Monthly Archives: June 2013

Olga Baker Armand Griffith, Captain of the Southwestern Bell “Lady Bells”

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In this photo Olga Baker, Armand, Griffith, is holding the trophy for winning the Houston Women’s City Softball League Championship. Olga Griffith was my maternal grandmother. Of course I didn’t know her when she was a young woman winning softball championships. I am told she was also very athletic and a strong leader. She was also a great dancer. I think we all wish we had been able to know our parents and grandparents when they were young. It was only after my grandmother had passed that I came across this picture and it is now one of my favorites. When I found this picture my youngest daughter, Kristina was a senior in high school. Kristina was a pitcher and star player on her school’s softball team. My oldest, Melissa, had likewise played and been a leader and star a few years before. In flipping through old photos the past few weeks I kept coming back to this one. It does not lend itself to any particular spiritual lesson or words of wisdom but it just makes me smile. I was not sure at first why I liked this picture so much but then it occurred to me that while I will never see my grandmother play softball maybe I did see a reflection of her years later when my two daughters took the field. I certainly see a reflection of her in both of them in so many ways other than playing softball. She was smart, independent and very strong as are her great-granddaughters. None of us like all the same things our parents and grandparents do but it amazes me how often our personalities reflect our ancestors. I think I may have to share a few more of these reflections in the coming weeks.

Dance With the One Who Brung You

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Elmer Warford and Family“Dance With the One Who Brung You.” Nobody knows who coined this phrase. It has been around since at least the 1920s. Many people from my generation remember legendary Texas football coach Darrell Royal and associate this phrase with him. In football the phrase means that if you get to the championship game you should remember what got you there. In a broader sense the phrase is a call to remember and to be loyal to those that helped you get where you are.

When I was a boy I used to go with my grandparents to the Williams Store where they traded. In those days there were many privately owned small community groceries stores like the Williams Store. In time most of them including the Williams Store would be put out of business by supermarket chains that could sell for less. I remember my grandmother saying to my Papaw, “Elmer, we could save money if we went into town more often to Safeway. She would ask, why do we trade here at all? My Papaw would look at her and say, “yes you do,” and that would be the end of it.

The evidence of why Papaw was willing to pay a few cents more for milk every week is reflected in this picture. This picture is of Elmer and Sally Warford with sons, Floyd, Kenneth and Chuck and their first grandchild Jerry. They are standing in front of their home which was being rebuilt after it was completely destroyed by fire. My father, Kenneth Warford, on the far right, has told me many times about how the entire community and particularly the Ten Mile Baptist Church came to their aid when they were left with absolutely nothing. It was the outpouring of Christian love and charity that profoundly affected my father and he would later say that it was the love that was shown to him and his family by the church that was the beginning of him being led by the Holy Spirit to go into the ministry. All of the clothes they had on in this picture were bought for them by others. Virgil Williams was a leader in the church and one of the people that help organized the relief effort when Elmer and Sally lost everything. Virgil Williams not only was a leader in the relief effort he personally donated all of the timber that was cut, process and used for the lumber to build the house you see being built in this picture.

In 1 Corinthians 11:2 Paul commend the believers in Corinth because they remembered and practiced the things he had taught them. There are so many moral and spiritual lessons in this story but I think one of the most important is that we should remember what other people have done for you, remember what God has done for you and remember to do for others as you would have them do for you.

Perspective

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Elmer Warford running the saw at the Warford Sawmill Elmer Warford running the saw at the Warford Sawmill

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. Isaiah 55:8

In the 1940s Elmer Warford (my grandfather) and his brother, Aud Warford, ran a sawmill that supplied much of the lumber for the Lonsdale Community in Saline County, Arkansas.  Elmer used to tell me that Aud was the brains of the operation.  Aud was quick minded and was especially good with numbers. Aud ran the business and kept the books. Elmer worked the mill and kept the saw running. Elmer Warford is at the controls in this picture and as you can see from studying this photograph the mill was very crude. The entire process was driven by the engine of a model T ford.

In the 1960s when I was a kid I remember Papaw and Aud talking and telling stories about the mill. I remember them laughing about a time when after Aud got through paying all the workers and their bills they had three cents left over to split. Elmer would grin and say, “now three cents was a whole lot more money back then that it is now.”

When Papaw was younger he talked of the Warford Mill as if it was a failure but as he got older his perspective changed.  With age he came too looked back on the days of the Warford Mill with pride. The last time we talked about the mill he spoke of it as a success, not because the mill made money, it never made much. The source of Elmer’s pride were the homes and barns built throughout the community with the rough cut lumber from the Warford Mill. For years after the mill closed he could drive around the community and see evidence of the impact the mill had on the lives of many people.  Just as important, during very hard times, that simple sawmill managed to feed the Warford families and the families of other men that worked in the small logging industry the mill created.

We will never achieve God’s omnipotent view of our situation but maturity can broaden our perspective enough so that we may see our disappointments in a different light. Whatever the day may bring we can be sure God is still on His throne.