CAMPBELLs, LUGGs, & BLACKWELLs of Nelson, PA

Going to high school was not easy, for we lived six miles from Brainerd and had no car. My parents and the parents of Pearl Thomas talked it over and decided to get rooms for us in town where we could care for ourselves during the week, coming home on weekends. And so two rooms were rented for us from Mr. and Mrs. Pat O'Brien who lived right downtown over Skauge's Drug Store.

Speaking of transportation, Pearl has a beautiful driving horse of her own and a beautiful cutter. Of course she couldn't keep the horse and cutter in town.

I can't imagine what kind of cooks Pearl and I were. Mrs. O'Brien was good to us and often gave to us some hot food. Our Mothers took turns at cooking up a weekly supply of things. I remember, especially, that when it was Pearl's turn, her Mother would bake the most delicious devils food cake covered with coconut frosting. I really loved that cake and when Pearl unpacked her food I would ask if she had brought a devils food cake. She usually had one and we would immediately eat it up, instead of making it last for the week.

In our Sophomore year an event took place that was the turning point for my life. Many of the churches in town joined in erecting a wooden tabernacle calling an evangelist for a joint crusade. We two heard about the meetings. High school students used to talk about it quite a bit. Pearl and I planned to go sometime, but a couple of weeks slipped by before we really did. When we finally went, we were greatly impressed, but we had other plans, even though had agreed and made a sort of commitment which probably wooed us to return. But we did not hurry back. For one thing we had planned to see a certain movie (the silent, ten cent variety), so we went. The next day my old friend Henrietta sent me a note. I remember what she wrote, "A fine Christian you've turned out to be. You take a stand for Christ one night in the Tabernacle, and the next night you go to the movies." I was astonished, so I wrote back. "Please tell me what is so wrong about that." She wrote back, "You had better go to hear Oscar Lourie again."

Pearl and I did go back and what a sermon we heard! People were warned about three popular amusements that could hinder their spiritual life, even cause them to sin and be lost, to be shut from the presence of God forever! The three amusements were dancing, the theater and cards. Each was described so graphically evil, that we wanted no part in any of them.

I had a small sized deck of cards. When we got home that night, I took my Little deck out of our desk. I looked at it in horror, took one card off the deck, tore it to pieces, saying in vehemence, "the vile things!" I through it on the floor. Pearl followed my example, tore up another card and threw it on the floor. So, one by one, we tore up the entire deck, then joining hands, we stamped and jumped on them, all the time calling them "the vile things." I've never been comfortable around cards since!

Those meetings, called the "Lowrie-Moody Meeting" made a profound difference in the church life of Brainerd. The campaign lasted six weeks and the lives of of adults and children were changed from indifference to ardent zeal. Pearl was Roman Catholic; I was Presbyterian; but we were agreed as to our stand for truth and righteousness.

Soon after that my brother, Harry, and I, joined the Presbyterian Church as communicant members. So many of our high school mates had taken a "stand for the Lord" that we had an active social life governed by our churches.

In the Presbyterian church the teen aged girls were banded together in a class named "The Do Your Best Class," or commonly called the "DYB's". Our teacher was Reverend William J. Lowrie, pastor of the Presbyterian Church. The boys were also banded together in a similar class. They were called the BFC's or the Boys Fellowship Class. Mrs. John McKay was their teacher.

In the summer time the DYB's would rent a cottage at one of the nearby lakes for a week or two and would likely ask the Boys Fellowship teacher, Mrs. McKay to go along as a chaperone. One of the class lived at Nisswa. She had come to Brainerd for her high school training and had joined the DYBs. Once Annie Matson, that was her name, invited the class to come to her home for an outing.

Once I invited the class to my country home for a weekend slumber party. My family owned a tent so that was put up in the yard for an extra bedroom and Mother made up two beds in it. The rest of the girls slept in the house. There were fourteen of us. Harry invited some of the Boys Fellowship Class to come out and spend the night with him, sleeping in the hay mow. I know they had a good time planning tricks on us girls. I don't remember all that we did, but three kodak pictures, we girls had taken up by the schoolhouse on our farm, show how happy we were.

One picture is of us standing in line with Annie Matson, the tallest one at the head and Gladys Hess, the shortest at the foot. All of the girls except me had long dresses. Mine was only calf length for Mother didn't consider I was old enough to wear long dresses. I was fourteen. In the picture I managed to stand behind some of the girls so my legs would not show.

Now at 83, I look at those pictures and recall the fun we had. I remember those girls as forming the finest group fellowship I ever enjoyed. I can name everyone in the picture. Going down the lineup was Anne Matson, Marion Opsahl, Hazel Squires, Violet Cregar, Helen Knebel, Dorothy Wright, Pearl Vaughan, (I hear from her at Christmas time), Edith Turner, Ethel Nelson, Rose Turner, Gladys Turner, Marvel Putz, I, Mary Hughey and Gladys Hess. At least half the class has passed away. A few years back Pearl Vaughan and I got in touch and now we at least exchange Christmas messages.

When we were little girls about eight years old, we had gotten acquainted. Pearl's father was a cement contractor and I believe my father had him come out to our country home and put a cement basement under our home. It had two rooms. One was very clean and tidy and there my mother had shelves for large stone crocks or bowls. Thad was before we owned a DeLaval cream separator. The cream was lifted from the top with a sort of skimmer and put in a cream can. Mother churned the cream in a large wooden churn turned with a hand crank. For years she won first prize at the Crow Wing County Fair for her butter. She had regular customers for her butter in the town of Brainerd. I'm sure that my early education was largely financed by mother's butter and eggs that she sold.

I started to tell you about the early friendship between Pearl Vaughn and me. We used to exchange visits during our summer vacation. One week Pearl would come out and stay with me. Another, I would go to Brainerd to visit her and her younger sister, Ruth. Pearl and Ruth had many beautiful toys, especially dolls. They were very generous with them, so we had many happy hours together.

The basement that Mr. Vaughn made for us Hugheys was a wonderful addition to our home. The first or big room was where we particularly stored vegetables. There were bins of potatoes, rutabagas, parsnips, carrots and a large hanging shelf with a slotted bottom for onions. Both mother and dad had come from an apple country, eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York. Hence they could not imagine being without apples during the winter days.

When they were first married and after they moved to the farm, the aunts and uncles from "back East" would ship a barrel of apples to them. Russets, Winesaps, Gilliflowers and Greenings were some of the apples and packed in the top of the barrel were items of dried grapes (raisins) and also a few hickory nuts and black walnuts.

I graduated from the eighth grade in the District #3 County School the spring of 1913 as I have already recounted. I graduated from high school in June 1917. That was the year when World War I began. Our class went to the Brainerd railroad depot "in mass" to bid farewell to six of our class, Lamont Koop, Ralph Falconer, Floyd Hall, William Evans, Arthur Lydon and Earl Golembesque who had enlisted and who went to France. Their chairs were draped with red, white and blue bunting at graduation time.

My high school days were happy times for me. I made many new friends and life became more and more interesting. In my senior year, a "Normal Training" was added to high school. I became interested, so that I enrolled in it the next year and became a post graduate student of the high school and obtained my teacher's certificate entitling me to teach in the rural schools of Minnesota. Bertha Knights Lawrence was our Normal Training teacher and she really gave me a good foundation for teaching in the elementary grades.