Staying on the Nice Side of God: A Childhood Memoir

By Voncille Henry and Donn Poll

In this New Edition with additional stories, Vonnie aged 10, a shining little star is growing up on the dusty edge of West Texas. These compelling stories give a true and tender account of a child's constant fear generated by Preacher Higgins and his fiery sermons of Hell. Although resilient, this scrappy 10 year old, faces difficult odds balanc

• Language: English
• Publisher: A3D Impressions
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989081745

Book preview

Tucson Writers with stories to tell

"Ten years old can be a great age: it’s near the top of being a kid, but not yet hormoned into adolescent drama; the 10-year-old’s aware of the world, and imagining her opportunities in it. As this fascinating memoir by retired clinical social worker Voncille Henry, it can also be an age subject to coercion and control.

In an unusual – and effective – stylistic strategy, Henry presents her memoir as diary entries of her 1950s 10-year-old self, living in Hobbs, New Mexico. Young Vonnie was curious, feisty and musically talented, but also in thrall to the teachings of her fundamentalist Pentecostal church. She was so in thrall, and so afraid of Hell and The Eternal Lake of Fire, in fact, that she kept a special Notebook of Sins to record anything that might qualify her for it. She had been saved at age five, but she worries that it didn’t take.

Henry’s 10-year-old self is astute and observing: She depicts Hobbs as stinking and barren. She recreates a thundering, sweating, chastising Preacher Brother Higgins as lively theater, and her close, loving family as forgiving refuge. When her garage-owning father brings home a $50 piano, Vonnie recognizes her salvation: if she can learn to play hymns like the beautiful Janie Larue (who always arranges her skirts just so, as she takes her place at the church piano), she, Vonnie, can also remain ‘on the nice side of God’ ."

- Christine Wald-Hopkins

Arizona Daily Star

This writer has a poet’s gift

for language, a playwright’s sense of drama and a stand-up comic’s talent for timing. Upon reaching the last page, I found myself turning to the beginning and starting again, not wanting the book to end.

In her memoir, Staying on the Nice Side of God, Voncille Henry takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often comical journey of growing up in an ultra-conservative religious community in rural New Mexico in the 1950s. The memoir is told through a first-person narrative of 10-year-old Vonnie, who has recurring fears of literally going to hell if I sin once. Ultimately, she finds escape (and salvation) through the piano.

In this format, Ms. Henry is free to observe the girl she once was without the interpretive intrusions that come with age; she can remain true to what she felt then, rather than what she knows now. Her recollections are stark, intimate, and heartwarming. But perhaps most remarkable is the generosity of spirit with which she writes about her relationships with those individuals who impact her life and influence the remarkable and talented woman she became.

- Victoria Johnson, M.A.

Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor

First Born ® Founder

A Warm-Hearted and Healing Read

I loved this book for many reasons. First, it was both moving and delightful to read a book that captures the energy, unique wisdom, and exuberance of a 10-year-old child. I was so drawn to this young heroine, and drawn INTO her world of sensations, excitements, questions, joys and fears. I also loved how the author’s use of humor and vivid descriptions captured the impact of a church’s teachings on a young soul. Being invited into her world encouraged me to reflect more deeply on my own. How did my own experience of being raised in a church impact me in ways I hadn’t yet registered? How did my own young girl’s psyche get formed in ways I hadn’t yet understood? This book is truly a gift of Healing!

- Marlene Wine Chase, LCSW, M.Div.

Voncille Henry’s compelling account

of her childhood in a strict fundamentalist church sheds light on the damage many of us who had similar childhoods endured. Most of us who struggled and escaped similar religious mental abuse and often physical neglect, experience lifetime damage. Fundamentalist preachers and evangelists typically use the fear of hell and imminent rapture anxiety to control and expand their congregations and wealth.

Staying on the Nice Side of God is a book that would benefit not only the many victims of religious fear-based preaching but could help spouses, children and close friends who were not exposed to such trauma, understand those of us who were.

- Jim Notestine

Courage to talk about Religious Trauma

The extremely restrictive rules of religion spoken from the mind of a 10 year-old, have made this story so powerful. The honesty is refreshing and courageous!

- Hannah T., BA Fine Arts/Dance

Post Baccalaureate in ED

Author, I Became the Person I Always Hated

Jumpin’ to Conclusions is my Favorite Form of Exercise

Having just finished reading

Voncille Henry’s memoir, I was impressed by the journey she took from the ten-year old girl who wasn’t allowed to question her parent’s indoctrination of their strict evangelical beliefs, to the adult who found the strength to think for herself and achieve much more in her life than was initially proscribed. Written from the 10-year old’s perspective, I found it honest and emotionally touching. The memoir was written with sensitivity, accurately describing the fluctuating emotions and confusing thoughts of a child. Well written.

- Jacqueline Saltz, MSW, ACSW, BCD

Great reflection on fear-based Christianity and the grace available in love of music

Staying on the Nice Side of God is a stunning reflection of a spirited 10 year-old Vonnie, and the fundamentalist Christian community she was raised in. It reminded me of my own challenges as a young girl trying to make sense of such black and white judgmental thinking supposedly coming from a compassionate and loving God. Vonnie shares with us her deep fears about her perceived sins and of those she loves, repeated weekly in terrifying sermons about Hell. The amazing part of this memoir is her resilience especially as a child, and how her love of music became her saving grace.

Thank you, Voncille, for sharing.

