Box T: God's Ranch

By Nita Brainard

Florence and Lewellyn Tewksbury built a successful Angus ranch on the prairies of North Dakota. They then turned Box T Ranch into a unique Bible and saddle camp. Over a period of more than 40 years, boys and girls from many states came to Box T Ranch for two weeks of hard work, horseback riding, and gospel preaching. The campers were invited in to the Tewksbury home and made a part of the family during the two week camp. The love of Christ Jesus was showered on them, and they were brought face to face with the claims of Christ in the midst of the high-energy camp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nita Brainard
• Release date: Jan 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215735619

Nita Brainard

I'm a grandma. Displaced in the middle of North Dakota with children and grandchildren far away, I cried out to God for something to do. Writing and publishing books is one of the things my hands have found to do. Supporting my husband, Lee W. Brainard, to do the same is another.

Book preview

Box T

and the Choices That Made It

God’s Ranch

Nita Brainard

Harvey, North Dakota© 2016

Cover Credit: Trail Ride, Brad Widman

Author’s Scripture quotations are from the King James Version unless otherwise indicated.

Scriptures included in quotations from Lewellyn and Florence Tewksbury are often from memory. Those marked NKJV correspond to The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgement

1. Heritage

2. Growing Up in North Dakota

3. Choosing Christ 1952

4. Choosing Florence

5. Choosing the Ranch

6. Florence’s Choices

7. Choosing Fellowship 1965

8. Choosing the Camp 1969

9. The Angus Herd

10. Choosing Preachers

11. Conversion Stories

12. Christian Growth

13. Lewellyn and Florence

14. God’s Camp

15. Shopping with Florence

16. The Blizzard of ’97

17. Choosing to Sell the Ranch 2008

Bibliography

Other Book by Nita Brainard

Foreword

By Lewellyn Tewksbury

Most of the real spiritual work that was accomplished at camp was done by the Bible teacher and especially the counselors. Choosing counselors who know the gospel of salvation and have their feet set firmly on the solid rock of Christ is critical to helping young people choose Christ as their Savior.

For those of you who may read this book and are not sure of your salvation, believe the simple gospel!! You are a sinner separated from God! Yet God still loves you and wants you to be with Him forever! God provided His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the blood sacrifice for your sin. He wants you to repent, turn from your sin and choose Christ for your righteousness. You need to trust Him and believe this. No one can come to Him without faith. If you truly believe, God gives you eternal life, His Holy Spirit and all the blessings of being in His family.

How about you? Are you ready to step out and start a work for the Lord? Florence and I had no idea that we would be running a camp for 40 years when we started.

Happy reading,

Lewellyn

Acknowledgement

The success of Box T is not due merely to one man or even to one couple. Yes, the choices that Florence and Lewellyn made formed the basis on which Box T was built and provided a framework that God blessed. Those choices were and are an example to the Lord’s people. Yet, many others contributed to the camp and to its success in drawing young people to Christ. In a book such as this it is not possible to name everyone who had a hand in making Box T what it was, much less to fully credit them for their work. Most of them offered their services as unto the Lord in the same spirit that Florence and Lewellyn did. Their work will not be forgotten or go unrewarded by the One for whom they labored.

Instead of listing all those who assisted to make Box T a successful camp, I have merely provided a smattering of testimonies, stories, and examples that will give the reader a taste of the spirit of the place and of those who worked there. My heartfelt thanks to all of you who gave me your testimonies and allowed me to publish them. May they be found to honor the Lord Jesus and to encourage others, whether Box T campers or not, to follow Christ.

Nita Brainard

May 13, 2016

1

Heritage

The T in Box T is for Tewksbury, as in Lewellyn Tewksbury, North Dakota Rancher. The name can be traced at least as far back as the Reformation. Fox’s Book of Martyrs tells about Jo2hn Tewkesbury, an English leather merchant who probably bound loose copies of Tyndale’s Bibles and helped to distribute them across England. In any case, he was caught in possession of one and brought before the bishop of London. He boldly advocated the biblical doctrine of justification by faith. The bishop and his learned men were ashamed that a leather-seller should dispute with them with such power of the scriptures and heavenly wisdom, that they were not able to resist him.* When the bishop exhorted him to recant his errors, John answered, I pray you reform yourself, and if there be any error in the book, let it be reformed; I think it is good enough. Nonetheless, John did recant for a season. When he repented of his recantation, he was imprisoned and then burned at the stake in the year 1531.

