Uncle Clem said, “Ole Gordon saved you today. See that you behave yourselves; or the next time nobody will be able to save you.”

Every Sunday was church day for the whole house. Uncle Clem saw himself as a faithful Christian man. In fact, if the truth were told, he saw himself as more of a Christian than most men. He always prayed long prayers; even his grace at meals was long and drawn out. I guess he wanted to make sure God heard and understood what he was saying. Most of the people at the church labeled him as being “very religious”. I cannot dispute that – he was religious in his meanness and in his cruelty to us!

At each meal he would say a long grace – the same one at every meal. “I thank you heavenly Father for this meal that is prepared before us. And, Oh Lord, there’s nothing in the world greater than your blessing this food, and I pray thy blessings upon it. Bless even the hands that prepared it; bless even the hands that went out through the busy toils of the ships and sins of life in order to try to obtain and get it. Now holy righteous Father, I pray in your name these and other blessings upon it. Amen!” Some of the words may be crossed up or even made clearer, but this is the essence of the grace.

One Sunday after church, a storm came. Uncle Clem had all of us, together with him and Aunt Landa, to sit on the couch. He stretched out his arms to include all of us, and said, “If we go, we’re all going together.” I was scared to death! Uncle Clem was talking about dying, and I didn’t want to die! I said to Louis, “I’m not ready to die; I want to grow up! I want to be like Nell! Louis looked at me, squeezed my hand and smiled. When the storm finally passed, without affecting us, Uncle Clem remarked, “God spared us this time.”

I had my own mental picture of God. In one breath Uncle Clem would tell us that God could do anything! He could blow the house down! In another, he would tell us a tiger was the strongest animal in the world. I just couldn’t seem to separate the powerful God from the strong tiger – so, in my child’s mind, I assumed a tiger was either stronger than God, or God was a tiger.