Circle Rainbows

By Mary Lee Powell-Pickard

Circle Rainbows is but one of the many God stories included in these personal memoirs. The stories reveal Gods presence as He has provided his guidance, protection, and provision throughout the life of the author. This book tells what it was like growing up in the hills of West Virginia, living on a small farm with no electricity, no motorized farm equipment, and no water. The farm horse pulled the plow, and water came from a spring over the hill. Entertainment on the farm was listening to a battery-operated radio or listening to their mother read aloud to the family by the light of an oil lamp.

The book reveals the value of experiential learning and shows that with Gods help, one can grow to overcome poverty, become educated, and go on to make a difference in the lives of many people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490862521

Mary Lee Powell-Pickard

Mary Lee grew up on a small West Virginia farm during the poverty-stricken years of the Great Depression. She was secure in the love of God and her large Kessinger family. She was propelled by an intense love of learning and became an award winning educator during the thirty years she taught in Osceola County, Florida. In her retirement years, she established Creekstone, a retreat center nestled in the hills of her beloved West Virginia. She is now a “snowbird” who spends her winters in Florida and her summers in the beautiful hills of Wirt County, West Virginia.

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Copyright © 2014 Mary Lee Powell-Pickard.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scriptures are from the Spirit-Filled Life Bible, New King James Version.1991 Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-6251-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6253-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6252-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922057

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/20/2015

Contents

About the Cover

Foreword

Rainbows

A Rainbow Story

A Traumatic and Miraculous Beginning

Pliny

Back to the City

College Dream

New Haven, First Job, Husband, and Family

Broad Run

Florida, 1970

Wirt County

On the Road Again

2011

2012

2013

2014

Note

About the Cover

The watercolor of the plane and the circle rainbow was painted by my niece Anna when she was ten years old. Anna was my sister Jerry’s art student, and when she heard my rainbow story, she was inspired to create this beautiful watercolor. Anna gave me the painting for my birthday on January 12, 2000.

Foreword

I began this book as memoirs to be passed on to my sons and grandsons. I thought that it might be helpful for future family genealogy studies.

As I wrote the stories of my life, I began to realize that this book was not all about me, but all about God. In all the moments of my life, I know that God has been right there beside me protecting me and providing for my every need.

This book reveals God’s detailed interest in each of us and shows that He has a perfect plan for our lives.

There are no coincidences with God.

Rainbows

I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.

—Genesis 9:13

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night, shall not cease.

—Genesis 8:22

Look upon the rainbow and praise Him that made it; very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. It encompasses the heaven about with a glorious circle and the hand of the Most High hath bended it.

—Apocrypha,

Ben Sira 43:11–12 (NRSA)

A Rainbow Story

Rainbows have always been symbols of hope and promise from God. But my thoughts were not of rainbows as I sat on a plane at the Orlando International Airport, waiting to fly to Charleston, West Virginia. With a heavy heart and some apprehension, I stared out the plane’s window as a light rain fell.

The heaviness of my heart could be attributed to the death of my husband three years earlier. John and I had a marriage that lasted thirty-nine years. I was cherished by my husband. He was the father of my children, and I loved him. He died so suddenly that it left me devastated and empty. Now I was flying alone to West Virginia, where John’s brother, Bill, lay dying. Their eighty-eight-year-old mother was losing her second son, the last of her children. My heart ached for her as I dealt with my own lingering loneliness and grief.

I was apprehensive about traveling alone for the first time since becoming a widow, about changing planes in Charlotte and flying into Charleston on a small commuter plane. I knew about that small Charleston airport. The top had been cut off a mountain to build it, and you seemed to be flying into treetops when you landed.

Please, God, give me Your perfect peace for this trip and for my life. Take away this loneliness, I prayed silently. Second Timothy 1:7 kept running through my mind: For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Suddenly, the sun broke through the clouds, and a perfect rainbow formed. Then a second formed above it. A double rainbow, a double blessing! God’s peace flooded into my spirit.

The plane taxied and turned until I could no longer see the rainbows. Then, as the plane took off and broke through the clouds, I glanced out the window again and beheld a wondrous sight. The double rainbow had formed a perfect circle, and our plane was flying through it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! I looked around to see if anyone had noticed my audible cry of delight. The passengers around me sat with their headphones and magazines, unaware of the phenomenon taking place outside the window. Had God provided this awesome wonder just for me? For the remainder of the trip, I basked in God’s love and security, enjoying His presence and knowing how much He cares for each of us.

On arriving in Charlotte, I found my way to the Comair terminal. It was dark and raining outside as seas of Thanksgiving travelers waited to board many small commuter planes. There were no empty seats in the waiting area. I stood for a while, leaning against a concrete pillar.

Finally, I spotted a chair beside a striking blonde woman. As I sat beside her, she asked if I was going to Charleston. She was from California and was going home to be with her sister for Thanksgiving. She told me that as a child growing up in the West Virginia hills, she suffered from poverty and insecurity. Her parents divorced, and while she was growing up in a single parent home she shared the little the family had with a multitude of siblings. Since leaving West Virginia, she had married a very rich man who met her every material need. She revealed she was recently widowed and so lonely and frightened. She had loved her husband very much, and his death left a big hole in her life.

I shared the rainbow story and how God had used that awesome sight to reassure me of His abiding love and presence. As we boarded the plane, we asked to trade seats with a young man, so we could sit together and continue our conversation. Before we knew it, we had successfully landed at that tiny mountaintop airport in Charleston.

The most amazing part of this encounter was that our sisters were waiting together at the terminal. Even more amazing was that they knew each other. Was this a mere coincidence? I don’t think so. Truly, our Lord orchestrated this rainbow story. We all laughed, hugged, and promised to meet again.

