Ophelia

On Saturday morning, my grandmother, Ophelia Hurst Davis went to be with her Lord and Savior. Grandma was an amazing woman. Many people say such of their grandmothers and I suppose they mean it, but I know it of her. She was a depression child with poor health that missed so much school it took a very long time for her to finish highschool. She never drove a car and lived most of her life without a toilet or a shower in her home. She raised six daughters on her own after doing what I consider a truely courageous thing. When her youngest daughter was 2, she divorced their father who had committed a horrible sin against her and her children. I do not condone divorce and she didn't even believe in divorce but when faced with no other choice, she did that which was never done in her society. She bore it as a mark on her for the rest of her life and of course never remarried. She suffered from many health problems but followed her instincts and her passion for knowledge and was able to live independently long past the time that most people thought she would ever live. She was an irascible and strong headed woman. If I described her in a word, I would have to say tenacious. She had a little spring on her 35 acres and believed it to be the healing waters and somehow pumped it into her house with a ram pump. As a small child, I spent countless hours at her house with my siblings and cousins. We played in the creek and broke into the old school house up the road and wrote on the chalkboard with old broken pieces of sheetrock playing school. We helped her with countless strange little chores that we didn't really understand the process of, like putting little branches and sticks in her driveway to prevent erosion. Every time someone visited her, they were given explicit instructions on exactly what she wanted them to do while they were there. I think she sat and planned every minute for me before I arrived. I remember being up in her apple tree picking each apple that she told me to. I carried hundreds of pounds of apples up to her living room, wondering what in the world she would ever do with them all. She, of course, sent more home with me than I knew what to do with either. I never visited her without demanding she make her special biscuits in a pan on the stove. She made the most amazing watermelon rhine pickles in the world. I saw some at a farmers market one day and my mouth watered. When I got them home, I realized that just because they call them that, doesn't mean they are going to be just like grandma's. She once told me she would like me to write the story of how she named her daughters. I wanted to so badly and we never did it. All I ever found out was that she wanted the name to be "The Six Little Peppers."
Over the years I've learned many things that she tried to tell me all along. RAW almonds are very good for you. Black walnut icecream and cheerios are the perfect dessert. Vinegar is an amazing cure-all. The Word of God is indispensable and life without it would not be worth living. She taught me to make dolls out of gourds and vinegar bottles. She taught me to make strings of paper dolls. She sat in front of her stove with me, letting me open her junk mail and giving me cherry vitamin-c's as a treat. She reminded me to sing to my children and share the Word with them. She bossed her whole family around, accused us of wilder things than I can imagine and yet never had to watch a soap opera for inspiration. She gave me a half of a stick of DoubleMint gum every time I saw her and never stopped clipping newspaper items for me and giving every bit of advice I would listen to. She wasn't perfect and she tended to drive all of her daughters batty but at the end of her life I can honestly say, right or wrong about all of the little things, she loved us all, and lived a life to live up to in many ways. I know I could have been a better granddaughter and spent more time with her. I know I should have written more letters, sent flowers and showed my love for the part she played in my life but I didn't. I take my comfort in the fact that she will live on in me in a million little ways and I'll pass it on to my own children. God bless my hard working grandmother who can finally rest with her savior and feel no more pain.
Finally I will share the last "clipping" she sent to me. I meant to have the pastor share it at her funeral but failed.

A Million Souls
A Million Souls for Christ our Lord,
A Million Souls a day;
Be this our goal, our heart's desire,
For this we humbly pray.

Today the world has learned to read,
No longer dare we wait;
The let us go from door to door
And witness ev'ry day.

He bade us go to all the world
And ev'ry creature, too;
Then will He not enable us
His blessed will to do?

He calls us to a great crusade,
No matter what the cost;
A million souls must be our goal,
Each day to reach the lost.
Oswald J. Smith

She wrote "A great preacher and writer " at the bottom.