After church and lunch were over on Sundays, Gertie Jones usually did a debriefing with her preschool son Walter on his Sunday school experience. One week, she quizzed him about details of one of the Bible stories young children typically hear (maybe Moses being adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter or brave young Daniel in the lions den). When she determined the facts he had retained, she moved to his thoughts or feelings about the story. His assessment: “It was pretty good, Mama, but it was a rerun.”
Walter’s evaluation has haunted me for fifty-plus years. If a preschooler recognizes he is hearing the same old, same old, what does that say about the need for fresh approaches for all ages in religious training in our churches?
When I learned this week that Gertie had died, my thoughts went back to our early encounters, including her telling that story. I was the associate minister in her church. She was the conscientious volunteer coordinator of children’s work, and one of my jobs was to organize and supervise educational activities, including Sunday school.
Gertie’s husband, White Jones, was the first person I ever talked with from Anderson, South Carolina. As a member of the search committee from Pope Drive Baptist Church, White called me in Louisville, Kentucky, where I had recently graduated from seminary and was hoping and praying for a job opportunity. As you probably have guessed, the church offered me the associate minister position, and I accepted.
Across the decades, I knew Gertie as a parishioner, as a wife and mother, as a church lay leader, as a senior citizen, as a resident of a nursing home, and as a dear soul experiencing dementia.
In those early years, while White was on the road each day as a wholesale representative for Sullivan’s Hardware, Gertie had her hands full with their two young sons. When I came to Anderson in 1959, Walter was an older preschooler, and David was a toddler. She often talked with me about ways to improve the instructions her sons were getting. In that context, she told me the rerun story.
After a few yeas, I left Pope Drive Church and joined the faculty of Anderson College, now Anderson University. Then after a few more years, I left Anderson, so I missed seeing Walter and David grow up. But I came back to the University and reconnected informally with Gertie and White. During my absence, White had stopped his daily hardware route and established his own hardware stores in Anderson.
White and Gertie and Pansy and I often wound up eating on the same night in a meat-and-three restaurant. So we kept in touch that way. When White died several years ago, Gertie continued coming to Roy’s on Friday nights, accompanied by a woman she hired as her helper. That was when Pansy came to know Gertie on a personal basis.
Gertie was always an affectionate, demonstrative person. She would hug and kiss us when we met at the restaurant and recalled the old days at Pope Drive. Then there was usually another round of hugs and kisses when we went our separate ways. It wasn’t unusual for her to pick up the tab for our meal.
Both sons were living in other states, so when it became necessary for Gertie to have full-time care, they secured a place for her in the Garden House Retirement Center in Anderson. This is one of three retirement homes Pansy and I go to each month to lead worship and communion services. So our association with this dear friend continued for several additional years as she attended services each month.
In time, Gertie couldn’t always call my name, but she knew that she knew me. So, as an attendant helped her into the worship area, Gertie would make her way to me and hug and kiss me before we got the service underway.
When Gertie had been at Garden House a few years, David returned to Anderson to live. At first, she continued living at the center. An accomplished singer and pianist, David regularly led Sunday afternoon hymn-sings for the residents.
When David eventually took his mother to the family home in Anderson,that ended our regular contact with Gertie. But Pansy and I often discuss our times with this warm-hearted lady, and we will miss her.
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