While in West Virginia, I shared the story with my family. My dying brother-in-law, Bill, listened to the story and found a new peace. I asked my sisters if they thought God put the rainbows there to reassure me of His love. My sisters told me I should ask a pilot if rainbows make circles when viewed from the air. A pilot would know if this were true. I had never met a pilot.

My rainbow story did not end there in West Virginia. Back in Florida two weeks later (December 10, 1999), as I was greeting folks at my church on Sunday morning, I directed a very handsome and distinguished gentleman to our Christmas cantata. After church, we chatted and discovered his son and my son lived five miles south of our town on the same graveled road. Coincidence? There are no coincidences with God.

This distinguished gentleman shared that he was a widower and asked me to lunch. I asked his occupation, and yes, he was a retired airline pilot. Of course my next question was, Do rainbows become complete circles when you are airborne? My new friend assured me they do. I am also assured I serve a living God, who loves me enough to take away the fear and loneliness and to give me circle rainbows and airline pilots when I need them most.

The former airline pilot who entered my life was a kind and gentle man of integrity. I am convinced he was a special gift from God. He filled my life with a new joy. That airline captain was Charles Pickard, who became my husband on September 7, 2001.

I believe the Lord orchestrated this rainbow story just as He has directed my entire life.

A Traumatic and Miraculous Beginning

At the time of my birth, my parents lived on Baker’s Fork of Elk Two Mile on the outskirts of Charleston, West Virginia, not far from the airport. If my parents could have afforded a birth announcement, it might have read as follows:

Calvert and Mary Clay Kessinger announce the birth of a daughter:

My entry into this world was traumatic. Because of size, I was caught in the birth canal and had to be delivered by forceps. As a result, the nerves in my right shoulder and neck were severed. Seven years before my birth, my sister Virginia (Jenny) was born with a broken arm, and three years before my birth, Mom delivered a baby girl who was stillborn. Because of these birth injuries to her babies, my mother changed doctors, addressed her diet issues, and delivered three more babies without incident.

As a result of my forceps delivery, my right arm was totally paralyzed. Doctors told my parents it would never grow and would probably need to be amputated. But when I was about six months old, an unusual event occurred.

A lady who lived up the road from my family walked up and down the road, muttering to herself. Everyone thought she was a little strange. One day she stopped and asked my mother if she could rock me in the rocking chair on our front porch. Mom agreed. Later that day, my fingers moved for the first time. As it turned out, the lady was not muttering to herself but was praying for my healing. One of the two nerves that had been severed in my right arm was miraculously healed. Without that healing, my arm would not have grown and may have been amputated. Praise God! He knew me at my birth and before.

I was born during the Great Depression. Mom and Dad were able to feed their family by having a milk cow, planting a garden, and raising pigs and chickens. Dad worked part time at the brickyard. He had a friend who owned a bakery near the brickyard, who gave him doughnuts to give to unemployed people who needed food. Dad was also able to bring home stale doughnuts to feed the pigs.

Dad was an extremely talented brick mason. He was able to get unused bricks and tile from the brickyard to remodel our house and build another one across the road from ours. As our nation recovered from the deep Depression, Dad was able to sell those two houses and buy a farm in Mason County. The brickyard was damaging to Dad’s lungs. He needed fresh, clean air, so Dad became a real farmer.

At this time my family was made up of my parents, three older siblings—Jerry, Bernard, and Jenny—and a younger sister, Joanna. Another sister and a brother were added as years went by.

The names and nicknames of my siblings:

Geraldine (Jerry), Bernard (Bernie), Virginia (Jenny), I was in the middle: Mary Lee (Lee), Joanna (Jo), Bonnie (B. J.), Calvert Daniel (Danny).

Another girl, Rosemarian, was born before Jerry. She died in Daddy’s arms in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Dad had walked several miles in a snowstorm with her to the doctor’s office, but it was too late. She was a tiny baby when she died, probably of dehydration after having fever and diarrhea. Mom never talked a great deal about the cause of Rosemarian’s death, but after this loss, Dad became a different man.

A story was told about Dad going to a meeting at the church one night, throwing open the doors, running to the altar, and falling on his face before the Lord. He no longer stayed out late at night, drinking and partying. Our father had become a man of God. Our mother was his sweetheart. Our parents sometimes held hands under the table at suppertime. Dad treasured each of his children and was truly a family man.

When I was three, Mom and Jerry took me to WCHS, a Charleston radio station, where I sang You Are My Sunshine on the radio. I was given a tiny gold WCHS pin. I think my hair was curled with rags the night before, And I wore a red corduroy suit and a white blouse. I really didn’t look very happy about getting my picture taken. Years later, I wore the pin without permission and lost it in the snow while walking to my one-room country school.

2LeeatThree.jpg

Lee at Three

When I was four years old and Joanna was nine months, our parents moved the family to a farm in Mason County. This may have been the fulfillment of our parents’ dream to live in the country.

Pliny

A cold March wind whipped around my mom, brother, sisters, and me as we began the walk from the fork in the dirt road out to our new home on Mount Union Ridge at Pliny in Mason County, West Virginia. A spring thaw had made the dirt road impassable for the big flatbed truck that transported our family from our home in Charleston.

My brother Bernard carried me, while my mother carried nine-month-old Joanna. We passed fields not yet tilled for the spring planting and a small farm, later identified as the Burke place. This walk through the mud was imprinted in my three-year-old mind as one of my earliest memories. I remember Bernard putting my well-bundled body down on the road to rest his tired arms. My feet sank into the red clay. When he picked me up again, my boots remained in the mud.

I don’t remember Dad being with us on this walk. He must have gone back to Charleston to pack up the old house and wait for a freeze, when the road could be traveled.

Our sister