English Comp. 101FE
November 25,1997
THE HOME THAT LOVE BUILT
As a child, Bethany Children’s Home deep in the back hills of Kentucky left an indelible impression on me. Nestled in the bottom land by Holly Creek, the first sight looked like a brilliant painting by Thomas Kinkade. The Appalachian Mountains protected the home from modern civilization. Magnificent, aged trees hovered as angels spreading their wings. The only clearings were the fields on the farms, and the hillside where the old buildings seemed to harmonize with nature.
Living in the city, I rarely had the opportunity to breathe in the air God created our lungs to inhale. The aroma of huge oak, beech, cedar, and pine trees mixed with the tickling of the dust from the dirt road steadily lifted the soul. Pennyroyals and goldenrod lined the road creating a natural landscape along the curb of the forest. I often miss the simple beauty of a landscape created by God alone. A city offers neat little houses lined up in perfect rows. Shrubs, trees, plants, and flowers are precisely placed within utopian gardens. While the perfect houses and the precise gardens are charming, nothing compares with the picturesque beauty of nature.
With scarcely a motor vehicle traveling back and forth, we could hear only the sound of nature. Maple, hickory and walnut leaves played their stringed instruments in the wind. Cardinals sang harmony and mockingbirds sang backup. A woodpecker led the percussion. Only the fighting of my siblings interrupted the earthly orchestra.
With each visit, Bethany Children’s Home, a place we call Bethany, seemed unchanged. The plain, wood buildings always needed paint. An old windowless, three room, two-story log cabin was on the property when a local man donated the land in 1926. It stood silently still. The original wooden church burnt to the ground before I was born; therefore, they built the new church of cement blocks. No steeple stood on top of the church, just a small wooden cross on the front attic roof. Sounds from the "Liberty" bell in front of the church called all to worship. The two-story dorms were endlessly long. They reminded me of old government apartment buildings. Several smaller buildings just as dilapidated as the first, were scattered on the hillside.
Great-great-aunt Mildred was usually the first to greet us. Great-grandma Frantz was always waiting anxiously in the background. As a child I never fully appreciated the sisters. As any child would, I only saw them as old. Born in eighteen ninety-six and eighteen ninety-eight, respectively, they wore the dress of spinsters. Their gray hair projected a crown of righteousness. Thick glasses kept secret the direction of dissenting looks. When Aunt Mildred welcomed us, her voice was not a loud voice, yet she commanded attention. Great-grandma Frantz had a quieter nature about her, yet she never went unheard.
As always, they quickly heralded us to each function at Bethany, usually by Aunt Mildred. She had an abundance of spirited energy. Always working, she expected an equivalent effort from others as well. She gave orders with an air of sternness, apparent even when she smiled. A well-deserved air of authority emanated from Aunt Mildred. Her primary position was a school teacher. She was also the postmaster for twenty years. When they needed a nurse, she was available to deliver two-hundred and sixty-nine babies deep in the mountains where no doctor could be found. The children knew, in her devoted manner, she loved them deeply. Somehow, through her gruff exterior, she obviously loved her stature in life. Called to the mission field by God, she originally set her sights on India. Through a series of events, she arrived at Bethany two years after graduating from Asbury College in nineteen twenty-five. There she stayed, a towering rock that helped build Bethany Children’s Home, until about a year before her death in nineteen eighty-four. Aunt Mildred never married. The orphanage became her mission, and her family.
Quite a bit shorter than her older sister, great-grandma walked with a limp, crippled with polio as a child. Deep down inside this quiet spirit lay a gentle sense of humor. During evening assembly, great-grandma acted out one of her many readings. They were always funny, and some were quite ornery for a conservative great-grandmother. I enjoyed her peaceful demeanor, but being an energetic child, I was soon bored and ran off to find some mischief of my own. I remember Great-grandma spending most of her day in the used clothing store. The store was an old tin building, more of a shack that reeked with the aroma of moth balls. Of course, outsiders donated all the clothes at the home. The staff rationed the children out what they needed, and the children could buy extras with money they earned from chores. My mother gave us spending money to buy items in the store, not because we needed any used clothes, but as a means to help the children’s home. Great-grandma always smiled and patted our heads, as older people do, when we gave her the money for our purchase. Through her peaceful spirit, given to her by God himself, it was apparent Great-grandma’s life had not been easy. She was young when she married. While pregnant with her second child, my great-grandfather left. No one ever saw him again, except in the features of the children he left behind. Although living for a short time at Bethany from nineteen twenty-seven to nineteen twenty-eight, she returned to her parents to raise my grandmother and her brother. In nineteen thirty-nine, she returned to Bethany until her death in nineteen seventy-seven. Great-grandma never remarried. I knew she was content in her position at Bethany.
In the dining hall, everyone ate on long tables with a staff member on the end of each. That was quite an experience. They always expected proper manners from the children. The food was home-grown, and the milk was fresh from the cow. I didn’t care for the vegetables, but I always begged for more fresh milk. The flavor was sweet and strong, a very different flavor from a city, store-bought milk. Great-grandma always packed a jug for our trip home, just for me.
Unwanted children-that’s what they called them. I never thought of my newfound friends in that regard. We played on the large iron swings, and ran through the fields just the same as my friends at home. My most memorable time came on a walk across the road to the farm which supplied most of the food and milk for the orphanage. Being from the city, I was unaware of the shock I would receive when I unconsciously grasped the electric fence to aid my hike up the hill. While I was listening to the bellowing cows, and the yellow-bellied sapsucker in the Forrest, I suddenly found my backside in the middle of the dirt road! While the laughter flowed easily from the children, I sensed an air of contentment.
I have not returned to the tranquil valley in the Appalachians since my great-grandmother passed away. Often, I consider taking my own children to the place which holds so many marvelous memories for me. They need to experience the natural tranquility of the bottom land near Holly Creek, to experience the joy of giving love to those who have so much to give back. I cannot give this priceless heritage to my children; Bethany Children’s Home no longer exists. Government red tape forced the home to close in the nineteen eighties. My children will see Bethany only through my eyes when I reminisce on my own experiences. I often wonder, since Great-grandma is gone, since Aunt Mildred is gone, and since the home where so much love abounded is gone, who will take care of the children?