The Rock Wall

I may have learned something about my sister this week. Her funeral folder was laying on the kitchen counter, I read it: “For Margaret Ellen Gough.” I said, “Where did the Ellen come from?”

Kimball said, “Wasn’t there an Aunt El?”

Suddenly it all fell in place; My grandma, Nettie Long, had a sister called, Aunt El, who was married to Missionary Baptist Preacher Dude Pace. During a revival meeting at Pace Town Missionary Baptist Church at Pace Town, the Lord put her niece, Blanche Long, and nephews, Cleo and Clifford, on her heart. She mustered the courage to ask their dad, Charlie Long, if they could go to the revival. Charlie was known to frequently adjust the bad attitude a customer brought to his blacksmith shop with a right or left fist. Never hear that he hit a woman. People feared him.

Yes, and they could even have the family car to go. Grandpa had been saved in a blackberry patch when he was a young man and he and Grandma were members of the church. Grandma was saved laying flat on her back under the altar during a revival at the old Pace Town School a mile south of the church on the same east west road as Sand Ridge Cemetery. They didn’t attend because Grandpa had a temper and beat his workhorses if he thought they gave him trouble while he was harnessing them. People didn’t approve.

After about three nights of revival, Dad got under conviction but he wouldn’t go to the altar. As the family was walking home one night (their homes were near each other and within walking distance of the church), Dude said, “Clifford, would you come in and let us pray for you?”

Uncle Dude said, “You might be surprised.”

Dad said that when he bowed down at the chair with the rest of the family praying, the bottom fell out for him; he realized how foolish he had been to resist the Lord. He told the Lord he would go to the altar the next night or do anything the lord asked. Everything went black for Dad. When he came to he was sitting on Uncle Dude’s lap rejoicing.

Dad always gave Aunt El credit for getting them to the revival.

Uncle Cleo was saved as they were walking home from church once. He said, “Marion Fain’s timber just lit up.”

And that’s why I think Mom and Dad may have given my sister her middle name. Never thought about it before.

There was a third sister named Myrtle who married Frances Eason. They were members of Pace Town Missionary Baptist Church at one time. KL