My Moment of Salvation

 As a young child of age 6, I responded to a Pastor's invitation to receive the free gift of Christ's salvation by praying a prayer in which I told God that I believed in Him, I repented of my sin and wanted Him to come into my heart and be my Savior.  I had gone to the front of our church, knelt down and immediately felt that someone else had just knelt beside me.  When I opened my eyes to see who was there, I saw that it was my mother.  She asked me if I was ready to ask Jesus  to come into my heart.  I told her, "Yes".  She listened as I prayed my prayer.  I'm not sure of her exact words at that time but I'm quite certain that she assured me that God had indeed, come into my heart because of my belief, repentance and trust in Him. 

The photo below has the five Groves kids lined up outside of the Nazarene Church in Winona, MN. Our family attended this church for the first years after we moved from a farm near Viroqua, WI to a farm near Fountain City, WI which was seven miles from this church.  I'm not sure of the date of this picture but it must be about 1952 or 1953.  Perhaps it is Easter Sunday.  Margelyn was born in October of 1950.  Barbara and Kathleen are wearing the dresses they wore as flower girls for the wedding of our Aunt Mildred Groves to Riley Burchfield.  Jim and I, Linda, have new Bibles,    It was in  this church during a service that I went forward and received God's gift of salvation. 

Though that experience happened about 70 years ago as I begin this new blog in 2020, I have a very clear memory of that experience.  I truly believe it was the moment in time when I personally accepted God's free gift of salvation because of Jesus' death on the cross and I became a child of God with the Holy Spirit welcomed inside of me.   

This decision has guided me throughout my whole life and has been the best and most significant decision I have ever made.
With this blog, I have two main goals.  The first goal is my response to several verses of scripture passages which I have found in the Bible.
Deuteronomy 6: 5-7
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Psalm 71: 17-18
Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.  Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.
Psalm 78:  4b; 5b-7
...we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done...he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.  Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.
My second reason to start this blog is to tell some of the stories of my life and of other family members - most of which will be what I remember of those who have gone before me.

Life's Changes...

When I was a child, one of the chores on our dairy farm that needed to be done each day during the summer months was to "get the cows."   This chore meant a person had to hike into our woods to find where the cows were eating or resting and get them to head "home".  In other words get them to walk back to the barnyard so they could be let into the barn for milking in the evening.  As soon as the cows were found, roused and standing they knew where to go and how to get there.  Sometimes we had a dog that helped with the round up of the cattle and sometimes we had our horse, Patches, to ride for this purpose.  This was frequently my job.  Especially during the beautiful autumn days, I loved to do this task.  Our woods had  lots of maple and oak trees whose leaves turned brilliant golden, crimson, russet and amber each fall.  We had hickory nut trees that bore immense crops of nuts that carpeted the ground below their branches.   There were wild apple trees with juicy, fragrant fruit that provided a delicious snack for the interested child following a herd of cows home.   And when this was my privilege, I would occasionally pick a few apples and sit leaning against the trunk of a hickory nut tree and dream about my future.  I felt my surroundings were gorgeous.  I must have been an adolescent just beginning to imagine that some day I would meet a Prince Charming and when that happened I wanted to bring him to my beautiful spot where we would dream together about an exciting and meaningful future.  In the future I imagined, we would not live on a farm.  My Prince Charming would be a tall, dark and handsome Pastor or missionary who would serve in a church or another country far from the United States.  I had already decided that I wanted to some day be a Pastor's wife.  At that time I thought a Pastor's family got to host missionaries when they returned from the mission field and came to speak about and present their work to a church congregation.  I loved to attend those services at our church and I imagined how wonderful it would be to get to know those people better which I assumed was a privilege of a Pastor and his family.  I definitely wanted to be a mother so I imagined having a family and having the joy of all that brings with it.  This is how I imagined my life would unfold.  Is this what happened?

I grew up on a 200 acre dairy farm in Wisconsin which my parents owned and operated.  There were 120 acres of tillable land and 80 acres of wooded pasture land on that farm.  My Dad milked an average of 26 cows twice daily until he retired at age 65.  He then sold the farm and retired with my mother to a home on an acre of land where he could have a garden but no cows, pigs or chickens.  My Dad had been raised on a dairy farm so grew up doing farm work year round.  He took on full-time farming after he completed high school and a one year Normal school course to become a teacher.  He must have had a challenging  experience while student teaching because he decided after that to return to the career he had grown to love which was dairy farming.  He and his younger brother, Hubert, had been farming their Grandmother’s farm following the death of their Grandfather so he continued with that opportunity.  His brother decided to pursue education to become a pastor about the time my parents met and married.  My parents continued living on that farm until they decided to leave the tobacco raising area of Wisconsin for another dairy farm they bought 75 miles away from my Great-Grandmother’s farm.  In her advancing years she was moving in with one of her daughters for six months of the year and a second daughter for the other six months of a year so she sold the farm.    My parents had four of us children when we moved to the dairy farm near Fountain City, WI.  Another sister joined the family after the move.

