Triple C News - Oct. 14
Hey, everyone!
Top o’ th’ mornin’ t’ ya!
Or as they say in Cornwall where my people come from, “Metten daa whye!”
“Where did THAT come from??”
Oh. Sorry!
We’ve just been watching this show on PBS about a veterinarian in the 1930’s in the Dales of Yorkshire in England and I just got curious about my British grand dad and where he came from.
I thought he might have come from there in the north but it turns out he was born on the other end.
So, I never really thought much about where our English side of our family came from but the story I always heard was that my granddad’s dad (who would be my dad’s granddad) abandoned their family when when my granddad was ten and he and his impoverished mom had to come on a ship to America to find a new life.
“What a jerk!” I thought. “Who does that??”
So one night after we watched two episodes of “All Creatures Great and Small” on PBS Masterpiece Theater…
(Do they spell it “Theatre”?)
I just thought I’d “google a bit” and see what I could find out…
“Hey, babe!! I just found my granddad’s name on the internet!!
Wait!! And I just found HIS dad’s name!!
He lived just outside the little town of St Austell in Cornwall!!
His name was…David!!”
…google…google…
“Hey! I just found…
Oh, my!…
a gravestone.”
A photo of an old, moss covered grave in the lovely cemetery of the parish church of tiny village of
St Mewan, one mile from St Austell…
“David Job”
My great granddad!!
“Died 7 March 1896”
My granddad came on a ship with his mom in 1900.
“Hey, babe! My granddad’s dad didn’t abandon his family!! He died!”
“He was 41!”
“My granddad was six…without his dad…”
“I…I…my…my…my heart just broke.”
And then I found another photo of an even mossier old gravestone…
“Hugh Job
Baptised at St Mewan 2 September 1804
Buried 19 January 1867”
My great, great granddad!!
Wow.
So, I know that the amazing evangelist and preacher John Wesley died just thirteen years before my great great grand dad was born in St Mewan….
And I know that John Wesley had some of the widest blessings of God in sharing the Good News of Jesus and how you could have a “new birth”…
in Cornwall!
He traveled there 42 times on his preaching tours! He preached to crowds of 20,000 plus!!
Once, just down the road from St Mewan, he preached to 32,000!!
By 1850, (when my great great granddad Hugh was 46!) Cornwall was only one of two counties in all of England with more born-again “Wesleyans” than people in the “official” Church of England!!
And there were more of these new “Methodists” in St Austell (including St Mewan!) than anywhere!!
My granddad always seemed to me to be so exceptionally sweet and kind.
When he came to visit us from Ohio, he and I would walk down Maple Lane hand in hand and I’d get him to talk in that accent he had from “Jolly Ol’ England”.
He’d sing to me with his sweet quivery voice old songs like “By the light of the silvery moon…”
Whenever we talked on the phone, I’d always cry so much from hearing his voice I couldn’t speak to him…
Mother Teresa wrote:
“Be the living expression of God’s kindness;
kindness in your face,
kindness in your eyes,
kindness in your smile,
kindness in your warm greeting.”
I always thought of him that way.
And I always wondered why he was the way he was.
What if his dad hadn’t been the jerk I thought?
What if his dad was as kind as he?
What if his dad’s dad was kinder than all?
What if one day...
in the tiny village of St Mewan...
just outside the little town of St Austell…
Jesus looked up into my family tree and said what He said to Zaccheus once…
“You come down! I’m coming to your house today!”
If one day, I find out that’s true, just to know it will be jolly good!