The dead don’t die. They long on and help.
D. H. Lawrence
The notion that the spirit of a loved one can make its presence known to the living is a commonly held belief that transcends the ages. A heartwarming incident that took place in Lenoir County several years before World War I lends credence to this time-honored conviction.
Located on SR 1324 at Falling Creek approximately seven miles west of Kinston, the Kennedy Home was established in 1912 by the Baptist Church as a farm for homeless children. By 1973, the complex had grown in size to more than twelve hundred acres.
Among the first youngsters admitted to the Kennedy Home when it opened its doors on June 5, 1914, was little A. C. Overton, whose parents had passed away earlier in the year. Prior to his arrival at the facility, the boy had lived at another Baptist orphanage, the Mills Home in Thomasville. There, he had learned to mend clothes worn by the children. In his private, lonely moments, A. C. longed for his deceased parents.
Despite his tender age, the little boy had a clear image of heaven and how it worked. A. C. was convinced that heaven was a big stable in the sky where good and upright persons went when they died. It was the youngster’s belief that each inhabitant of heaven was given a white horse on which to ride back to earth to visit loved ones.
When A. C. arrived at the Kennedy Home, he was delighted to live on a farm where there were animals. Nonetheless, his daily life was mostly forlorn and gloomy, so badly did he miss his mother and father. Although his father had lived a respectable life as a fisherman, A. C. was not exactly sure he had made it to heaven. But as to his mother, the lad had no question. Night after night, he watched the sky for that special white horse from heaven.
The years passed. A. C. worked hard tending crops in the fields and doing other chores around the farm. On his fourteenth birthday, he was given a great honor: he was made a plowboy.
On the first day of his new assignment, the teenager reported to the large barn where the farm’s twenty-five work teams were quartered. He passed stall after stall, admiring the large, dark horses as they pushed their heads forward for attention. At length, A. C. and the overseer reached the end of the barn, where a new stall had just been completed. Smiling, the kindly old man looked at his new plowboy and said, “Here you are, boy. Let’s see if you can hitch her up.”
A. C. could not believe what he saw. The horse assigned to work with him every day was the most magnificent, purest white horse he had ever laid eyes on. Without assistance, the boy carefully and gently hitched the animal to the plow. After the overseer gave A. C. instructions as to which field of corn he was to plow, the teenager started the horse in motion. Then, suddenly, he stopped, turned around, and respectfully posed a simple question: “Sir, what’s her name?”
“Why, it’s Betty,” the man responded rather matter-of-factly.
As he headed into the field under a cloudless sky, A. C. looked up toward heaven with a beaming smile. The kind, loving lady who had given birth to him fourteen years earlier was Betty—Mrs. Betty Overton.