Little Old Lady From Lawley

Granny Hopper was an amazing Christian.  Born in 1892, she was one-eighth Native American, or as she would say, “Indian.”  She was Creek or Cherokee.  I do not remember, but I was proud to know I had “Indian” blood. 

She married at age thirteen and was a mother at fourteen.  She always said she went from changing doll babies to changing real babies.  She would have a total of nine children, one of those dying as an infant.  There were five girls and four boys. 

In 1935, during the Great Depression she became a widow.  Her husband, my granddad, committed suicide after a bout with depression resulting from an accident where a longhorn steer gored him.  The injury crippled him and he had severe health problems.  My dad was eleven.

By this time, Granny was helping raise six grandchildren.  One daughter’s husband was killed and another abandoned the family.  Granny was caring for fifteen family members, one her aging daddy, as a sharecropper with no government assistance.

Granny Hopper never had any modern conveniences.  She cooked on an old wood-burning stove, drew water from a well by rope and bucket, washed and scrubbed clothes in an old iron, black wash pot.  She did have a nice two-seater outdoor toilet with a bucket of corn cobs and an old Sears catalogs for tissue.

She raised pigs, cows, and chickens and worked a garden for food.  Talking about food, Granny Hopper could cook the best “Gumbo” soup.  She always had a pot on the stove and in the two warmers on top of the old wood stove were cornbread and biscuits.  Later in life when she was unable to raise livestock and garden she used commodities to make the gumbo and it was still good.

I used to help Granny Hopper stir clothes in the wash pot.  I helped her sling chitterlin’s when we killed hogs.  She loved them and canned them.  She canned everything in glass jars that we called “fruit jars”.  She canned fried sausage.  She would fry sausage, put them in the jars and pour hot lard over them.  They were good.  She canned collards which she had pickled and they were good.  If it was edible, Granny Hopper canned it.

Granny Hopper was a worker.  I remember one time daddy and I went to cut her some firewood for her large pot-bellied stove.  Daddy cut the pieces of a big red oak for me to split.  I was sixteen years old and Granny was seventy-six.  Granny and daddy taught me how to split wood.  The key is to slap the axe against the wood rather hit it straight.  I was splitting it and loading it.  Going too slow for Granny, she took the axe and split it faster than I could load it.  It was embarrassing for this big Jemison football star to be outworked by his 5’ 4” granny.  She told me that I was sorry and that I had better learn how to work.  I guess for her my loading paperwood by shoulder and throwing hay did not qualify as work.  She almost worked me to death.

Granny Hopper toted a pistol in her apron when working around the farm and in her purse when she traveled.  It was a long barrel Smith & Wesson 38 caliber.  I have watched her empty the six-shooter target practicing.  With all six shots she could keep a tin can bouncing.

She went everywhere.  Sometimes when we went to her house there would be notes saying, “Gone to Cecil’s in Death Valley, California, gone to North Carolina, gone to Mobile, or gone to visit Clifton in Illinois.”  She traveled by bus.

She wanted to drive, but she did not have a license.  Her family did not want her driving, but a nephew taught her how to drive.  Granny bought a 1961 Ford Galaxy.  She trained in an old pasture somewhere in Perry County.  She kept it secret.

At eighty-three years of age she went to the Bibb County Courthouse and tried for her license.  She failed the driving test.  She tried again and again.  After eleven attempts, she got her license.  I never will forget her picture in the Centreville Press.  Granny and her sisters posed as Granny held her license.  She was not the “Little Old Lady from Pasadena”, but the little old lady from Lawley.

Her tenacity for getting a driving license is a testimony of her life and her faith.  She is listed as a messenger of Rehobeth Baptist Church in Baptists of Bibb County, A Denominational Salute to the people called Baptists, in Cahawba (Bibb) County, Alabama 1817-1974 by Howard F. McCord.  Rehobeth is one of the churched burned by Birmingham Southern students.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint Isaiah 40:31 (KJV).

Queen of Sheba

IF YOU ARE A COLLEGE GRADUATE, I’M THE QUEEN OF SHEBA

Several times in the last few days, I ran across the name Sheba. One of the occurrences was on the History Channel. A program on the Ark of the Covenant told how King Solomon and Sheba were married and had a son. It told that Solomon gave his son the Ark of the Covenant and that it is in Ethiopia today. There is a Hebrew word for that: baloney!

Actually, I thought Indiana Jones found it in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it is filed deep in the archives of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington or in the secrecy of Area 51 in New Mexico. Who knows?

I did have a conversation with the Queen of Sheba in New Orleans. No, I am not fibbing. Here is what happened.

One of the requirements for getting a Master of Divinity degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) as I attended its extension in Birmingham was that I had to spend thirteen weeks on the NOBTS campus within the four-year time frame of the program. I accomplished this by having earned four weeks of vacation a year from the cement plant. I spent my vacations in New Orleans in class, taking tests. One week was equivalent to a full term.

One of the breaks from this rigorous schedule was a trip to a steak and seafood restaurant, named Jack Dempsey’s. If you go to New Orleans, be sure to go, and order the steak and red fish platter for two. It is wonderful, and it is more than two can eat.

It was during a trip to Jack Dempsey’s that I met the Queen of Sheba. She was from a land far from Alabama, called Georgia. She attended the Marietta extension of NOBTS in Georgia, and she had been invited by some of the other female students who tagged along with several of us who were preachers. New Orleans is not a very safe place for females at night, so being the Southern gentlemen we were, we invited the ladies to tag along.

Sitting around a large table, we enjoyed the food and each other's company. It was exciting to meet new people, share our experiences, and learn of other places and traditions. The Queen appeared older than most of us. She dressed and acted sophisticated, maybe a tad snobbish. I was cutting up and having a good time, when she asked me, “How did you get into this program?”

Being simpleminded, I told her that I had registered. She then said, “I thought you had to have a college degree to register.” I responded by telling her that I had a college degree from the University of Montevallo.

She said, “If you have a college degree, I am the Queen of Sheba.”

My preacher friends and the other ladies (who wanted to be preachers, ministers of education, and counselors) waited for my response. I had two cards, small certificates, in my wallet, from the Phi Alpha Theta and the Sigma Tau Delta. Now, I know that is Greek. The Phi Alpha Theta is from the History Honor Society for having an A average. The Sigma Tau Delta is from the English Honor Society, one of the top five in the nation, for having an A average in English.

I took the cards from my wallet, gave them to her, and said, “Here, read this, Queen of Sheba.”

It was a precious moment that I cherish. My friends around the table erupted in laughter. The Queen of Sheba was speechless. She gathered her composure and asked, “Why don’t you talk like you have an education?”

I said, “I ain’t got to. My professor of public speaking told me that once a speaker establishes his or her credibility, he or she can speak as they want, as long as they communicate. Ma’am, I pastor a small rural church in Bibb County, Alabama. The people I serve are good old country people. If I talk prim and proper, I cannot communicate with them. I know when to act educated and when to be me. I am country, proud of it, and you will have to accept me for who I am.”

And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions … And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard (I Kings 10:1, 6-7 KJV)

I have often wondered what she said when she went back to Georgia.

Have you ever met a Queen of Sheba?

How do you respond when someone questions your motives or actions?

What impresses you about people?

Prayer: Father, thank You for all the people that have had the privilege of sharing Your wonderful work in me. The places You allowed me to visit and the education You have given me is far greater than that of any school, university, or seminary. Having opportunities to share experiences and learn of other places is fascinating.