A Story of Poverty and Redemption

A few weeks ago, I shared about my grandmother Ethel's family and the rich tradition my cousins and I inherited from her. You can read about that family here.

But today I have a different story to tell. It's about my grandfather Guy - the one who married Ethel.

Guy didn't have a happy childhood.

Etta Maude, around 1900

Guy's mother, Etta Maude, was an orphan. She and her brother were raised by a childless Swedish couple who lived northwest of Topeka, Indiana. When Etta Maude learned she was pregnant in the spring of 1901, one of the men she had dated, Eugene, went ahead and married her. He didn't know who the baby's father was, but there was a possibility it might be his.

Guy was born in 1902, and his brother Orville in 1903. In 1908, against her doctor's advice, Etta Maude became pregnant again. She died on November 4, 1908, not knowing she had given birth to a daughter the previous day.

Guy (left) and Orville (right), 1905.
Don't you love the curls and dresses?

Grandpa Eugene did as many others did in those days and in his situation. He placed the baby and his two sons in an orphanage. The baby was adopted and the boys remained in the Rogers Home for the rest of their growing up years.

Grandpa Eugene, Orville (left) and Guy (right), just a couple
weeks after Etta Maude's death - the day the children
went to the Rogers Home.
Guy later told my grandmother that he remembered
this day..."he could hardly keep back
the tears long enough to have the picture taken."

The Roger's Home for the Orphaned Poor near Topeka, Indiana

During the next several years, Grandpa Eugene (the boy's father) worked as a day laborer, living in hotels as he moved from place to place around northern Indiana and southern Michigan. He seemed to be quite popular with the ladies, and was known as "Slim."

The front porch of the Topeka Hotel. "Slim" is the young man with
the suitcase on the left.

Meanwhile, once the boys were old enough to work, they were sent out to area farmers as indentured servants. They attended school (through eighth grade) and Sunday School in Topeka.

Once he reached the age of sixteen, Guy was on his own. He worked here and there for a few years, but then found a job working for a farmer in a neighboring county. This job changed his life.

John and Barbara Pancake in front of their home south of
Topeka, Indiana. There's no date with this photo, but I would guess
it was taken around 1915.

This farmer and his wife, John and Barbara Pancake, became substitute parents for Guy and they treated him like an adopted son. Even after John Pancake died, Barbara remained a second mother for Guy and "grandma" for his children.

Of all the people who influenced his life, the Pancakes seemed to have had the most profound effect. First of all, they provided a loving, stable home for him - his first - during his late teen years when it was so sorely needed. Second, they prepared him and helped him to be reconciled with his father. Third, they helped lay the spiritual foundation that prepared him to meet Pastor C.C. Cripe, of the Bremen Church of the Brethren.

Pastor Cripe had an even further influence on the troubled young man. He became Guy's mentor and life-long friend.

Later, when he moved to Shipshewana, he met Pastor George Sherck - my great-grandfather, and the father of his future wife.

But that isn't the end of the story. What about the other players?

Orville, Guy's younger brother, ran away from the Roger's Home when he turned sixteen. After years of working and traveling, he eventually moved back to the mid-west to be reunited with his father and brother. The brothers' early life affected both of them differently. Orville's daughter wrote, "...the two brothers agreed that they were mistreated in the Rogers Home. It carried over into their adult life. Uncle Guy reached for the Bible and my dad reached for the bottle."

Grandpa Eugene married one of those many girls who knew him as "Slim" in 1913. But in February 1914, they were invited to a revival meeting at the Topeka German Baptist Brethren Church (now Church of the Brethren). Eugene and May were baptized into that church, and it changed their lives completely. Grandpa Eugene enthusiastically embraced the church's Plain dress and strict lifestyle and served as deacon. It was said that when it was time to pray, it was a race to see whose knees hit the floor first - Grandpa Eugene's or the pastor's!

Grandpa Eugene and May in the 1920's. This smiling
man is the Grandpa I remember.

There's one more player in this story. Do you remember that baby girl who was born on November 3, 1908? The one who Grandpa Eugene put up for adoption during those dark days?

Guy told Ethel that he was working on a car in a garage in 1926 when Orville came in and said he wanted Guy to meet his wife. Guy cleaned up a little and went out to the car. He didn't know until he was told that this was his sister. They had written to each other and exchanged gifts after Ruth was told she had been adopted and had two brothers. Because Orville traveled around so much he had often worked in or near Chicago and had looked up his sister, but Guy hadn't seen her since a couple years after she had been adopted, when she was only a toddler and he was eight. They had been apart for eighteen years, but from that time on they were very close.

The reunion! From left to right: Orville, Ruth and Guy.
This picture appeared in the South Bend Tribune along
with the story of their reunion.

 Even though my grandfather's childhood was rough, sad and at times tragic, I can see God's hand working in his life. He and my grandmother didn't have an easy time - they married in 1928 and struggled all through the Depression and during the years afterward - but they raised a wonderful family.

Back row, left to right: Martha, Guy, James, John, Ethel.
Front row: Waneta and Nancy.
If you've read A Mother for His Children, you might recognize
some of those names :)

Guy passed away before I was born, so I never met him. I do know that he had only one real regret - that he didn't have enough schooling to learn to be a minister. It had been a desire of his even before he married. But he instilled a love for the Lord and service to the church in his children, along with a desire for education. All of them are active in their churches, and both of his sons became ministers.

And since here at the cafe we talk about food, I searched and searched to try to find out what his favorite food might have been. But, you know, as poor as he was as he was growing up, I don't think he had the luxury of being fussy about food! However, I did find this quote from an essay my grandmother wrote for her children after he died:

"By the time he was old enough to help do chores on a farm he was taken out of the home by Mr. and Mrs. Kauffman. They had no children of their own so needed some help with their work. They thought of adopting him but Grandpa didn't want to sign the papers. They were good to him but lacked the personal feeling people have for their own. 

Mrs. Kauffman was 'old-maidish' to put it in Daddy's words. She never seemed to understand a growing boy needed more to eat than her husband. Grape-nut cereal was just on the market and Daddy was very fond of it. She only dished out a small portion, just what she thought he needed.  He could hardly wait until he could eat as much as he wanted."

Every time I see a box of Grape-nuts, I think about my grandfather, his childhood, and the wonderful story of redemption told in his life.

And it's stories like these that made me want to be a writer. The more I read and hear about my family history, the more stories start taking shape in my imagination.

And then I start wondering - what stories am I living that my grandchildren will tell about me? Hmm.....