It was to be our only Christmas in that town, the Christmas of 1958 all those Christmases ago. In another year we were in Quincy, and Dad had the pulpit of Grace Methodist there. By the time I graduated from high school, we were in Rockford. Phyllis was at Illinois Wesleyan University. And Ruth Ann was in junior high, with her own room and a Beatles poster on every wall. You think growing up takes forever, but it doesn’t.
Each of Dad’s churches was bigger, in a bigger town. From that time when Gypsy Piggott had to fold his revival tent after the first night, Dad’s star began to rise. He was especially praised for his funerals and weddings. Word gets around.
We did some growing up wherever we were, but we grew up the most in that little podunk town when we lived next door to Mrs. Dowdel.
She was no church woman, and she didn’t neighbor, and Christmas was just another day to her. But she didn’t wait for Christmas to give out her gifts. She gave too many. They wouldn’t have fit under the tree, not even the tallest blue spruce from the Dempseys’ backyard.