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| Life stories from Nazarenes in Marshfield, Missouri, Brian Letsinger, Pastor. |
 Rev. Robert and Jean Gaut
Marshfield, Missouri Prime Time Informer Editors
Robert was born in Colorado but raised in northeast Oklahoma. Jean was born and reared on a farm in northeast Oklahoma.
She was born again during VBS at age 12, and married Robert her childhood classmate in 1950. They began attending the Church of the Nazarene in October of that year where both were reclaimed. Robert received a call to preach and Jean a call to teach. Together they pursued college and graduate degrees and pastored in Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri. Both are retired but busy in the Marshfield, Missouri Church of the Nazarene. They edit the Prime Time Informer a newsletter for senior adults.
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Stories by Jean Gaut and stories by Robert Gaut.
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THE BUCKET THROWER by Leona Rost
When we were kids growing up (there were seven of us), we each had our jobs to do. One job for my brother and me was to bucket feed the calves. If you have ever bucket fed a calf you know when they finish their milk they will try to find anything to suck on.
It happened that the two calves my brother fed drank faster then mine. So he thought it would be funny to lock me in with those four calves. When I got out I told him if he ever did that again I would kill him (not really meaning it, of course). But the very next night he did it again. When I got out he was running to the house. I knew I couldn't catch him, so I threw the bucket and hit him in the back. In a couple of days he was very sick, talking out of his head and saying silly things. Our folks called the doctor.
When the doctor got there, he asked if he had fallen or was hurt someway. Of course the folks didn't know about our fight because neither of us had told them. But I thought he was going to die so I told them what had happened.
The doctor said, I want to talk to you in the other room! I was ready for real trouble, but he only said, Next time you want to throw something, let it be a feather.
My brother came through the kidney problem and we were back feeding calves together in a week. He didn't lock the doors on me anymore and I didn't throw any more buckets.
God was so good to us and everything turned out well.
I GRABBED THE WRONG THING by Vola Moore
When in a hurry to go somewhere, have you ever grabbed the wrong thing? Well, I have.
One time when we were hurrying to get to church on time, I grabbed my glasses and noticed they were very dirty. So I had to take time to use soap and really get them clean, not just the lenses but the earpieces as well. After I had them shining like a new penny, I rushed out the door and jumped in the car and off we went. All went well and we rushed in the church just as the service was starting. The song leader began leading us in a chorus that was up on the Power Point screen. I put on my glasses and tried to see the words but I couldn't make out anything that was up there. I had a moment of sheer panic! I thought I was going blind. I grabbed my husband's arm and whispered,
I can't see anything. I think I'm going blind! He turned around and took a good look at me and began laughing. Well, I didn't think that was very kind. Before I could express my anger, he reached up and took off my glasses which were really his glasses and said, I think you'll be able to see better without these, since they're mine.
I GOT IN THE HABIT EARLY by Roberta Maple
I grew up going to church. We were not allowed to do anything considered secular from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, like watching TV, going to the movies, going shopping, having your hair done, things of that nature.
So I got in the habit early on in my life of reading good Christian books and my Bible.
I had a lot of the Bible committed to memory by the time I was eighteen. But God gives us our choices and I did not always make good ones. In fact, I made some really bad choices that resulted in my needing to rededicate my life to God.
I never did stray too far and it was really easy for me to come back and I truly believe that the reason it was not too difficult was because I had such a deep root in God's Word when I was young.
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A LITTLE UNORTHADOX by Jack Freeman
Once I made a basket on the wrong end of the court, thus giving our opposition two points. When I was driving home from school one day I stopped to invite this cute girl I had my eye on if she wanted a ride home. She refused because her daddy said she was too young to be riding around with any boy. I asked her, Why are you afraid of me?
After a while she got older and wasn't afraid to ride with me and eventually we decided to get married. I can't remember what I'd been doing, but I showed up at the wedding with a terrible sunburn, much to my bride's embarrassment.
Speaking of weddings, I was once the best man for a friend and they made me wear a bright yellow tuxedo. Not my idea of a macho color.
Once I was driving a truck for a hayride with a bunch of kids on the back and some how managed to drive off the side of a low-water bridge. Boy, that water was cold!
When my wife was pregnant with one of our kids, we sat in McDonalds eating French Fries and counted how close her labor pains were, much to the astonishment of other customers. I could go on and hope you get the point that I've always been a little unorthodox; but I've enjoyed the journey and still am enjoying it.
KEEPING THE CHICAGO COPS IN A POSITIVE FRAME OF MIND
by Jim Coquillette
Sometime in the early 1950's, when I was in my twenties, I lived in Chicago. I was deep into drag racing. I worked with a bunch of guys who also liked to drag race. So after work we'd go to this certain restaurant to grab a bite to eat before we went to race. A lot of the cops also came there to eat. They'd come in and saunter over to our tables and say, Okay boys, we have all your license numbers and we know you're all headed to the A&P warehouse area to drag race. We'll be here for about 45 minutes and if we come down there and see any of you guys, we'll arrest you for loitering.
