Freedom Journey

By Larry Craze

The world was a much different place in 1852. Freedom Journey is the story of the escape of one family from the clutches of slavery in the deepest part of the American South, the bayous of Louisiana, to the promise of a new life of liberty in Toronto, Canada. Travel with Cassie and Theo Jefferson, children dependent upon the kindness and care of total strangers, as they are separated from their Mama Bess. Learn with them about God's kindness in the provision of food and shelter. Discover the secrets of the Underground Railroad and the faithfulness of the conductors along the way. Find out how the signals, songs, quilts, and safe houses are used to keep the children safe from danger. Along the way, Cassie and Theo meet friends they will remember for life. They learn the value of work and the importance of obedience. They endeavor to look for messages and begin to understand the meaning of the quilt blocks that lead them in their journey. More importantly, they discover that there is a God who loves them and wants to answer the many prayers that are offered for and by them. In doing so, they find freedom from physical slavery, and through the presentation of the Gospel story, they find a relationship with the God of eternity and find spiritual freedom as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641143448

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Freedom Journey

Larry Craze

Copyright © 2018 Larry Craze

All rights reserved

First Edition

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64114-343-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64114-344-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

In the mid-twentieth century, Mr. and Mrs. W.T. (Jessie) Gossett actively ministered to the youth at Community Baptist Church in Oliver Springs, Tennessee. Together they directed a youth meeting every Monday night, and every quarter they participated in area youth rallies, enjoying fellowship with sister independent fundamental Baptist churches in the area. Each summer, they coordinated Bible camps with these churches and held a two-week Vacation Bible School at our church.

I attended my first youth meeting in 1958 at the invitation of our live-in teenage babysitter, Wilma Jean Rickett. We rode the bus to the meeting and back. Sometimes it was driven by our pastor’s brother, Frank Patterson, and sometimes it was driven by James Fritts. The Monday night youth meeting usually began with a general session including teenagers, juniors, and primaries. After the opening that featured a time of prayer and recitation of memorized Bible verses, Mr. Gossett would direct a Bible drill with two teams of teenagers competing and later a Bible drill for the junior and primary groups. Then the teenagers would break away from the general assembly for a lesson of their own, and the juniors and primaries would remain in the basement auditorium for a flannelgraph story.

Occasionally, Mr. Gossett would tell one of the stories using flannelgraph figures. Three of his stories that I remember in particular are The Boy inside His Clothes (Jesus can change our spiritual condition), The Frogs (don’t postpone salvation), and especially a story called He Took My Whipping. This story was about a boy who stole a lunch at a one-room schoolhouse. Big Jim, who incidentally had the same name as Mr. Gossett’s brother, voluntarily took the whipping for the little boy just as Jesus paid the penalty for my sins.

Mrs. Jessie Gossett mastered the flannel board. She was adept at telling serial mission stories that would leave the listener hanging until the next week’s continuation. She told a five-week story about the daughter of an African witch doctor and how she was saved at a mission school. My favorite story was a ten-week story about a little Chinese boy named Yuji who was saved after hearing the Gospel from a lady missionary. This same missionary married his unsaved older brother. Little Yuji was six years old, and I could relate to his story because it made me aware that I could be saved too.

At a Bible camp at Crossville, Tennessee, in July 1960, Mrs. Gossett gave an invitation at the end of one of her lessons, and I gave my heart and life to Jesus Christ. I remember being under conviction from a message given the night before and being timid about getting out of my seat in the back of the room, but once I stood up, I almost ran down the aisle and was assigned to the personal worker who stood to the far left.

Mack and Ruby Hensley

Victory Baptist Church

Maryville, Tennessee

I was saved at the age of seven and for more than fifty years never knew the name of the lady who led me to the Lord. I only knew that she assisted the ladies from our church and was the wife of the pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Maryville, in the fellowship of churches that included the church I attended, where Ellis Patterson pastored. Milford Ely was pastor of Mount Pisgah Baptist Church. He was noted for his preaching and singing. Ted Raby was pastor of New Fairview Baptist Church. I believe he preached the Wednesday night sermon before I was saved on Thursday morning. The message was based on the text of Jeremiah 8:20, The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

This kind lady, whom I knew for less than ten minutes, knelt with me at a wood-slatted chair for an altar and very lovingly and skillfully led me down the Roman’s Road to understand that I was a sinner and could be saved. Recently, I contacted the current pastor of the Victory Baptist Church. Steve Craft responded that, according to Ken and Wilda, the pastor at that time was Mack Hensley, and his wife’s name was Ruby Towe Hensley, and that if they were still living, it was in Ocala, Florida. (As it turned out, Ken was Ken Cornett who was my teenage counselor in the boys’ barracks that week in 1960 and led the singing for the night meetings. He had busted me for jumping on the bedsprings—Beds are not trampolines, he said—as we set up our cots that Monday morning.)

