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L. I). Johnson+--*—-. Chupluim Furman UniversityCharacter—Indispensable QualityAt nineteen Eva Carlin eloped and married her childhood sweetheart, November 24, 1873. She had been teaching school for two years at the time, but was still unable to get her father’s blessing to marry LafeJohnson. So she climbed up behind him on his horse and they ran off to the county seat and got hitched. After that the Rev. Asa Carlin, a Baptist preacher, would have nothing to do with his daughter.The trouble between the twofamilies was classic in the border stales a century ago. Rev Carlin, a fire-eating abolitionist, never tired to consigning all slaveholders tohell fire and damnation. When the bloodbath ended and the Union won. Rev. Carlin did not let up. His anger against slavery was not appeased. He particularly disliked Andrew Johnson, a Tennessean and Lincoln’s Vice-President.John Wylie Johnson had migrated from South Carolina to Missouri. He was not a slaveholder, but he knew- some good people who had been. Moreover, Andrew Johnson was a distant relative and he was proud of it. To complicate matters, he was a deacon of Rev. Carlin’s church.The tension between the two men broke into the open at Sunday dinner where the.preacher's family was enjoying the traditional hospitality of the deacon's home after the morning service. Rev. Carlin’s intemperate remarks at the dinner table touched off an argument which resulted in the two families having nothing more to do with each other. The inevitable happened. The preacher’s daughter and the deacon’s son fell in love.The year after they were married, Lafe, a young farmer deejded to run for sheriff, but lost the election largely through the opposition of his preacher father-in-law. So Eva and her husband packedup their few worldly goods, took their infant son, and headed for Texas in a covered wagon, settling on a small farm in Ellis County, fifteen miles from the nearest railroad.There nine other children were born, making ten in all. Eight lived to adulthood. They experienced all the hardships and rewards of the typical rural pioneer family trying to make a living and raise a family to be hopest, hardworking, God-fearing citizens.By 1900 the farm seemed loo small to support the whole clan. The older boys wanted to move to a new pioneer area. One of them drew 160 acres in a land lottery ip Oklahoma, and soon thereafter the family sold out in Texas, put the household goods oh the train and moved to southwest Oklahoma, where a second 160 acres were bought, and a two-story house built by Lafe and his sons.To hetp.pay for the land and house. Lafe built houses for other families which were beginning to pioneer in the largely unsettled area, leaving his wife and the small children at home alone for long lonely stretches of time with an old collie dog for protection.When Eva was 65 years old and Lafe was just over 70, one of the severest trials of their life together took place. One of their sons and his wife both died in the space of a year, leaving three small boys, five, four and two. What to do? Eva said she wouldn't see the boysto grow up together. So she and her husband took them toraise.Five years later their home burned to the ground, destroying nearly everything they owned except their courage and pride. She was now nearly 70. he past 75. So they built another house. He Jived another five years or so, and she survived him by six years. She stayed around long enough to see those three grandchildren she had taken responsibility for finish high school.There is little remarkable about these two people. They rather typified the character and courage of the good, solid folks who undergrid the life of any nation. They are well-known and special to me' because J was the youngest of those three boys given a home bv grandparents 65 and 70 years old.If they ever thought they were put upon or unfairly treated by life they never let us know. 1 do not believe they felt that Ihey were victims of a cosmic framcup, or that they ever felt sorry for themselves.The scenery changes from covered wagons to jet airplanes, but the action is unchanged and the lines are altered very little. The same qualities that made people little and hurtful in my grandmother's day do so still. And the same qualities that make life • meaningful are valid still. Chief among them is character.HANGING IN THERE!parcelled oul amonj Hie relatives, that (hey deserved
Newspaper Details
Danville Register
Danville, Virginia, US
Sun, Sep 09, 1973
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Janet R.
NE, USA 18 May 2018
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