Here I sit , a woman of the 1970s in a 1870s church. Only a narrow board offers back support on the crude, rough-hewn bench which serves as pew. Sunlight races through the uncurtained, unshuttered windows. Spider webs drape the high rafters. And, nests of dirt robbers dot the walls and underneath the pews. I must make a conscious effort to remember to which time I belong.
We have sung the hymns of Charles Wesley. Those who have died during the past year have been honored; their names now join those who have died during the past one hundred years. The announcements have been made - those cousins who have married during the year; those babies who have been born, those young people who have graduated from college, those aunts and uncles now confined to nursing homes, that one kin who has broken her arm.
We have all come together, this first Sunday in September, for the annual reunion of the Pafford Family. We are gathered in the century-old white frame church building at Springhead. Now owned and maintained by the family, the church is opened only once a year, on reunion day.
The preacher, somber in his black suit, stands behind the hand carved pulpit. He starts his sermon. It’s not an ‘old-fashioned’ sermon, rather its emphasis is on remembering - remembering our ancestors, their deeds which were good, their actions which can be imitated.
My baby is getting restless. He starts to cry. He won’t be pacified. I join the other mothers, both of today and yesterday who walked out of the service with crying babies. I’m a little embarrassed. Surely, my grandmother was not.
The other mothers outside have congregated under a large cedar tree at the side of the building; I join them. My baby is now content playing on the grass in the hot sun. We mothers continue to listen to the sermon through the open window. The preacher is loud and clear over the noises of scraping feet, restless children and the rhythmic sound of wood-handled fans fanning the heat and the bugs.
“Remember!” The preacher admonishes. “Remember!”
How can I help but remember as I look at the cemetery adjoining the church. I feel compelled to walk through this small graveyard. Here lies an old sea captain; his grave outlined in shells set in crude tabby. There is a young woman - younger than I. A whole family. So many babies. I look back at my own youngster - so healthy, so happy now.
The service is ending. The women are given copies of “Grandma Pafford’s Cookbook.” A poem “The Story of the Wreck, a Full and Complete Account of the Great Hurricane Creek Disaster, on March 17, 1888” has been reprinted and is distributed. It was written by a distant cousin who helped with the rescue after the train wreck. The introduction reads, “It is a beautiful poem of verses, giving names and places of residences of the killed and wounded…It contains 134 verses, 536 lines, 4,288 words.
The congregation walks down the scratched and well-worn center aisle of the small church to the outside. The children race out first. I rejoin my husband and two older children.
We gather around the century-old tables built between trees; the tables must be repaired yearly. We are to have dinner on the grounds. The Styrofoam ice chests and aluminum chafing dishes look oddly out of place. The turkey and dressing, the chicken and dumplings, the biscuits, the corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes, the pound cakes and pecan pies could have been the menu in 1870 as well as 1970. We sit on blankets spread on the ground. Food has never tasted so good.
After dinner, we follow the worn path through the woods to a still flowing spring. As we cup water in our hands and sip, we listen to the old timers reminisce about experiences when they drank this water to quench a real thirst, not a symbolic one.
We try to explain to our children the significance of such a day - or at least, what we are feeling.
Springfield Methodist Church, named for the spring from which we have just drunk, was founded in 1850 by Rowan Pafford, our children’s great, great, great grandfather, a preacher, teacher, farmer and Georgia State Legislator. The still standing wood building in which we worshipped today was erected in 1870, twenty years after the founding of the church.
Can our young ones feel any part of the past? We don’t know. We can only try to help them see where they fit in the always moving realm of time.
Tomorrow our children will return to their modern schools. Had we lived a century ago, they would come back to this church building on Monday for it was the community school, too. They would have sat on the floor and used the rough pews for desks. Would their grandfather have been their teacher? There was only one teacher for one room. Our oldest reminds us that we must stop at a convenience store on the way home to buy notebook paper.
The day has gone quickly. We must bid farewell for another year. We return to our car. It is parked in the same field where the horses were left to graze long ago. We drive the six country miles back to the quiescent town of Willacoochee and start our journey back to the present.
I am fully aware that we can never go backwards. I wouldn’t even want to. But, I am convinced more than ever that reliving part of yesterday can give perspective for today and set the dreams for tomorrow.
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