- Shirley P Pavarnic, MLA,

Creation Spirituality,

Student and friend of Dr. Fr. Thomas Berry, Theolgian

Staying on the Nice Side of God is a skillfully written memoir

in a 10-year-old’s voice, as young Vonnie grows up in the restrictive religious environment of a Pentecostal church in Hobbs, New Mexico. Religious distortion through control and fiery sermons becomes obvious to the adult reader. Little Vonnie tries to reconcile the impossible notions of her 1950s fundamentalist preachers. No earrings, no lipstick, no movies, and the subjugation of women’s rights spark Vonnie’s honesty; she holds the light, the humor, and the resilience to navigate her childhood and thereby expose religions’s harm.

Do not miss the preciousness of meeting Vonnie, in her memoir as she desperately tries to stay on the nice side of God. Such a delightful read with a poignant message of real faith and justice. I loved Voncille Henry’s memoir!

- Deborah George, MA Ed. Adm.

Staying on the Nice Side of God:

A Childhood Memoir

NEW EDITION

Copyright © 2024 Voncille Henry. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by

www.a3dimpressions.com

[e-mail]

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Henry, Voncille.

Title: Staying on the nice side of God : a childhood memoir / Voncille Henry.

Description: Tucson, AZ; Minneapolis, MN: A3D Impressions, 2023.

Identifiers: LCCN: 2023946415 | ISBN: 979-8-9890817-9-0 (paperback) | 979-8-9890817-4-5 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH Henry, Voncille--Childhood and youth. | Pentecostal churches--

Biography. | Pianists--Biography. | New Mexico--Biography. | Religious biography. |

BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs | RELIGION / Christian Living / Personal Memoirs

Classification: LCC BX8762.Z8 .H46 2023 | DDC 289.9/4092—dc23

Jessica Castillo, cover design

Donn Poll, book design

The stories in this book are true. The names and exact locations have been changed.

Preface

This is a collection of true, tender, and sometimes heartbreaking stories told in the voice of 10-year-old Vonnie, who is growing up on the West Texas and New Mexico border. Vonnie, gripped by Preacher Higgins’ fiery sermons about Hell, gives an exquisitely honest account of a child’s recurring fears of a literal Hell. Her great love of the piano and the gospel music she hears, in part moderate her terrors, with a little help from the beautiful Janie Larue.

My readers loved the first edition of my book, My Sins, and they asked me for more stories from my childhood. This new edition has two purposes: One, to give you more stories! And two, to be bold enough to include a story from my childhood that reveals the depth of the church’s influence on my parents and how it threatened my life and safety. (Story title, When I Was Close to Dying".)

I consider this edition … an entertaining read, yet significant in that it provokes serious thought about present day issues, as well as the first edition. I hope when you are finished reading you will agree.

Author’s Note

In my twenty plus years as a social worker one thing became quite clear, that children are very good observers of adult behavior and of the injustices of life. The faithful entries in my childhood diary prompted this book and a decision to give Vonnie, aged 10, her voice.

Vonnie’s astute observations of life in the 50s and 60s are worthy of report. There are stories in the book, and words from my childhood notebooks that are difficult to read, growing up as I did in a segregated time and place. I knew even at 10, when people were treated as less than, or shamed because of a physical disability or the color of their skin. There were very few people of color in Hobbs, NM, at the time, but the few who lived there kept away and were rarely seen. I knew none, with the exception of a few Hispanic children who attended my grade school.

The language of the church and its exclusivity also triggered young Vonnie’s innate sense of right and wrong, as when Christians give themselves the right to judge each person’s spiritual status as good or bad, saved or unsaved. Women’s subordinate roles in the church, even belittlement and disrespect never did set right with my Mother, who was quite vocal in her opinions on the matter. Her sense of fairness for all helped to shine a light on equality and the rights of women for my sister and myself.

I was uncomfortable with what I witnessed and experienced and my young self, Vonnie, felt it all, including the weight of recognizing injustice when others did not. It was the beginning and the formation of a growing instinct to trust myself with my questions. But it was years before I found the courage to ask the questions I needed to ask.

I didn’t feel safe examining or questioning the church’s teachings. Doubt was considered a spiritual weakness.

The church’s specific teachings about Hell had my younger self terrified that I, my family, friends and others that I loved would most certainly end up in Hell if we didn’t follow all the rules. All of them.

Going through Vonnie’s notebook would reveal not only the pain and misinformation I had, but it would help me reconnect with the insight I had as a child and recognize the resilience I was fortunate to have.

Children hear things they shouldn’t hear and experience things they never asked for. I now have compassion for my young self as I do all children who don’t have the language or power to defend themselves. I want to know and honor what Vonnie knew at such a young age and give her a voice. Children will tell us things we’ve forgotten and probably don’t want to hear, but we need to listen. There is healing and wisdom in their words.

Opening Vonnie’s diary and being transported by her stories was also a revelation about what cannot be taken away. It became clear how much music anchored me to my sense of self then, and continues to be my anchor today. Music allowed me creativity and joy. Through the piano, I found a way to express myself when other spoken truths would have landed me in a heap of trouble. Playing the piano became my saving grace, both literally and figuratively, and I hope these stories will help others find theirs as well.

... these words mirror spoken truth unspoken yet by you

in some mysterious youth, deep in some ephemeral dream where angels and demons sing

— Anthony Freeburn, 2020

Table of Contents

Almost Sixteen

Be Extra Careful at Church

What IS a Sin?

Summer Revivals and Women Preachers

Our Brand New Piano

Backsliding and Cigarette Smoking

Doublemint