For Love of Elvira: A Fall from Grace

By Bill Owen

At a time when there is very little entertainment except for an occasional barn dance or a shopping trip to Pontotoc or Toccopola, the Baptist Church is the big show, and the Reverend James Robert Williams is the star. After a successful spring revival in 1914 in which sixty-four souls are brought into the fold, the handsome silver-tongued preacher falls from grace into the open arms of the lovely Elvira.
The preacher finds himself faced with two choices: duty, honor, and respectability on the one hand, and on the other, Simon-pure love blended and harmonized with the steamy passion of carnal lust.
The constable, Little Joe, who pursues the couple, was actually the author's grandfather.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481709507

Bill Owen

The author was born and raised during the Great Depression in rural Pontotoc County, Mississippi, and was lucky to have been surrounded by family storytellers of the Celtic tradition, those spinners of tall tales and keepers of oral family history. This is the author’s first attempt at putting one of those stories in the written form.

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© 2013 by Bill Owen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/21/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0951-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0950-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013901157

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Beginning of the Modern Era

Chapter 2. The Ole Country Store

Chapter 3. Little Joe

Chapter 4. The Revival

Chapter 5. Legerdemain (An Artful Trick)

Chapter 6. The Baptist Convention

Chapter 7. Unto You a Child Is Born

Chapter 8. The New Buggy

Chapter 9. The Elopement

Chapter 10. The Trial

Chapter 11. Prison Life

Chapter 1

Beginning of the Modern Era

New Year’s Day in 1914 fell on a Thursday. Out near Toccopola, Mississippi, the Reverend James Robert Williams was working on his Sunday sermon. He sat in a split white oak bottom rocker by the roaring fire and stared out one of the north windows flanking the open brick fireplace. A light snow covered the grass and stuck in the forks of hardwood trees now devoid of their foliage.

With the Bible in his lap open to the book of Job, his mind began to drift back some five years. Back to New Year’s Day 1909, for that was the day his wife, Rose Marie, slipped through the bonds of her earthly tabernacle and winged her way to heaven. She had come down with pneumonia on Christmas Day, a Friday, and died a week later on New Year’s Day. He often thought of her as his soul mate. She was his helpmeet, his childhood sweetheart, and the mother of his two young children, and he loved her deeply. He took her death hard. He thought of himself back in 1909 as if he was Job. Why did God take her from me? he thought. After all, she was a good person. Why her?

He recalled that the women of the church prepared and brought food to the house, providing nourishment for the preacher and his kids for a few days. Then the realization of what her contribution had been to the family hit him like a ton of bricks. Jim Bob (as he was often called) then became both father and mother. He was muddling through but barely getting by. That old adage, Man’s work is from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done, applied in full measure to the Rev. Williams. He had sunk into a deep funk. What was needed was some domestic help, and he needed it soon!

So the reverend asked a member of his congregation, the eighteen-year-old Miss Ida Lee Turner, if she would be his housekeeper and the children’s nanny. He had already witnessed her dealings with his kids. She got along well with them. Ida Lee, standing about five foot four, was a plain country girl with a sweet disposition. A hard worker, she had been raised in a household that believed that cleanliness was next to godliness.

He offered her $3.50 per week plus room and board. Ida Lee agreed, but in truth she would have worked for nothing. She had a crush on the preacher. After all, the Reverend Williams was a handsome man in his middle twenties. At a time when there was very little entertainment except for an occasional barn dance and a shopping trip to Pontotoc or Toccopola, the church was the big show, and the reverend was the star. He was fairly well educated and knew his Bible well. He could quote chapter and verse from Genesis to Revelation. He was a good orator. His sermons were laced with scripture. His debates were compelling.

So Ida Lee moved into the reverend’s home. This was a country house of the dog-trot style that faced the rising sun. Jim Bob’s room was in the front, on the north side of the dog trot open hallway. This room served as a parlor as well as his office and bedroom. To the west of the front room were the dining room and beyond it the kitchen. Across the dog trot were two bedrooms. The one on the front would serve as Ida Lee’s room. The kids slept in the southwest room. Brick fireplaces provided heat for each bedroom, while the wood-fired kitchen cookstove served the dual purpose of cooking and heat for the kitchen and dining room, making the two rooms cozy on cold and inclement days. There was a porch across the front and the dog trot extended as an open porch along the south wall of the dining room and kitchen. The ceilings were twelve feet high. The house was an unpainted board-and-batten structure with a tin roof. The combination of tall ceilings and porches served to make the hot Mississippi summers bearable. Water was drawn from a hand-dug well located just off the kitchen porch.

Jim Bob recalled that when Ida Lee arrived, she got right to work bringing order to the chaos that had briefly existed in the preacher’s household. At first, the communication between Ida Lee and Jim Bob was polite, gentle, somber, and cordial. However, as Ida Lee went about her work scurrying around the house, it stirred up carnal feelings in the reverend. The conversations shifted to flirtatious exchanges and double entendres. They began to laugh together.

Then one night Jim Bob crossed the dog trot and rapped softly on Ida Lee’s door. To his amazement and surprise Ida Lee invited him in with open arms. They fell into a warm and passionate embrace. Thus began a series of nocturnal journeys across the dog trot. The reverend had fallen into the tender trap.

(Be not deceived, what man conceives in darkness will be brought to the light.)

So it was that one day Ida Lee came crying to James Robert and said those three little words that can make a man’s blood run cold: I am late!

Followed soon by those other four words, I’ve missed my period. Jim Bob knew from observing Ida Lee’s morning sickness that she must be pregnant. To avoid embarrassment for Ida Lee and also himself, he proposed marriage with a question: Would you like to get married?

To which she replied with a sniffle, I sure would!

Down to the church they went, stood there in front of the altar and made their