THE GARMAN-GILL FAMILIES, Elizabeth Garman Gill, January 1971.
Every last one of us yelled, "Mama!" to the top of his lungs as soon as he entered the door. It wasn't home if Mother wasn't there to greet us. Mother baked bread three times a week and when we came home from school simply starving, Mother would have a warm loaf of home-baked bread on the kitchen table with a plate of butter and a bowl of apple butter. We all wanted a piece of the crust.
Father didn't send us to Sunday School and church,--he took us. Always I remember him as the secretary of the Sunday School and leader of the singing. He loved to sing and knew most of the hymns by heart. In one of the revivals in the church, I was converted and then baptized by immersion by our beloved pastor, Reverend Henry Armstrong. Sometime later we became members of the Presbyterian Church with Reverend Gettman as pastor. I have been a member of this church since 1906, especially active in all parts of the Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. I am still a teacher of the Bible Class in our church.
Memorial Day was a special day when were growing up. Many of the old neighbors had lost their lives in the Civil War, among them my own grandfather, Second Lt. [sic, Sergeant.] Nathan R. Bracken, who was killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. On Memorial Day about nine o'clock in the morning the Sheepskin Band, organized by some of the old soldiers in this area, could be heard playing up in Grass Hill Cemetery where some of their comrades lay. In the afternoon they gathered at McDowell Cemetery to honor their dead. Descendants of members of the first Sheepskin Band still continue their band and hold Memorial Services at McDowell's Cemetery each May 30th.
Every last one of us yelled, "Mama!" to the top of his lungs as soon as he entered the door. It wasn't home if Mother wasn't there to greet us. Mother baked bread three times a week and when we came home from school simply starving, Mother would have a warm loaf of home-baked bread on the kitchen table with a plate of butter and a bowl of apple butter. We all wanted a piece of the crust.
Father didn't send us to Sunday School and church,--he took us. Always I remember him as the secretary of the Sunday School and leader of the singing. He loved to sing and knew most of the hymns by heart. In one of the revivals in the church, I was converted and then baptized by immersion by our beloved pastor, Reverend Henry Armstrong. Sometime later we became members of the Presbyterian Church with Reverend Gettman as pastor. I have been a member of this church since 1906, especially active in all parts of the Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. I am still a teacher of the Bible Class in our church.
Memorial Day was a special day when were growing up. Many of the old neighbors had lost their lives in the Civil War, among them my own grandfather, Second Lt. [sic, Sergeant.] Nathan R. Bracken, who was killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. On Memorial Day about nine o'clock in the morning the Sheepskin Band, organized by some of the old soldiers in this area, could be heard playing up in Grass Hill Cemetery where some of their comrades lay. In the afternoon they gathered at McDowell Cemetery to honor their dead. Descendants of members of the first Sheepskin Band still continue their band and hold Memorial Services at McDowell's Cemetery each May 30th.