The first Tewksburys to live on American soil settled in Massachusetts in 1640. In the early 1800’s, Jacob Tewksbury, born in Vermont, moved to northeast Pennsylvania. He was the third white man to settle there, and his home soon became the stopping place for the Methodist preachers who were never far behind the settlers of the frontier. Jacob’s daughter told about her grandfather and aunt hearing Christopher Frye preach in her father’s kitchen. The message of the gospel made a deep impression on them, and they turned from their sins.

Jacob’s grandson, Samuel Tewksbury Jr., was born in 1843 in South Auburn, Pennsylvania. Despite his godly heritage, he never became involved in spiritual things. He was a farmer with the pioneering spirit of his forefathers. In 1878 he joined an immigrant train and left Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, in a prairie schooner, traveling to Nebraska. His son, Mark (Lewellyn’s grandfather), was then ten years old. Four years later Samuel’s wife died. He had ten children including a baby, and he didn’t know what else to do but to divide them out among the neighbors. Mark became a hired hand at fourteen years old. His father later remarried and brought the younger children home.

Mark

Though he was naturally highly skilled, Mark’s formal education ended when he left Pennsylvania where he had finished the fourth grade. In Nebraska he became active in community social events, many of which revolved around church activities. He had a deep bass voice with a wide range. He loved to sing, so although he did not have a personal acquaintance with Christ, he sang in many of the various churches of the area.

Mark was a young married man when some Christians came to town for gospel meetings. At first they used one of the local churches, but after a few meetings, the traveling preachers were asked to leave. Convinced of the call of God, the preachers came back with a tent. Mark and his wife, Sadie, went out to hear the tent preaching. Mark was offended at the preaching because it declared that his works were of no value. He went up to the preacher and insisted that his works did indeed count towards salvation. Brother Burge told him, Go home and find salvation by works in your Bible, and I will preach that tomorrow night. Mark and Sadie stayed up until 2:00 am searching the Bible, but they didn’t find anything to support the view that works could save. The next night Mark told the preacher he couldn’t find it. Burge preached more powerfully than ever on salvation by faith in Christ, and Mark and his wife were both converted.

Mark was elated over the knowledge of his sins forgiven and his acceptance on the basis of faith. Being an eloquent and bold man, he went up and down the neighborhood inviting people to the meetings. Unfortunately, he also became offended with the churches because he hadn’t learned the gospel in them. Throughout his life, though he fellowshipped anywhere that he felt the Word of God was faithfully preached, he never would join a church.

Shortly after her conversion, Mark’s wife died in childbirth. His little son also passed away, and he was left alone—but not for long.

Margie

Margie Atwood had been saved at the same gospel meetings where Mark had understood the glories of faith in Christ. Margie’s childhood had been fret with instability. The many names she bore during her young life reflected the upheaval she had endured. She was Jennie Vesta Thomas by birth, Margie Vesta Mitchell by adoption, and Margie Atwood by association before she finally became Margie Vesta Tewksbury by marriage. When she was only eight years old her birth mother had died, and she was adopted into a Seventh Day Adventist family. When her adoptive mother also died, she lived with her adoptive Uncle Atwood. With this uncle, she traveled out to Nebraska on an immigrant train. Her brothers and sisters went with different families and were scattered to seven different states. They kept in contact through letters. On Aug. 14, 1894, Margie wrote in her journal: When the girls are all here together, I always feel like getting away by myself and having a good cry. Guess ’tis because I would like so well to see my sisters and brothers.

Margie received plenty of attention from the male population. Her diary records going to various church and community events with more than one suitor. One of them surprised her in December of 1893 by avowing his love for her and asking her to marry him. She didn’t answer right away, but she continued to spend time with him. In April she went with him to the gospel meetings where she was converted. In July she told him no. This was a hard choice for her to make, as she knew it wounded him deeply; but she also knew that though he went often to church, he did not have the spirituality she wanted in a husband. The break-up was such a blow to him that he returned to Iowa and never came back. She wrote in her diary July 11, Walter has gone to Iowa. Gone to stay, and I’m lonely, yet I caused him to go. And he is nearly heart broken.