William Mack Hensley had passed away less than one year before at the age of one hundred and had joined his wife of seventy-six years, who was ninety-six when she died three years earlier. They had no children. I thought how wonderful that I was indeed her spiritual offspring. Though I was never able to thank her here on earth, I will be able to thank her in heaven. I have had the opportunity to thank Edwina Yates who led the singing that morning with Mae Patterson—songs like I Have Decided to Follow Jesus and Wonderful Words of Life. I also had the opportunity to thank Jessie Gossett, our dear primaries leader at Community Baptist Church for her faithfulness in teaching God’s Word through flannelgraph missionary and Gospel stories, along with her faithful husband, W. T. Gossett. This little story, a fictional account, is dedicated to them and faithful people like them everywhere who obey the Lord to evangelize and train children to do the same.

This story is dedicated to the efforts of children’s evangelistic ministries:

Gail Walls—the Bible lady

Terry Copeland—the best deacon I know

Gilbert and Patty Mendez and the junior church workers at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, Oliver Springs, Tennessee

Michael and Beth Whedbee, AWANA Programs, Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, Oliver Springs, Tennessee

Johnny and Shirley Lundy and Thurman and Becky Kinnebrew, Lockdown-on-the-Outside Ministries, Knoxville, Tennessee

Tim and Sarah Tinkel, Good News Ministries, Livingston, Tennessee (in memory of Carolyn Adcox)

In appreciation to faithful teachers and pastors

Beautiful, loving wife, Mary Craze

Ardell and Lonnie Craze

W. T. and Jessie Gossett

Ruby Towe Hensley

Edwina Yates

Gertrude Gardner

Nora Cook

Louise McGhee

Betty McGhee

LeRoy and Hazel Craze

L.N. Brown, Jr.

James Cornett

Chester Brooks

Walter Joe Barry

C. S. Harvey, Jr.

Robert and Ursula Conner

Dr. Vivian Curtis Marshall

Pastor Ellis Patterson

Pastor Charles (Buck) and Launa Tiller

Pastor Bill Parton

Pastor Roy Jones

Pastor Robert H. Combs, Jr.

Pastor Garvan Walls

In grateful acknowledgment to Eleanor Burns and Sue Bouchard who created the inspiration quilt (as illustrated in Underground Railroad Sampler)

Foreword

This comforter is a Soul Winner’s quilt that has been pieced from actual reproductions of Civil War era fabric. It is a sampler that incorporates many classic block patterns. Many, but not all, of these blocks can be authenticated from the time that the Underground Railroad was in operation. Many historians refute that these particular blocks or code were used along the Underground Railroad, but there are anecdotal tales associated with the use of quilts, lanterns, and songs as signals for safe houses along the routes.

It is believed that more than one hundred thousand slaves escaped their captors before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Some of them were entirely on their own, but many used the services of a loosely knit, highly organized group of sympathizers. There is little historical documentation concerning how they moved and communicated. Written evidence is scant, but there are at least three factors that support the use of unique ways to communicate and travel on the Underground Railroad—the desire of the human heart for freedom, the innovation of determined sympathizers, and the ingenuity and providence of the Almighty God.

Were quilts actually used? As an observer of The Common Experience for more than sixty years, my own opinion is that if a thing could have happened, it most probably did happen. As surely as Rahab advertised the location of her family by suspending a scarlet line over the wall of Jericho, conductors gave signals for safe houses. As certainly as a kind woman hid the priestly spies of David in a well, merciful defenders protected runaways in cellars, homes, and outbuildings. As resourceful as the friends of Paul, who lowered him in a basket over the wall of Damascus, were the wise and wary railroad engineers who assisted refugees in their flight.

