The Honeysuckle Letters

By Chris Adams

There are many stories in this book. Some funny, some sad, some tragic, but most important is the life story of once ordinary woman that overcame unordinary circumstances and chose to write about it

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463425739

Chris Adams

Chris Adams is IIS Program Manager for Microsoft. Chris spends his time building and reviewing technical content for IIS, working with IIS Most Valuable Professionals (MVP), and spear-heading programs to best reach customers for the IIS team. Chris was formally a Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) engineer, technical lead, and supportability lead for the IIS product and has deep, technical experience in the usage and functionality of IIS 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 7.0. Chris is currently Microsoft certified as a MCP, MCSA, and MCSE.

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Contents

Dedication

Note From The Author

Dedication

I dedicated this book to Evelyn Lane, my mother. For without her support, I would have never gotten the First Chapter off the ground.

Note From The Author

Please enjoy, as we take a trip back to a much simpler place and time. As we become acquainted with some of the people that shared the same common interest to survive and flourish in the greatest state in North America. Welcome to Arkansas, 1931

I was born Martha Marie McMath, in the tiny town of Honeysuckle. This small town was located upwards towards the Ozark of Arkansas. My humble mother worked at home while Pa had a blacksmith shop just outside of town. I was an only child, and was doted on by both sides of the family. As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t any place on earth better to live than Honeysuckle.

The town had over 150 people, with Arthur’s general store, Old man Shews smoke house, Dr. Smith’s clinic, the Honeysuckle Baptist Church, the First Pentecostal Church, and of course the Post Office.

Our family attended both the Pentecostal Church one week and the Baptist Church the next. The reason for the split visits was very simple. My Pa was Pentecostal and my Ma was Baptist. So in the beginning of their courtship, they agreed to attend each other’s church twice a month.

When they announced their engagement, the entire town was in an uproar. The Baptist people wanted to have the wedding at their church. But the Pentecostal insisted that it take place at their church. This split caused good debates all over town. The parents and grandparents of each family wanted to sponsor the wedding. Each set of grandparents were upstanding founders of the churches. The men had put the church together, hired and fired the preacher, did the repair work, while the women had helped organize the Ladies prayer group, taught Sunday school, and kept the church clean. Both families wanted the wedding at their church. They wouldn’t bend on this, even though they hadn’t asked us what our wishes were.

My Ma said several times that she—almost didn’t marry Pa, because she was so upset about what to do. This engagement should have been her happiest time, but because of the feuding, it made her very disturbed. They were supposed to tell everyone in a week what they were going to do. When my Pa came to town on Saturday night, he found my Ma in a rocking chair, on the front porch, crying. Her tears were steaming down her face and she seemed traumatized. When my Pa walked up on the porch, he leaned down and whispered asking her, Do you know what one strawberry said to the other? My Ma shook her head no, so he said If you weren’t so fresh, we wouldn’t be in this jam. She smiled and he took her in his arms and held her while she told him what had been going on all week and how much pressure she felt from both sides of the family. He told her in an assuring tone that come tomorrow morning he would make things right for everyone involved. The date of the wedding would beset in stone.

As they sat on the front porch late into the night making plans, they came to an agreement. The next morning as the churches gathered on Main Street, both sides were looking for the couple. The church doors always open at the same time. Members of each church gathered inside They began discussing where the couple was. Each church thought the couple went to the opposite church.

After both churches dismissed, and gathered outside, they became aware of the sounds of cowbells. The cowbells were getting louder from the North. All of a sudden there came a team of mules, pulling a hay wagon, with just enough room on the