What is Something Crazy That Has Happened to You?

 I am having some trouble answering this question because I don’t seem to be a very crazy person and not much happens to me that could be described as crazy. Recently, however, I was relating a “childbirth” story and when the person I was talking to responded with, “That is crazy,” I knew that I would write a story about the “crazy” things that happened when my first son was born.

Fifty years ago, I was pregnant with our first child. Since we did not know the gender before birth in those days, we did not know that I would be having a baby boy. My due date was June 11, 1971. I was a school librarian at a Middle School at that time and June 11th just happened to be the last day of school that year for teachers. My husband was a student at Trinity Divinity School at that time and commuted each day to classes 50 miles from Racine, WI where we lived. We lived very close to Mitchell Jr. High where I worked so I could very easily walk back and forth to my job.

After I learned I was pregnant during the fall semester of 1970, I learned from my Principal that teachers who became pregnant during the school year were required to resign following the end of the semester in which they learned of their pregnancy. This was very difficult news for John and me. I was earning our income while he was a student. If my job ended, our income ended and that would make it difficult for him to complete his Ministerial program to become a Pastor. Fortunately for us, my Principal knew our situation and wanted me to be able to continue in my position until the year ended or the baby arrived so that John could continue his seminary education. My principal took my situation to the Superintendent of Schools and advocated for a change in the policy in my case. That request was granted and I continued my job as the school librarian as I continued to carry our first child.

Since babies can arrive early, I wanted to make sure I saved my “sick” days until the end of the school year in the event our baby would arrive early. I had very good health that year and did not use any sick days during that year.

Spring Banquets For Teens...

This story is about an event I attended annually as a young teen through my college years known as the Spring Banquet.  In my teenage era, Christian youth were strongly urged not to attend dances so most teens did not go to the prom during their high school years.  But there was an event held for teens that took the place of the prom and allowed for very nice suits and dresses to be worn.  This event was called the Spring Banquet and included a special program following a lovely meal.  The program would usually include a speaker, special musicians and sometimes a Christian teen movie but no dancing.  It was a very special event which I looked forward to each spring.

While I was in high school and before my brother graduated from high school, the Groves girls would attend the Spring Banquet with our brother.  The first photo below is of my brother and me which was taken in the front yard of our farm home. The photo was developed in June 1958.   I would have been in seventh grade that spring and my brother would have been a sophomore in high school.

Fountain City, WI Farm Pets...

Since I grew up on a dairy farm, there were animals around all the time.  Some of those animals provided the reason for our income as was true of the milk cows.  Milk cows gave birth to a cute calf every year but I didn't consider cows or calves pets.  We also had hogs that provided some of the farm income.  Sows had litters of pigs several times a year but I didn't consider sows or their progeny pets. We had chickens most of the time and they provided part of our food chain so I didn't consider them pets either.  

We did have a dog most of the time but our parents had some rules for a dog that was allowed to live on our farm with us.  Those rules were that the dog had to be good with cattle and had to always live outdoors.  The first dog I remember our family had was a collie named Pal.  We must have had that dog from the time of my birth as I remember that it was around as I started school at age six.  I remember liking Pal but I don't remember how long he lived.  He was good with cattle and went along with me when I walked into our pasture to get the cows headed to the barnyard for their evening milking.  Pal was good at nipping cow back legs and making sure they headed in the direction of the barn.  We had other dogs but I was not a lover of dogs like my three sisters were so I didn't spend much time pampering the dogs.  

We also had cats on our farm.  Basically, the same rules that applied to dogs also applied to the cats.  So the purpose of the cats was to keep the mice and rat population down and be able to live outdoors as they weren't allowed in the house either.

Food was not purchased for our dogs or cats.  The dogs were fed table scraps and the cats supplied their own food from their hunting expeditions in the barn.  Cats were given milk to drink during the time of milking both morning and evening.  Dogs probably drank water from the same water sources that the cows had which was an outdoor stock tank in good weather and drinking cups at their stanchions during the winter months.  Rain provided much of the water needs of outdoor animals.  

My mother loved singing canaries so she usually had a canary in a cage in our home while I was growing up.  I listened to the singing canaries but didn't get attached to them.

