. I have never forgotten, and many words that he said during the sermon I’ve never forgotten. I know I was small, but I love to think of the man, the text and the sermon. If I did or said something wrong my mind went back to Bishop Pierce and his sermon in the Methodist Church in Pittsboro.
After leaving Pigs Branch, which was near Bear Creek Baptist Church in upper part of Chatham, I taught several months a few miles up north. A man, Mr. Brooks Burke by name, had known several years I had faith in his being a good man. He proposed a Sunday school so we formed one. Then he suggested a meeting. I invited a good, humble man, a local preacher, Rev. Mr. Johnson, to preach. I closed my school. The meeting lasted eight days. We had two sermons a day and dinner in the yard. It was a great success for many that had almost given up as lost were converted. I did go around and asked for a little money to pay the preacher, but since the preacher refused to take but a few dollars I gave the rest to Mr. Brooks Burke to start a church, as Bear Creek was about three and a half miles south. I knew that most of the people were Baptists, or of some similar faith. It was not long before we had the church built. I think all were proud of it. I called my school “Sandy Pond,” but when the church was finished it was called “Sandy Branch.” I attended the association which was held there, commencing the 23rd of September, 1927. Many men and women with families had not forgotten me. They seemed glad to see me alive, for it had been sixty years since I taught. Most of the older people and those who attended my school were gone.
After dinner I noticed some men digging a grave, so I went on in church. A casket was brought in and opened. I went to the casket and in it lay the body of little Johnnie Emmerson, who went to me for his first schooling, the only one of the family that was living.
Well, I cannot write of the few years that I have been in the town of Durham, N.C. I could not get the education to go to foreign fields so I have done some home-work since I was given the work as a missionary in my native country. If anyone wants to know of my life here go to the Wright Refuge in Durham, or any poor, destitute widow or orphan and to the different orphanages in North Carolina.