Mark and Margie

In August Mark Tewksbury went to visit Margie’s family to ask her aging uncle if he could rent some farmland the following year. Two weeks later, as recorded in Margie’s diary, he and his sister came again. Sometime afterward Mark and Margie were both at a church social. Mark liked to help in the kitchen, and he was at the event early. At first opportunity he asked Margie if he could accompany her home after the social. While they were working in the kitchen, five other men came in one at a time and asked her the same question, but to each of them she said that she had already accepted an invitation. Mark and Margie were married in February, 1896. Mark liked to brag, There were three girls that were most wanted by the young men of the Ashland area. I married two of them.

Commenting on his grandmother’s decisions at this time in her life, Lewellyn writes:

Grandma made three great decisions within a six month period that affected her whole life. First, and most importantly, she chose Jesus Christ as her Savior and Lord. Second, she rejected the marriage proposal of Walter Taylor who was a man of means, a decision she took months to answer. And third, she accepted the courtship of Mark Tewksbury who was a poor man, but on fire for his new Savior, Jesus Christ. Choose wisely with good counsel and your whole life will be affected by it. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. Prov. 3:5–6, nkjv.

For a time Mark was a butcher as well as a farmer. He had a unique way of getting beef to his shop. He had a donkey who knew his master’s feeding place. Mark would take the donkey with him to buy beef. He would then halter the beef, even if it had never been trained to lead. He would tie it to the donkey and turn them loose. The donkey was stubborn and would only go one direction—toward his own stall. It may take a day or more for the donkey to get home with the beef attached, but eventually they would both arrive at the home barn with the beef coming along submissively.

Mark built a sod house in the sand hills of Nebraska near Chambers. When rats invaded the dirt walls, Mark would catch a garter snake and put it in a rat hole. The rats would leave, but of course they came back again, so the project had to be repeated over and over.

On the sand hills, Mark and Margie had a flock of sheep which needed to be guarded from coyotes. Mark had a pair of greyhounds that would work as a team. The female was smaller and much faster, but not able to kill a coyote. When Mark saw a coyote, he would lift her up and point her at it. When she saw it, she would jump out of his arms and go after it. When she caught up with the coyote, she would grab its tail and give it a flip. She may have to do this again before the slower male arrived. When he got there, she would grab the tail of the coyote, and the male would go for the throat and kill it.

Warren Tewksbury and four sisters were born in the sod house before Mark and Margie moved to North Dakota. When it was time for Margie to give birth, Mark would make the run to O’Neil for the doctor. Many people in the area used midwives, but having lost his first wife in childbirth, Mark was determined to have a doctor attend the births. He ran his horses as fast as he dared for the 20 miles to town, and they were exhausted when he got there. He insisted that the doctor then also run his horses out to the farm. Mark had to return home slowly with his weary horses, so he sometimes missed the birth, but he knew his wife and babies got the best help he could provide them.

North Dakota

In 1905 Mark considered homesteading in North Dakota. The railroad offered a special provision for those who emigrated. He filled a box car with his farming machinery, household goods, two teams of horses, milk cows, sheep, feed for the trip, and whatever else he could get in. The family rode in a passenger car. They arrived at Conway, ND in March. With a family to house and care for, including two-year old Warren and a baby, Mark decided not to homestead. Instead he rented a farm seven miles from Conway. It took him two weeks to haul his belongings from the railroad to the farm.

Back in the cattle country of the sand hills, Mark had noticed a new hay stacker being used. He decided to make one like it that was easy to move and required only one horse to pull the cable that brought the hay up to the top of the stack. When he came to North Dakota he built another one, and all the neighbors wanted one too. He made many of them without using any plans. All the measurements were kept in his head. When his grandson Lewellyn later moved onto a ranch, Mark came up from California and built him a hay stacker. Mark was then 86 years old and helped with the haying all summer.

Poverty is the mother of invention, and Mark was always inventive as well as skillful. When he decided his wife had too much work to do, he designed a merry-go-round with a tumbling rod that was hooked to her washing machine in the house. A donkey pulled the merry-go-round. As the donkey went round and round, the tumbling rod turned and ran the washing machine. Today we would call it a power take off shaft (PTO). Margie could holler out to the kids, and they would start up the donkey. It was a win-win for all. Mom had a donkey-powered washing machine, the kids could ride on the merry-go-round, and the donkey did the work.

Mark was also shrewd, and he once outwitted some traveling Gypsies who offered him a big, beautiful horse in exchange for one of his older