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I am reminded of a book which I read as a boy. It was a biography of, Carranza, who was President of Mexico. I guess he did great things for Mexico, but my chief impression from the book was of the author. He was a missionary, who wrote this book to finance his publication of the Bible, which he had translated into the language of some of the Indians. in-escapably, he told more about himself than about his subject. If I do the same herin, it is just the nature of life!
There was a rich garden on the new farm. It was on the low ground and everything was lush that year- Cabbage was the most remembered. Father said he had enough sauerkraut to last him the rest of his life. There was Asparagus, as I have never seen it since. It was all pretty hard for Mother, for the two rooms wre very inadequate. This was easy to bear, for the new house was coming along, and we moved into it in November, just ahead of cold weather.
In our life near Beaver Crossing, which seemed to be much longer than the five years, there was much maturing of the purposes of my parents, which had to do very largely with educating their children, but also with their plans for retirement. My mother had conditioned her acceptance of my fathers wedding proposal, with the stipulation that if children were born to them, they were to be brought up in the Baptist Church. The Richmonds were part of a group who had migrated to Vermont from Rhode Island, where they were part of the Roger Williams Colony, which was Baptist, and without any reservations. During the days near Utica, my mother had her membership in a Baptist Church at York, which was some 18 miles from that home, but when we moved to Beaver Crossing, she bacame a member of the Baptist Church at Friend, which was eight miles to the South. On the first Sunday of the month, weather permitting, we would go to the Baptist Church at Friend. I remember some of the ministers there, and they were fine men. Rev Clark Bancroft, who was later cited as a leader among Baptists, in the field of Rural Baptist Church culture. Rev Sharp, one of those pastors at Friend was later Secretary of the Nebraska Baptist Convention.
Our life in the First Methodist Church of Beaver Crossing was constructive. Father was a member of the Board of Trustees, when the new church was built. Banks had not taken to financing church buildings at that time, so the Trustees raised the cash. That was by the simple and direct process of shelling out, to a large extent themselves. Father's share turned out to be about one-tenth of the cost of the building. He borrowed some of it at the bank, and the neighbors said he would loose his farm on account of it. He did not. Father was also Superintendent of the Sunday School, and I was told that on that account, I must behave myself. That was just not fair. However, my father was much bigger than I, and, when he took me out behind the church, at the age of two, I learned, right from the bottom up, that I must keep still in church, and otherwise do as I was told. I do not remember his having given me corporal punishment after that. My mother mad a number of such contributions. It is my impression that the disipline of my parents was severe in the sense of catching me up at each turn in the road and correcting my behavior. My older brothers do not seem to agree with me on that. However, after I was grown and had children of my own, this same Mother told me that she did not govern my younger sister as severely as she did her sons. She was counciling me not to be too severe with my children!