and..finally, graduation! Praise the Lord!
March 19, 2010 (Friday)
Towns I lived in after Houston. We have talked about Marshall, Waco, Fort Worth, Lampasas, and Briar. Let’s talk a little bit more about Briar.
Briar is located 9 miles north of Azle on F.M. 730. When we moved there in 1956, it had one store and two churches. Many of the people there live on Eagle Mountain Lake, on the east side of the community. We enjoyed living in the country, with a big yard for our little boys View image. It was quiet there, with only an occasional cow on the other side of the fence. We became members of the Briar church. Wanda taught school in Azle and, until January, 1957, I continued to commute to Arlington, where I worked in the General Motors plant.
I started back to the seminary in January, 1957, and went to work at Marshall Grain (granary and feed store) just east of downtown Fort Worth on Lancaster Avenue. I still took the boys to a babysitter, but we didn’t have to get up as early. I made it to class at 8:00 a.m. and finished at 12:30. Then I got in the car and ate my sack lunch on the way to work. When I got there, I changed to my work clothes and worked from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., doing a variety of chores. I also worked all day on Saturdays.
Some of my duties were grinding and sacking grain, driving a truck, picking up loads from the Ralston-Purina Granary, delivering feed to homes and businesses, feeding a horse, stacking hay, etc. etc. I almost always lost at least one sack of feed that bounced off the truck somewhere in Fort Worth. I went to Henderson, Texas and brought back a big load of chickens one day. I had to dispose of 200 young turkeys that smothered to death by piling on each other in a corner or their pen one cold night. I learned how to sew a feed sack shut. And how to open one. Incidentally, I got very muscular and strong with all the lifting of heavy stuff. After work, I drove home, bathed (because I was covered with grain dust), ate supper, and studied. This was the schedule throughout the spring and summer, but then the church asked me to become their pastor, and I decided to quit the job and focus on finishing school. That was over 50 years ago, and both the community and the church have grown. Today the First Baptist Church of Briar, Texas has beautiful, larger buildings and a bigger church.
Wanda resigned her job at mid-term of the 1958-1959 school year, because we were expecting a baby (turned out to be Debbie) and Wanda was not feeling well. Our finances got extremely tight before I graduated in May. I spent a lot of nights working on the old car because we could not afford a mechanic, and we even had the phone disconnected to save money. But we made it through, and after graduation a church in Holbrook, Arizona and the First Baptist Church of Kosse showed interest in us. We moved to Kosse in July, 1959.