Born With a Rusty Spoon: Episode 35
...Mama read the Bible regularly but she did not attend church. And it seemed the only time P.G. got religion was when he was drinking and became especially repentant. It made me mad to see him emotional, sometimes crying, praying and singing hymns when he was drunk...
Famous artist Bertie Stroup Marah continues her vividly-told life story.
To buy a copy of Bertie's wonderful book please visit
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Rusty-Spoon-Artists-Memoir/dp/1935514660/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1282226141&sr=1-1-fkmr0
To see some of her pictures click on
http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=bertie+stroup+marah+pictures&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=5vpkTNykBtKR4gbsgJmWCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQsAQwAA
Occasionally, my brothers and I went to the Baptist church. We especially liked to visit when the black folks from the sawmill came to sing. They had beautiful voices singing with pure uninhibited enthusiasm whereas the regular members of the church sang the same songs over and over, almost by rote. Mama read the Bible regularly but she did not attend church. And it seemed the only time P.G. got religion was when he was drinking and became especially repentant. It made me mad to see him emotional, sometimes crying, praying and singing hymns when he was drunk. I took
church going very seriously and felt he was irreverent. Later, I would come to believe that each of us should communicate with God in our own way.
At the time I did not understand my mother's negative attitude toward church people. She did not discourage us from going to services, but neither did she encourage it. Her attitude did not keep Willie, Jessie and me from occasionally going to the Baptist Church, which was just across the draw and could be seen from our house. The depth of her loathing for the law and hypocrites was evidenced once when Mrs. Booker, a member of the Baptist church, falsely accused Willie of stealing a rifle from her house. She compounded her mistake by calling the sheriff to come and arrest Willie.
Mama was embarrassed that the neighbors saw the sheriff's car at our house. When she found out that Mrs. Booker's own son had stolen the gun Mama became enraged. She had no respect for Mrs. Booker in the first place, especially after learning that she had attempted to adopt out her crippled son before moving to Weed from California. Mama viewed giving away one's child comparable to the actions of a cur dog. Mama thought Mrs. Booker was the perfect example of a hypocrite, and she confronted her on the church steps as she came out the door with a Bible tucked firmly under her arm.
"Don't you ever call the law on one of my family again, you phony hypocrite. Before you start blamin' my boy for somethin' you better look closer at your own, at least the ones you ain't got rid of yet. I hope you told your fellow church goers here that you lied about my boy and that your own is a thief." With that she turned and marched down the steps ignoring the shocked expressions of the congregation.
