When I asked him if he really wanted to kill me, he said yes, right at that moment I did. I said, "Why didn't you? You had a gun loaded." Listen to what he said. And this is to the Glory of God. He said, "When I came around the trailer and saw you... You were real tall and pure white and it scared me and all I could do was run." I said, "You didn't see me, you saw the Angel of The Lord. I told you He would not allow you to harm me."

My dad and first wife Urisi had five children, Emmalee, Victor, Manfred, Bearl and Wilma. Urisi died. Then he married my mom, Eloise Harshbarger. Then I was born October 14, 1935. Later my brother James was born January 30, 1937.

We lived at Milton, West Virginia in Cable County, in the Old Ronk Home place where we have a family cemetery. My grandparents and most of my Aunts and Uncles are buried there. And I will be someday. My daddy was a farmer and blacksmith. If the ground didn't grow it, we didn't have it. We had no car but daddy had a team of horses and a wagon. The very first thing I remember was a flood, probably the 1937 flood. It was so scary, we had gone to Huntington; do not know how we got there, to Aunt Lette's house. Don't know if we went to get her out or what. But the flood gates were closed and there was water everywhere, almost on her porch. I was on someone's shoulders. People say you couldn't remember, you were too young. But when something is so devastating, you can! I remember winning a beauty contest 0-18 years, don't know how old I was, maybe five. I had two older half-brothers Manfred, Bearl in 3 C-Camps, then to the Army. Manfred in Alaska, Bearl a Sgt. in the Philippines, lost in the jungle 21 days. Then he was called to help clean up at Pearl Harbor. Now, I'm in first grade at Diehl School. All 12 grades. One school teacher, a potbellied stove in the middle of the room and a water cooler back in the corner. My dad always taught us to tell the truth, even if it hurt. Because if we didn't and he found out... And he would, we'd get a whipping for doing the thing and another one for lying, with a switch or leather belt. People today would say that's child abuse! No, it has made me what I am today. Child abuse is letting the child watch TV all day and get out on streets and drink, smoke dope and you don't even know where they are. Oh, you say I don't want my child to go through what I did. It would do them good to go through what I did. You're just too lazy to be a parent and make them do right. If the school teacher or bus driver gave us a whipping, when we got home we would get another one. The school nurse would come to school and give everyone a shot. I would make little envelopes out of the manila paper we had at school for art. I would write to my brother Bearl and he always answered. Most of these five years at Diehl school we walked but we rode the bus home. My mommy was a tiny little woman and all of the kids on the bus would laugh to see her run down to the bus to give me a note of two or three things that she would need from Cremean's store, so I could ride the bus down and only have to walk back. Daddy worked on the WPA. Sometimes mom started not feeling good. In the sixth grade we were made to go to town to school (Central) then to high school in the seventh. Back then there was a mobile that came around and took chest x-rays. A lot of TB back then. Daddy, James mine came back okay, but mom's was bad. Sent her to Beckley, West Virginia to T.B. Sanitarium. This is really hard. No car. We always walked across these hills to get to church. Any church that was having a revival, we were there, even though we went to Aunt Ersa and Uncle Cephas' church. The old Tin church on Mason St. in Milton. Now, there's a big Baptist Church there.

It was terrible.

THE VILLAGE CARPENTER WORLD WIDE MINISTRIES, PUBLISHING HOUSE, BIBLE SCHOOL, OS PUBLISHING and ME SHED CHURCH at GOD'S HOUSE INTERNATIONAL, PO Box 133, Lakeview, Ohio 43331 USA

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