Becky Sue Cooper's Photo Album

By Donna Chapman Gilbert

The new preacher in a small, East Texas town stops by the Cooper's house for a visit and finds no one home but nine-year-old Becky Sue. She sits him down on the front porch with a glass of lemonade to wait for Mama and Daddy, and entertains him with her photo album. It just so happens the photos are of her fellow parishioners, and the preacher learns more about them from Becky Sue than he wants to know.

Brimming with hope and laughter, and spiced with a pinch of sin, Becky Sue Cooper's Photo Album takes us back to 1964. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donna Chapman Gilbert
• Release date: May 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458014900

Donna Chapman Gilbert

Donna Chapman Gilbert lives in Carrollton, Texas, and has worked for much too long to admit at a downtown Dallas law firm. Faced with a boring two-hour commute to the office every day, she began to write while riding the bus. (Thanks for the opportunity, Dallas Area Rapid Transit!) Donna spends way too much time on Facebook and devising ways to get out of housework. Fortunately, her handsome husband’s super power is doing laundry, or her family would never have clean clothes. Donna and her husband Laundry Man have two grown sons, one a professional performer and the other a sweet, intelligent, non-verbal soul who has taught her much about God’s grace. She co-founded the North Texas Chapter of Families for Effective Autism Treatment. Donna sings in her church choir and loves to quilt, garden, and of course, read.

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BECKY SUE COOPER'S PHOTO ALBUM

by

Donna Chapman Gilbert

Copyright 2011 by Donna Chapman Gilbert.

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Other Books by Donna Chapman Gilbert

Safe Pasture

(For a preview of Safe Pasture, see the end of this book.)

For Mother,

who was there with me.

Author's Note

When I was growing up in Texas during the 1960s, the small Methodist church we attended sat fifty feet off Odom Road, just outside the city limits. That bleached brick building is gone now, swallowed up by progress, but what an interesting place it was in its heyday, a microcosm of colorful characters, some of them more outlandish that even Becky Sue dare tell. There were thieves and hypocrites among us, to be sure, and true saints sprinkled here and there, but most were simply good, honest people who worshiped their Creator the best they knew how.

We were a family. We laughed together when the wind blew off Clara Higgins' wig during dinner on the grounds. We rejoiced when Brother John baptized Kenneth Fallin in Fossil Creek. And we shared Mrs. Gentry's tears when her lifetime companion clutched at his heart that Christmas morning and went to be with Jesus. (Beat her to heaven by twenty years. I don't know that she ever forgave him for that.)

There are drawbacks to a small congregation. Every member must have at least three jobs in order to make the thing run. At one point I was church pianist, kindergarten Sunday School teacher and president of the youth group. And I was only fifteen years old! Then there's the inevitable fact that everyone knows everyone else's business. You couldn't scratch an itch without everybody and their Uncle Henry knowing about it; you couldn't express an opinion but what it didn't come back to haunt you. The worst part, though, was the discouragement. It is positively maddening to give of yourself unstintingly year after year, only to realize