Last year I wrote about my Dad's coming to school at Miltonvale Wesleyan College and Academy, a spiritual anchor for several generations in my family, starting with my Great-great Grandfather Markey in 1908. It would be impossible to count the number of my relatives whose life was shaped by that place that many called “a prairie fortress for righteousness.”
On the Huff side my Dad's elder brother, Wayne, came to the Academy in 1957. As Uncle Wayne explained to me, Larry (my Dad) had stayed home in Emily, Minnesota to help his parents as there were four younger children still at home. My Dad, 3rd of 8, would have turned 18 that November and he was out of school so he could work full time with my Grandpa in the family business.
After Wayne finished the school year he came back to Minnesota and he and my Dad worked in Minneapolis for the summer in road construction as Minnesota was beginning the new Interstate highway system. I can feel the thrill of it in my bones: the time together, the long hard days, fending for themselves with camp stove or getting a burger at the diner, perhaps driving north to Emily late on Saturday and back again before Monday morning. Good days, sore muscles, long conversation, love — with the blessing of God near and promising.
 |
| Highway workers near Minneapolis, 1958. |
Each August Wesleyan Methodist folks from Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota attended a camp in Charles City, Iowa. Uncle Wayne and my Dad decided to go down for weekend services. They drove the 180 miles or so and found lodging and meals and friendly people who loved God and loved them.
Representing MWC at this camp was one of the college teachers, Rev. Warren Freeborn. Wayne was happy to see him and more happy to introduce him to his brother Larry. Rev. Freeborn encouraged him to finish his schooling and this encounter changed the direction of my Dad's life, and mine in turn. In tears for all it meant, Dad decided to leave home and finish his High School at Miltonvale.
 |
| Rev. Warren S. Freeborn (1902-1978) |
There were difficulties. My Dad worried about his folks getting along without him at home. The school had no lodging space ready for them and besides, the two young men had work obligations to fulfill, not least so they could pay their school bill. They explained this to the school and were allowed to come two weeks late. When they arrived they stayed for a few weeks with Aunt Eunice, my Grandpa Stacy's sister, while workmen refurbished an old basement room to serve as their dorm room.
That year was a good one, I am sure of it. As Uncle Wayne tells it, “We worked together, studied together, double dated together, and helped each other through!” They graduated that spring and were married two years later to gals they both met in that happy place – my Aunt Alice and my Mom, Glendah. In later years I often walked those grounds, ran up and down the old Abbott Hall where their dorm room had been, played ball in the old gym, even went to the old college snack shop.
But most of all I remember the spiritual impact of the place and the camp meeting on those same grounds that hosted a gathering each summer. It was life-changing because it brought one into touch with God. Eventually the choice my Dad made brought fruit in my own life, and I found myself letting go and finding God was able for me as well. I had my own set of hurdles, and my version of Miltonvale was 1500 miles away. But I have never been sorry, and will never stop being thankful for my precious Dad and Mom and the heritage of faith and goodness they passed to me by way of that humble place on the Kansas prairie.
Addendum:
There is a subtext to this, an important note I failed to emphasize. The influence of my Uncle Wayne was indispensable in this process. As an elder brother his word carried weight with my Dad and his encouragement helped make it all happen. It is an old truth of course -- we all stand on the shoulders of others. Everyone plays into our lives for good or ill, and in this way Uncle Wayne -- whose life has counted for good with countless people across the years -- planted seeds in my Dad that will grow forever in my life and with all whom I am able to love and serve. It is the truth of the old saying which I first heard, not incidentally, on that very Miltonvale Campground from a preacher in 1979:
"Anyone can count the number of seeds in an apple; only God can count the number of apples in a seed.”
Thank you, Uncle Wayne, for your life of faithful planting.
No comments:
Post a Comment