But there was an animal on our farm which I really loved and that was Patches, a riding horse.  Patches was probably bought primarily for my brother, Jim, who was nearly three years older than I am.  Jim had a period of time in childhood when he wanted to be a cowboy.  He got a lariat and roped fence posts and his three sisters. He and a friend, JoDell Jerrod, even started to build a cabin so he could live outdoors like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. So one day, a horse was bought and a corral was built where the horse would live.  Jim may have been about eleven years old when Patches joined our family.

Some Disagreements With My Parents During High School...

What's something I really disagreed with my parents about?  That is rather difficult to consider because it seems there is a difference between disliking and disagreeing.  Parents have a very important role to play in the rearing of their children.  That role is perhaps more difficult for Christian parents who not only want to raise kind, respectful, smart, happy, well adjusted children but also want their children to become followers of Jesus as taught in the Bible.  Children seem to be born with a pretty strong stubborn streak that puts them in opposition to many of their parent's desires.  

In my case, I seemed to realize that my parents were doing their best to disipline and guide me and my siblings to be all of the things I listed in my opening paragraph.  They had these goals for their children because they practiced these ways of living themselves.  I had great models of how to live as a godly, loving and industrious person.  There was no doubt that my parents loved me and loved the Lord.

Though I probably realized my parents were working hard to make a living as dairy farmers with its financial and labor intensive challenges, there were many requirements for me that I did not "like".  Here are some of those things:
 1.  Helping with housework - vacuuming, dusting, mopping

2.  Helping with laundry - carrying clothes to the outside clothesline to hang for drying, taking it back in when dry and folding and ironing as necessary

3.  Helping in the kitchen - doing the dishes, setting the table, peeling potatoes, etc. etc.

4.  Gardening all summer - planting, weeding, harvesting, helping with canning, freezing etc. etc.

5.  Farm work outside - getting the cows from the pasture, carrying pails of milk to the milkhouse, cleaning the barn gutters, feeding hay, throwing down silage, helping with haying, thrashing, silo filling etc. etc.

6.  Helping to saw wood for the wood burning furnace and kitchen stove - even when the outside temperature was well below zero degrees!!!

7.  Getting up at 6:00 AM to help in the barn before getting picked up by the school bus for school.

High School Organization Highlights...

When I was in high school, I did not have the use of a car to drive to and from school.  A school bus picked me up at the end of our driveway which was a short distance from our farm house.  All five of us Groves kids rode the same bus to whatever school we were attending - elementary grades 1 - 8 or high school grades 9 - 12.  There were very few if any students who drove themselves to school during my years of high school.  Maybe there was an  after school bus later that took boys home if they stayed for football, basketball or track practice but there were no school sports for girls at that time so girls never needed to stay after school for a late bus nor were girls in any organized sport programs.  

Band and choir were separate elective classes and I was in both of those classes all through high school.  In the band I played a baritone saxophone which was owned by the school for my first three years of high school (shown far right in the photo below) and then

transitioned to a Tenor saxophone when an older student graduated

and I was able to play that school owned instrument for my last year of high school.   The Pep Band which played at home basketball games was also an extra-curricular opportunity for me and my saxophone.

My Story of Being Lost One Time As A Child...

I do not remember ever getting lost as a child but I must have gotten lost at least once when I was probably about three years old.  I have heard this story a number of times about something that I did  but I don’t honestly remember it happening.

When this happened, I could not have been older than three because this incident happened during the time our family lived on my Great-Grandmother’s farm near Viroqua, WI.  We moved from that farm to another farm just before I had my fourth birthday.  

As I write this story, a few parts are facts and other parts are “probably” the what and why of this story.

I must have been an active toddler who loved being outdoors.  Apparently, one warm, beautiful day I decided to explore beyond the yard of our house and our farm buildings.  A paved road stretched along the front of our farm’s buildings.  The photo below shows me standing beside the paved road years later with my Great-Grandmother’s farm behind me.

 Alongside our farm, above the buildings, was a gravel road which led from the paved road to some of the fields of our farm as well as to another farm beyond our property.  It also led to an area known as the Maple Sugar Grove.  This was a working Maple Sap producing grove.  My father and mother spent time during each spring with the work of collecting the sap of the maple trees and getting maple syrup made.  They did some of their courting in that Maple Grove before their June wedding in 1941.

A Big Impact From A Small Decision...

A small decision...

When I was a senior in high school and making a choice about what colleges to apply to and which college to attend if I were to be accepted at more than one college, I chose to apply to two different WI universities.  

