Martha Ruth, Preacher's Daughter: Her Journey Through Religion, Sex and Love. Marti Eicholz
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licked my face. I screamed out of fright and stomped around stating, “I don’t like dogs, and I don’t like cats.” I didn’t like the rush, the attack, and the feeling of being afraid. I was scared. Loud noises, yelling words, and aggressive animals alarmed me.
On special occasions, we would have homemade ice cream made using ice and salt and by churning the creamy mixture with a crank. It was a hot summer day, and I thought ice cream would taste so good. So let’s have a surprise—my very first time trying to surprise and hopefully please or delight someone, or at least just have some fun. Pulling my red wagon, I headed across the railroad tracks and up the slope to the ice house and asked the guys for a block of ice. I had no money, but somehow they gave me the ice. A real con job! With ice in tow, I headed home proud and happy; but my mother became hysterical, shouting, “How could you do this?” “How are we going to pay?” “It’s melting!” There were no preparations for making ice cream. I don’t recall the outcome. Truthfully, I am glad I don’t. I do remember thinking we were poor, just like the kids next door.
One afternoon, we were expecting one of the couples from the church to go to some dress-up event.
I was excited, dressed in my finest, and wearing my new white shoes. My mother made all my clothes, and they were special. While we were waiting, I strolled out to the side garden and for some reason decided to walk through it, only to get stuck in the mud up to above my ankles. I could not move. As I stood there, I saw our friend’s truck coming down the street. I waved and yelled to be rescued. The next thing I knew, I was being stripped of my clothes, washed up, and put to bed. I felt so embarrassed and ashamed. All I had wanted was to have some fun, but now I wanted to hide; so I put the covers over my head and cried myself to sleep.
The time had come for Elnora to receive telephone service. The streets were filled with workmen, trucks, poles, wires, and ladders. The workmen dug holes, pounded poles into the ground, pulled and extended the wiring, and attached the wires to the house. The rectangular, wooden structure called a “telephone” was attached to the inside wall of the kitchen.
It was a thrilling time—picking up the receiver, waiting for the operator, and giving the name or number of the person you wanted to talk to, or just picking up the receiver and listening to a neighbor’s conversation.
My father often had preaching engagements in the evenings. One of those nights, my dad and I went alone. A song by Harry D. Clarke written in 1924 was sung:
“Into my heart, into my heart,
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus
Come in today, come in to stay
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.”
That night, I gave myself to Jesus and let Jesus come into my heart. I believe he is still there. I have never told him to leave. Afterwards, I went to the car and waited for my father, and we drove home in silence. But I have always remembered the song and that evening.
ENGLISH
Martha Ruth age 4
Southern Indiana offers scenic beauty with its many forests, caves, rivers, and lakes. Scattered across hills and valleys are small towns rich in heritage. English, Indiana, was one of those small towns.
Sitting on top of a hill was a brick house with a white frame church next door. This was our new home. English was our new town.
Highway 237 ran down the hill—or up the hill, depending on which direction you were going—along the foot of it. It was a busy road.
Church members would climb the hill to the services. I wonder now, where on earth did they park? Not on the busy highway; maybe on the narrow dirt road beside the garage. The garage sat at the foot of the hill adjacent to a small grocery store. The church was packed with standing room only, and in good weather people peeked through the windows. Voices bellowing hymns like “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Amazing Grace” echoed through the valley.
The congregation decided to build a new church down the street with extra land for a parking lot. To save money and time, much of the work was done by volunteers from the church and the community. My father worked day and night until he fell off the roof trying to accomplish more than was humanly possible. The work continued, and soon we were having services in our new brick church with plenty of room for worshipers and spaces to park. The entire community was excited.
During this time, I was in a new place up on a hill and without any playmates, so I created imaginary ones. Visitors thought they were real and asked, “How many children do you have?” The answer: “She is the only one.” Well, that had to stop, so I started wishing and praying for a baby. There was a song we sang in church called “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” I already knew Jesus was in my heart, and now I would call him my friend. I felt comforted. I had a friend. I don’t believe my mother was very excited about the thought of having another baby. She had had a difficult pregnancy and delivery with me, and it was evident that I was enough to handle and try to manage. Then, one day, she started spitting. My mother was one of a few women who have so much saliva they need to spit some out to deal with it. Excessive salivation is called ptyalism or sialorrhea; and while it is unpleasant, it does not affect the baby. Hormonal changes may be the culprit. Nausea also might make one swallow less, causing saliva to build up in the mouth. Ptyalism is more common among women suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness, which my mother had. She carried her “brown bag” at all times. A baby was on its way. And I started looking every morning under the dining room table to see if the baby had arrived. My mother was not feeling well, and she was disturbed that my dad was not around much. I am sure I was a handful, but I learned to do “mommy things” like standing on a stool to iron, gathering eggs, sweeping the back stoop, checking on the pigs and rabbits, and walking through the meadow with my dad to milk the cow. We had a little farm up the hill behind the house and the church.
Oh, yes, we had an outhouse. And I do remember the toilet tissue. It was the Sears & Roebuck catalog. No wonder we all grew up to be constipated. Now, living without a bathroom with a toilet, tub, or shower seems totally impossible, but I did it as a child. Millions of humans around the world still exist without a bathroom. I know the experience. I feel badly that many do not know the pleasure of having a clean, private place to go, relax, and relieve oneself of waste. As a child, it was a weekly Saturday night bath in a galvanized tub in the middle of the kitchen. My mother would boil a pot of water, mix it with cooler water, and fill the tub. We would place our bodies in the tub filled with the hot, soapy water and wash ourselves. This was our bath for the week; and there was no lingering, because everyone had to go through the same process. Between Saturdays, we took sponge baths, washing ourselves from a basin of warm, soapy water. Next, we would wash our hair, dipping our heads in the sink and scrubbing our scalps, usually with our homemade, lard-based lye soap. It was reliably rich and full of natural glycerin, which made it a good cleanser that was gentle on the skin. We collected rain in buckets for rinsing our hair. The rainwater was for washing out the soap from the follicles. Our hair was squeaky clean.
Monday was “wash day” (doing the laundry). We used a washboard, a tool used for hand-washing clothing. The clothes were soaked in hot, soapy water in the galvanized tub and then squeezed and rubbed against the