The first four rows of blocks of the Soul Winner’s quilt are classic blocks made from simple geometric shapes (squares, circles, rectangles, and diamonds) and are traditional patterns. The fifth row is placed strategically to tell the Gospel story. Two of the blocks in the last row, Broken Chains and Streets of Gold and Gates of Pearl, are unique to this quilt and designed especially for it. A third block, Manger, Cross, and Crown, has been modified to include colors representing hay in the manger. Otherwise, the block is known traditionally as Cross and Crown.

A key to the quilt blocks follows, explaining the significance and meaning associated with each one, along with a fictional story using the quilt to find freedom for two young children, Cassie and Theo Jefferson, who escape to Canada on the Underground Railroad.

If the reader is interested in presenting this story as an evangelistic tool in a youth group or Bible club, contact the author for an instructor’s guide at [e-mail].

Chapter 1

A Path to Freedom

No one seemed to know just where Uncle Tobe, the black preacher man, came from originally. Some said that he had sold himself into slavery. Others said that he had been a free man in the North and was kidnapped and sold as a slave in the South. Still others insisted that he was born a slave and was secretly educated by a kind mistress. Regardless, he was a powerful Bible preacher and held late-night meetings at a clearing in the swampy land behind the slave quarters, hidden away on the vast sugarcane plantation. Uncle Tobe was married to Aunt Sookie, a thin, small, dark-skinned woman with high Indian cheekbones. Aunt Sookie was the laundress on the plantation, and Uncle Tobe, a short, muscular man, toiled in the sugarcane fields.

Thibodaux, Louisiana, was prime plantation country, just about as far south in the bayous of the Mississippi River as you can sail, steam, or paddle. The wide river washed rich soil to form deltas there, making it perfect for growing sugarcane, but the low-lying lands were swampy and bred mosquitoes. In March 1852, the air was still damp and chilly at night, so the slave congregations at his meetings often sat on fallen logs and huddled around a fire to hear Uncle Tobe preach. Some men stood to hold torches for light, and others stood guard to watch for the slave bosses who objected to any sign that the slaves might be meeting together in secret.

Aunt Sookie’s friend, Bess, was the plantation cook. Bess often stole away at night to hear Uncle Tobe’s preaching, and she brought her two children with her. Casseopeia Jefferson was eight years old. Her mother called her Cassie. Cassie’s six-year old brother, Theophilus, had a grand Bible name, but his mother called him Theo. Their father had been sold to a cotton plantation owner in Mississippi, and they had not seen him for three years. The children enjoyed the sweet low moaning of the spirituals that they sang at the meetings. The spirituals almost put them to sleep, but the cadence of Uncle Tobe’s preaching jolted them awake.

With his dark face glistening in the light of the torches, Uncle Tobe preached heaven so real that the slaves could almost hear the heavenly choir. He preached hell so hot that they could feel the flames as fear of God’s judgment gripped their hearts. He preached Jesus so sweet that men and women came running to meet him as their savior. Often he offered them hope from the drudgery of their daily lives by telling them about Moses and how that God delivered the children of Israel from their bondage in Egypt.

One night, Mama Bess could resist the heavenly call no longer. While Uncle Tobe was still preaching, she began to sob as her children looked on bewildered, not understanding what was happening. Mama Bess grabbed Aunt Sookie’s hand. I want to confess I am a no-good sinner, she cried. I want Jesus to forgive me of my sins and to save me. She and Aunt Sookie prayed, and Mama Bess received Jesus as her savior. Whenever she had an opportunity, Aunt Sookie would explain more about serving the Lord, and Mama Bess tried to please Him every day.

Since Theo was not old enough yet to be forced to work in the fields, he divided his time between helping his mother in the outdoor kitchen and following Uncle Tobe around in the fields. Uncle Tobe taught him to use a caning knife to cut chutes for planting cane, and he showed him how to put it safely away in its leather sheath. Sometimes he was a playmate for Mr. Jefferson’s great nephew, Timothy, when he visited from Baton Rouge, and he was entrusted with Timothy’s care. Theo took special care to make sure no harm came to him on the plantation. Free to roam as he pleased, Theo knew every building on the property inside and out. Older boys, when they became old enough to work the fields, were given a pair of pants to wear, but as a six-year-old boy, Theo often wore a shift, something resembling a pillowcase with armholes or