Mrs.Gentry

I really do get a lot of my inspiration from my childhood memories. This trip home was wonderful for so many reasons.....but going to Perkinsville was just beyond special!

I wrote last night about one of my Sunday School teachers, Mrs. Gentry. Mildred Gentry. I remember she made great pies! She lived in a farmhouse on the bend on the river.



Had a huge red barn with a silo.



and look mom, they still hang the tack in the barn!!!



When I went to church in Perkinsville, we put on the play "Mountain gal" one summer. My dear friend, Karla and I got to dress up as hillbillie girls and put mud all over our legs. We thought it was quite fun! I had the lead role and I remember I had to memorize 110 lines for the play. I think there's a reason why my stage career ended there! (That's me on the right and Karla on the left in the early 60s).

My Grandma Moore (on the left) and Karla's mom, Emma Lou, worked together to help us put the play on.


Emma Lou came to church on Sunday morning to see me after all these years. I swear....she has not changed a single bit!!! She was our youth group leader and I can still hear her say, "Now Jennifer, you be a good girl! You come see me often!"



And here's the coolest part of the story....Karla married Steve....Mrs. Gentry's son. She now lives in the house on the bend in the river with the red barn and the silo. And the best part.....I get to call her "Mrs. Gentry"!!!

Yes, some things just never change!!!

Fourty some years later...I don't think we have changed much at all. We can still talk non-stop, pass notes in Sunday School, forget that anyone else is in the room and listen when our mom's say, "be good....visit often!"

It really is true that your first friends are your forever friends!!!

I remember

I remember the church I grew up in. I used to think it was soooo incredibly big. It took forever to get from the sanctuary to my Sunday School classroom. When did it get so small?

There used to be a bell and you could pull the rope and ring it. I thought it was at least 10 miles up to the top of the steeple. When did it get so short?

I thought the stained glass windows reached almost all the way to heaven. And I know for a fact that the colors of the glass used to be more vibrant!

And then I went inside and sat down in a pew and looked out the window....and there I found them...all the colors of the rainbow!

It was so much fun to go back to this place where I spent so much time as a child. To see how small it really is and to sit and remember all the wonderful times I had in this building with all my friends from church.

That window is dated 1912. The church itself is 150 years old. The "new" addition was added in 1958. I was 7 and can remember them building it. Perkinsville is still just about 3 blocks wide and 5 blocks long. And the church still has an attendance of about 50 every week. Some things never change!

I remember looking at this window as a child. Mrs. Gentry was one of my Sunday School teachers. I thought she was very, very important because she and her family had their name on the stained glass window!

And it was always my favorite window. I just loved the green glass. But when you moved and the sun shines in just right....it will sort of change colors. At least it does when you are 10 years old!

The magic of stained glass - how it reflects in the light and becomes something completely different at night when it is dark outside. The magic of a child's imagination while sitting quietly hour after hour through all those church services.

The magic of going "home" and remembering all the things you thought you had forgotten!

It really was one of the best trips of my life!

And 40 years ago.....

Back in 68!! Oh what a year that was! Life was everything I dreamed it would be!!! Sweet 16, first kiss, first love, first heartbreak!!! What a very special time for me!!! Sharing secrets with my sisters, sock hops and band practice. We took the telephone inside the parlor closet when we were talking with our boyfriends. We thought no one could hear us that way!!! Our closet still had games and books, but now I added empty candy boxes, dried corsages, vacation souvenirs, newspaper clippings, pep rally banners, photos of slumber parties. I kept my diary locked up tight just so my sisters would never know what that first kiss was like for me!!!

Awhile back, I started to share my album "The Closets of my Life". It's an album that picks a year each decade and tells a story as you weave through the "book". I shared 1958. Today, I'll add 1968.

You know, your closet is where you put your shoebox filled with momentos, and where you hide your secrets. Loads of things from our past gets tucked away so I did the same thing with these pages. On the left, the title is "Unfolding our teenage years with these memories of mine". I put the round circles (playing tiles) over the f, h, and s. I graduated from Frankton High School...FHS. I took a page from my yearbook with all the autographs on it and used that as the mat for the photo frame. Don't you remember those straight a-line shifts? I think they are back in style now....40 years later!




The closet is based on my Great Aunt Muriel's wood wardrobe. A "closet" that I used to have in my house. The doors opened and then there were drawers inside on one side and you could hang clothes on the other side. I did the entire album using Chatterbox papers....this was made in 2003, one of my very first scrapbook projects.





So you open it up and there on both sides are the pockets....filled with memories and collectibles from my past. On the top, center flap is a photo of the 4 Moore girls with dad, our brother and both of our grandmother's. Mom must have been behind the camera.



And then you open up the entire "layout". What a wonder!

And yes, that telephone pops up!!!



My closet in 1968 was in a new house. That was the year we moved to the parsonage in Perkinsville. And although I had moved into our "new" house on the corner of Grandma's farm when I was 5, this is the first move that I remember. Our closet was filled with games (see the mini chinese checkers?), and I played the clarinet. There's a mini scrapbook tucked into this side titled "Frankton Indiana). and I have silk garter covers....I wore my first girdle this year. Sooooo glad we no longer have to struggle to get into those things today! LOL!



Junior year, junior prom. And yes, that is the actual pendant that he gave me the night of prom. The matching bracelet was just too big to fit into this page, but don't worry...I'll find a place for it yet! He joined the Air Force and wrote me beautiful letters that I hid in my closet for years. Couldn't let my sisters read those!!!



A closet isn't full unless there are a pair of ice skates....one of our favorite things to do in the winter. And right below them is a pair of 14 KT gold hammered snowflakes that I picked out on a summer vacation to Cripple Creek, Colorado. Back then it was an artists colony and I watched the guy make the earrings...and just had to have them. If I remember right, they cost $14.00....a fortune in 1968! Student of the week clipping from the newspaper, my report card for that year, and a viewmaster reel.....life was good!



We started going to Prairie Baptist Church that year and I picked my Life Verse from the Bible which is written inside one of the books stashed on the shelf in my closet below. I was a Jr Hi camp counselor with my best friend, Nancy. I was stage manager for our Junior Class Play, Our Town. It was the year I started doing genealogy. 1968 was the year of the mini skirt, but our dresses were below the knee. It was a church thing back then. Amazing how high you can get your hemline when you add a belt after you leave home! OK, mom, don't read this! LOL! I even paper pieced the saddle oxfords and shoes at the bottom of my closet.



The telephone is just the cutest thing! I've demo'd how to make this on DIY and you can find the instructions there. Yes, this layout was shown on DIY....just so much fun!!!



OK, you know the tune to the song (Oh What a Night!)....so just sing along with me

Oh, what a year that was, back in '68, What a very special time for me, life was great!

It was a very special year, a very special time......