But here's the rest of the story. Before the cops came in we boys would take up some money between us and as we left we would pay for the their food. It was sort of expected. And that's what kept the cops in a positive frame of mind.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHY by Dottie Turner
When I was four or five years old I did some things that I have no idea why I did them. One time I went over in the neighbor's yard and pulled up all her flowers and threw them under her spirea bush. Of course, Momma found out and she took me over to the neighbor and insisted that she spank me, which she did. But that didn't cure me. Later the neighbor hung her clean wash on the line and I decided to throw dirt all over her clothes. Boy, did I get it for that!
Along about this same time I got the German measles and it left me very skinny and sickly. When I was six and started to school, the teacher gave me cod liver oil and made me lie down and rest for a while in the afternoon. I soon regained my health.
Our family had this big old collie dog named Scottie. When Mother would try to spank us with a switch old Scottie would try to grab the switch, but Mother still got the job done. When my brothers misbehaved, Mother would put them on the couch and tell Scottie to watch them and not let them down. They didn't dare move. We all loved that old dog and when he died the whole family cried and cried.
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 I NEVER WENT BACK FOR MORE, by Mike Dethrow
When I was 12 years old I worked for a local storeowner. He didn't like to get up in the cold, so before school I'd go to his house and start a fire and then went to the Store and started a fire and opened up and then went on to school. After school I'd come by the store and work until closing time and help him close up. He paid me 50 cents a day for all that. On weekends I worked both days for one dollar a day.
I had big ideas and I spied an old 1923 T-Model Ford Touring car at a farmer's house up on blocks. The tires were bad and the top had rotted off, but the body was good and I decided to buy that when I was 12 years old. It took me a couple months to save up the $15.00 he was asking. My dad hooked it on behind his car and dragged it to our house in town. He didn't think I'd ever get it running, but I took it all apart and cleaned it up and put it back together. I put new tires on it and by the time I was 15 years old and about ready to graduate from high school, I had a cool car to tool around town in. I had learned to drive my dad's car when I was 10 years old and since there were no driver's license laws then, you were allowed to drive whenever you were able.
That old Ford had three peddles on the floor, left peddle was low and high gear; the middle peddle was reverse and the right peddle was the brake. The gas feed, was a lever on the steering column. The car had two bench seats, one in front and one in back. You seat about six people if they weren't too large. Gasoline was 10 cents a gallon and kerosene was 5 cents a gallon. You could start the car on gasoline and then switch to kerosene to save money.
When I was a cool 15 year old I got my eye on the pretty 16-year-old neighbor girl. I finally asked, her for a date to go to the Saturday night movie. I drove up to her door and honked. Out came her mother and climbed up in the front seat beside me and my date sat next to the door. I wasn't too happy, but I didn't say anything. We drove to the movie and they stood smiling while I had to pay five cents each for our tickets. We went inside and Mom managed to sit in the middle between us. Pretty soon I went out and bought two sacks of popcorn for five cents a bag and tried to give one to my date, but Mom got hold of it and ate most of it. When that was gone I asked if they wanted some of mine (I wasn't very hungry by this time).
Mom got her big hand in my sack and ate most of it too. I don't remember what the movie was about; I just remember I couldn't get those two females home fast enough. I tried to think kindly about that situation and all I could come up with was that Mom was a widow and she saw that Saturday night outing either as an opportunity to have a rare good time or as a threat to her daughter's virtue, I never decided which.
Either way I never went back for more!
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I CONFESSED EVERYTHING by Sam Pursley
When I was 7 years old I had two older brothers who were 10 and 13. One day Mama sent us to the creek with some blankets and sheets that we were to wash out. The spot in the creek had a bank about 6 feet deep and the water was pretty deep too. After my brothers splashed around a while they stretched out one of the sheets and told me to go up on the bank and jump on the sheet. They said it would be great fun and they would hold the sheet real tight so I would bounce.
Well, I usually did whatever they told me, so I went up and jumped. I guess the sheet was pretty thin because I went right on through it. When I came up for air, my brothers began saying, Oh, are you in big trouble! You tore Mama's sheet and she's really gonna whip you.
So I tore out for the house and confessed everything to Mama just bawling my head off. Mama knew her boys well enough that there was probably more to the story. When my brothers got home she began to question them. One of them could look you straight in the eye and lie like a dog, but the other one always told the truth. When the truth came out, they got the whipping and I got to watch. Sometimes Justice isn't blind.
