Grandpa was a Doer

“My idea of Heaven is that in a spiritual form, if we are approved by our Creator, we may spend eternity visiting other worlds, communicating with other humans….” So says Grandpa Edson in his essay “Some Important Events In My Life.”  Now I know why all three of my brothers wanted to go to Mars.  Grandpa started it!  Grandpa was a man of action.  He didn’t want to sit idly by, even after he went to be with Jesus!

Ira Le Roy, or Roy as everyone called him, moved to Spokane in 1910 from a small town in Iowa.  After he lost his sister, Lydia, when he was 10 years of age, to what it sounds like, pneumonia, he came to believe that she saw angels coming to take her to Heaven.  He lost his mother shortly after he finished attending Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa.  He then decided to put some distance between him and his old hometown.  His other sister, Emma, was already married and away from home.

On his first Sunday in Spokane up on the highest hill he could find overlooking the city he prayed and planned.  His hope was for a wife, home, and job.  He began working for the land office in 1913 and married Grace Slightam in August of that year.

According to a newspaper clipping, (see below,)  he took a course at Stanford and then was supposed to attend Columbia in New York for a week before sailing to France. So far I haven’t found anybody to tell me what really happened as far as grandpa going to school at Stanford and then on to France. 

However, I do know that Grandpa did drive Grandma and my aunt Evelyn and my mom to California to pick plums.  It must have been several times. First when the two girls were young and then after Aunt Ruth was born and the two girls were older.  I believe that one time when they went down to CA Aunt Evelyn was about 3 and my mom 2.  After Aunt Evelyn followed a sheep and was missing, and was eventually found, Grandma heard a bird say, “Beat it.” She took the girls and went home to her parents in Spokane. (See Wayne's correction in the comments below.)  The next time they traveled to California, or so I believe, my mom was about 9 and she was holding baby Ruth.  They had an automobile accident and my mom lost her eyebrows and had a scar on her forehead from the accident.  

From what my mom told me Grandpa and Grandma made sure the two girls had piano lessons and elocutions lessons.  When Aunt Ruth came along they provided singing lessons for her.  Her singing teacher said that her voice was better than another pupil she had, Patrice Munsel.  Grandma would always sing our favorite song to us “See the sun I sinking in the golden west.”  Grandpa could play the piano and the fiddle by ear.  I believe that my cousin Diana has the violin now.My brother Davy has all the rest of the instruments that my mom saved.

When my mom's 7th grade teacher told her parents that she needed glasses as she couldn't see the black board, Grandpa insisted that if she did eye exercises she wouldn't need glasses.  She did get glasses.  Grandpa had many ideas about exercising and keeping in shape as I understand.

  From the newspaper clippings I think that Grandpa retired twice.  First as typist for the Spokane County auditor’s office and then as deputy auditor.  He wasn’t happy in retirement.  His letters to my family reflected upon wanting a third career.  So he took up writing.  As a result he wrote “his story.”  In the Christian community in his day it might have been called his testimony.  As I recall he sent other writings to Readers Digest and always received a rejection letter.  I have done the same and have only been published once.

He built two homes, one in the city and one in the country. He planted a one acre vegetable garden as well as nurturing apple trees and fields of alfalfa and wheat. 

Grandpa’s greatest joy was having wonderful responsible daughters.  His greatest regret was that they all lived so far away from Spokane.  Aunt Evelyn’s family lived in Fairbanks, Alaska.My family lived in Alexandria, VA, and Aunt Ruth’s family lived in California. 

He hoped that his story would help all freedom loving people into a fuller and richer life here on earth, and cause them to think of what is in store for them in the life hereafter.

Newspaper clipping about France:

For Your Listening Pleasure

Today Trevin Wax published a list of the podcasts he listens to.  Here is the link.

So I decided to share what podcasts and sermons I listen to on a regular basis:

Podcasts I listen to:

 CitizenLink –2 minutes

FRC-Daily – 1 minute

FRC-Washington-28 minutes

Huckabee- 4 minutes. (He hasn’t recorded any since June 27)

Just Thinking (Ravi Zacharias)-13 minutes

Let my People Think (Ravi Zacharias)26 minutes

Reaching Your World (Luis Palau) 2 minutes

Revive Our Hearts (Nancy Leigh DeMoss)26 minutes

Telling the Truth (Briscoes) 26 minutes

Joni and Friends- 4 minutes

Understanding the Times (Jan Markell) 57 minutes once a week

Weekly Standard-13 minutes

Sermons I listen to:

Capitol Hill Baptist

Faith Bible Church

Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church Greenville, SC Andy Lewis

North Hills Community church Greenville, SC Peter Hubbard

You can subscribe through I Tunes or http://www.oneplace.com/.