I had an older brother who was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI and he would be a senior when I started as a freshman if I got accepted and went there.  We were great friends as well as siblings and he was having a wonderful experience at UW-Madison so I thought that would be a terrific place for me also.  

My high school career had included a number of opportunities for me to go to the campus of the La Crosse State College only thirty miles from our farm home.  La Crosse was the place where District Band and Chorale ensemble as well as Forensic competitions were held.   I played a baritone saxophone for three years, a tenor sax for one, sang in the choir and a vocal trio, participated in 4-minute Speech for three years and Interpretive Reading of Prose for one year during my high school years.  The District competitions for those events were held on the campus of the La Crosse State College so I had learned my way around that campus and part of the town where it was located.   I had been born in La Crosse, WI and had cousins who lived there so had been in that city many times during my childhood.    La Crosse had a strong pull on my heart so I was confident that it would be a good place for me to start college if I got accepted there.

What School Year Jobs Did I Have During My College Years - 1963-1968

I began my freshman year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI in September 1963.  I had been accepted at UW-Madison and at UW-LaCrosse.  The LaCrosse campus was closer to home and less expensive so my plan was to attend that school unless I could get into one of the two scholarship dorms at UW-Madison.  I qualified to apply for a room in one of those dorms because I had been the Salutatorian of my high school class.  The dorms provided a lower cost than other campus dorms because the scholarship dorms required the residents to participate with assigned weekly duties in the dorm’s common areas such as the lounge, hallways, bathrooms and the kitchen/dining area.  I was really hoping to get a room in one of those dorms because my brother was starting his senior year at UW-Madison and he had made life in Madison sound very inviting.  He was very active in Badger Christian Fellowship which was a branch of Inter-Varsity which is a college christian ministry.  I knew I would join him in attending their weekly meetings if I was able to be assigned a room at Zoe Bayliss or Susan Davis House. 

I applied for a room in one of those houses. In time, I received a response with a letter that told me I was not accepted for a room but had been put on a wait list.  The letter told me to reply if I wished to remain on the wait list.  I was very disappointed about this and since it was already quite late in my senior year of high school, I felt my chances of getting assigned a room were near impossible so I didn’t return a letter asking to be kept on the wait list.  I was willing to settle for acceptance at UW-LaCrosse.

A few weeks after I received the letter from UW-Madison, however, I arrived home from high school and Mom handed me another letter from Madison.  I opened the letter and read its message.  “Congratulations, you have been accepted as a resident at Susan Davis House.”  I looked at Mom and said, “How can this be?  I didn’t return the letter asking to be kept on the wait list!”  And then I learned that my mother had not taken my earlier “No” for the final word so she had returned the letter for me asking to be kept on a wait list.  

What I Was Like As A Teenager!!!

 What was I like as a teenager?  This question is going to be a challenge to answer so that I will be "accurate" even when that feels like "bragging" or "disparaging."  Neither of those responses will be what I will be attempting to illicit but I will be wanting to be truthful.  If I had been asked to answer this question as I entered my 20's, I would probably have answered much differently than I will answer it now as I look back from the many decades that I have lived since I left my teen years. 

Since I now know that I am a person who likes to operate with accuracy on most everything in my life, I will begin this story about my teenage years as I have my thirteenth birthday and will conclude as I complete my nineteenth year of life.  What I was like during those years is the question I will attempt to answer.  I have never been asked this question before so I am not sure what I will say as I reflect on a period of time which is quite far in the past for me but "here goes".

I turned thirteen years old on December 7, 1957 when I was in the seventh grade at Cross Ridge School.  I believe the photo below was taken during that school year.

When I look at myself in this photo, I can see that I have had a recent hair perm which Mom gave us girls before our school pictures were taken each year.  My hair is naturally straight.  I can tell that my middle front teeth are in though crooked  but there is a space on the left side of my jaw where teeth have not yet come in.  I had been in a car accident when I was four years old.  Six top baby teeth had been knocked out in that accident causing  damage in my jaw to the permanent teeth on each side of my two front teeth.  The tooth on the right came in but was smaller than normal and about the color of butternut squash.  Upon an x-ray to determine the cause of no tooth coming in on the left side when I was in fifth grade, it was found that an undeveloped tooth nubbin was lodged against the next tooth and preventing that tooth from coming in as a normal, healthy tooth.  The nubbin was surgically removed allowing the healthy tooth to come in during my eighth grade of school.  The effect of my compromised permanent teeth was that I felt significant shame about my looks.  I tried to keep my mouth closed or covered as much as possible to hide my missing and deformed teeth.