 THOSE WERE NOT THE GOOD OL' DAYS by Anna Allen
I grew up in a large city during the great depression. My family was very poor! I often went to bed hungry and cold. My shoes had holes in the soles and I had to put cardboard in them to keep from walking on the ground. Coal was 10 cents a bucket or three buckets for 25 cents, but we were too poor to buy any. The streetcars had stoves on them that burned coal and some of the coal would fall through the floor of the cars onto the street. My sister and I (and other children too) would try to find the coal on the streets that the cars had left and pick it up to take home. I'm glad those days are gone forever.
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HARDSCRABBLE 1936 CALIFORNIA LIVING by Ben Hunt
When my wife Helen and I got married in 1936 times were very hard in California. We were really poor. Here's how poor we were.
For our first home I built a big square box out of packing wood that I found behind a hardware store. I put up a pole across the top, put screen wire around it to keep out the mosquitoes and added a tarp so we could have some privacy.
We cooked outside and slept in the box. We lived that way for about two years. We put up a fifty gallon drum on a platform, filled it with water and let the sun heat it throughout the day. It made a pretty good shower.
I got paid once every two weeks from working in concrete. After rent and groceries I had enough money for bus fare both ways for one week. So I walked the eight miles to work in the morning and took the bus home after work when I was too tired to walk.
Helen hung in there and didn't complain because we were happy being together and we never thought about splitting up just because things were too hard, we got married to stay married.
Helen passed away two years ago. I'm 93, live alone but close to family.
 LESSONS I STILL REMEMBER by Dwight Gardner
I lived through the dirty thirties on a farm. My father raised acres of tomatoes to sell to the Elkland Walt Case Canning Factory. When the tomatoes got ripe, my three sisters and I would pick tomatoes and pack them in crates for our dad to deliver to the cannery in his Model T Ford converted to a truck.
When he got ready to leave he'd say, “Now don't you kids throw tomatoes at each other!” We'd say, “Okay, Daddy.” And as soon as he was out of sight tomatoes and green-tomato worms flew through the air until somebody remembered that Dad would soon be back.
In the fall when the sorghum cane came in our Dad made sorghum molasses that he sold for 50 cents a gallon. When it rained we did pretty well, but in dry weather or when grasshoppers came in we didn't get along so well.
In the fall when school started we all got our one pair of new shoes for the year. If the morning was cool and damp we were allowed to wear our shoes to school. But in the evening when it warmed up we took our shoes off for the two and one-half mile walk home to save shoe leather. Times were hard, but we were taught how to work and how to take care of the few things we had: a lesson I still remember.
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 HARD WORK WAS MY PLAY by L.V. Holmes
I was the oldest boy of thirteen children in my family. From a very young age it was my responsibility to cut all the wood with an ax for my mother's cook stove and outdoor black pot.
Once my older sister and I were scuffling around with the ax and it flew over and cut her leg and the blood flew. When I was a small child, I couldn't talk plain so I was seven years old before I went to school. The last year I was in school I milked 17 to 20 cows morning and night (and went to school in between) for $5.50 a week. I stopped attending school when I was thirteen to go to work full time for $1.50 a day, so $1.50 a day was a nice raise.
At sixteen I went to work on construction for 50 cents an hour (that was big money then). I made about $35.00 a week which I took home and gave to Mom to help support the family. She gave me back $5.00 a week for food and fun. I learned young that hard work was good and your family came first, next to God.
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 WHATEVER HAPPENED TO OL' RAYMOND? by Mike Dethrow
My first day of school was on my 6th birthday. Our teacher's name was Mrs. Hoffman. She was a nice lady, but was pretty strict. After the preliminaries were over we were to settle down and work on our assigned subjects. The bully of the school was Raymond Swain and he had been in school forever (it seemed to me) and was nearly grown. He put a pin in the toe of his shoe and kicked me in the behind with that pin. I yelled, Ouch! The teacher said, Be quiet! Raymond kicked me again with that pin and I jumped up and broke my slate over his head. Mrs. Hoffman didn't ask any questions, she just turned me over her lap and started spanking me, so I bit her on the leg.
That did it!
She put me in the closet for the rest of the day. I didn't have water, but the lunches were in the closet so I had plenty to eat.
Raymond kept pestering me. He would turn me upside down and steal my pocket change, gum or candy. So I decided to fix him. I liked to chew the little Chiclets gum that came in the tin containers and he would steal them from me. So I bought some Feenamint laxative and replaced the gum with it. Sure enough Raymond stole it and chewed it all in one day. Before he left school he had soiled his pants and didn't come back to school for three days. After that Raymond-the-Bully didn't steal any more gum from me.
A few years later Mrs. Hoffman became my Sunday school teacher and we became good friends. I never knew what happened to Raymond.
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