Do you have any podcasts or sermons to recommend?

Grandma and the International Father's Day Association

Left to right:  me,  Grandma Stowell, Grandma Edson, cousins Dorothy, and Janet.

A Spokane, Washington woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on July 19, 1910. Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C.In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day.

My grandmother, Isabel Stowell, was the secretary for the International Father’s Day Association in Spokane, WA for many years.  In reading through her minutes for many of the meetings, it appeared that usually 9 to 12 women would attend the meetings, held at a local hotel.  The first meeting I have the notes for was in 1959.  The earliest meetings were at the Desert Hotel.  Later they moved to the Coeur ‘d Alene Hotel.     The last gathering she recorded was in May of 1963.

Isabel was also a representative of the group to the Spokane Federation of Women’s Organizations.

Mrs. Dodd is not mentioned very often in the minutes.  She was cited at the May meeting in 1960.  “Mrs. Dodd’s idea in regard to the June Father’s Day luncheon was given.”

The officers were elected each February.  Some of the names mentioned are Margaret Brown, Jessie Gibson, Freda Carpenter, Mae Masecar, and Lydia Himes.  The meetings were opened with prayer and the flag salute.  The meetings closed with a prayer or the Mizpah.

Genesis 39: 49 and Mizpah, for he said, "May the LORD watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other.

Afterward they adjourned to the dining room for lunch.  Now I know where I get my preference for going out to eat! 

Grandma’s notes are succinct.  In one page she covers everything accomplished. I also prefer writing this way.  No excess words for me!

Only one time was any controversy mentioned.  “A resolution from the City Federation favoring the proposed civic center was read.  The Father’s Day Assn. tabled the proposition as it is a controversial subject.”

These records remind me of a Norman Rockwell town.  Such peaceful precious lives they all seemed to live.

Below is a clipping from the Spokane Newspaper:

Ugly Is In

Here is a 9 minute interview of Rayfield Barber, first black student at Groveton, in Alexandria, VA., and Mr. Hiller, history teacher from 1959 through the '70's. Mr. Hiller makes the comment that in the 70's ugly was in.

Is history repeating itself?  In the 60’s and 70’s much turmoil caused by protests against war, against sexual purity, and against conservative dress played out during the time of civil rights legislation, and the Viet Nam war.  Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated peaceful protest, but the Weathermen and the Black Panthers bombed. Iran held Americans as hostages.  Israel was defending it's borders.  The hippies dropped out, smoked pot, and made love not war. 

Now we have the same conflicts going on.  Pot has been legalized in 2 states.  Same sex marriage is making its way into the churches, domestic terrorists are shooting people, and there are gang wars in the streets.  Islamic terrorists are attempting to destroy the United States and Israel. Israel is still defending it's borders. Read here. Drug cartels and jihadists may be smuggling illegal aliens into the United States.  See here.

 Saw Megyn Kelly’s interview of Bill Ayers and Dinesh D’Souza last week.  Ayers is still trying to destroy the United States and still hating it by continuing on with the story line that everything in the history of the United States is bad.  D’Souza, an immigrant from India, points out the good that the United States has done in the world.  See this blog here.

But is it really just a debate about politics or is it a clash of atheism and Christianity?  Which belief system does the most good?  I would say Christianity.  But now the children of the militant anti-war, hippy, and baby boomers are of age and covering their bodies with tattoos and piercings.  The media is more left leaning than it ever was.  They are also ignorant of many things.  See this blog here.

 Some reasons that our 20 to 40 year olds in this country are leaning toward communism could be the influence of some pot smoking free love, anti war parents.  Then there are some college professors who put pressure on students to buy in to atheism or communism.   Another reason could be celebrities like Jane Fonda.  Here is her story. Click here.

Yes, the whole world is in an uproar now as it was back in the 60’s and 70’s.  Is history repeating itself or are these signs that Jesus will be coming back soon?

John 14: 1 "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. 4 "And you know the way where I am going." 5 Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."