The Branfords

While we were at SABS we became close friends of Reg and Diane Branford. They had  two kids, and had a baby soon after school began. As time went on and it was getting close to graduation a call  from Pietermaritzburg came to the school, asking for a preacher. Dad thought briefly that he might try, but decided against it, Reg, however, decided to try out for the job.  The Branfords went down and stayed with people who owned a bulldog. As soon as they arrived there they were told not to venture into the back yard as the bulldog was aggressive.  Sunday morning as Reg was getting ready he looked out of the sliding glass doors which faced on to the backyard, and was horrified to see his toddler out there in jaws of the bulldog which was shaking her like a rag doll. Reg opened the sliding doors, though they were almost impossible to open, rushed out and literally tore the dog's jaws open as he freed his child. She was so covered with blood that he yelled for someone to get the car ready to take them to the hospital. He would not allow Diane to see her face as he held the baby up against his chest. When they arrived at the hospital there was only one doctor there who was free to operate. He was a brain surgeon who had just finished an intricate operation, but the good doctor did not hesitate as he took the toddler into the theatre and performed a  fantastically intricate procedure on the her. The dog's teeth had penetrated her cheek  which required that he sew up the inside of her mouth as well. After they came home Diane was visiting me with the little one and was bemoaning the fact that the child was now terrified of ALL dogs.  Candy, our retriever, was in the lounge, lying quietly at a distance from us, and the toddler would not leave her mother's lap. I looked at Candy and then at Diane and said, "Let me see if Candy can help her." I got up and walked over to Candy ad caressed her. Then I said to the child, "Come and see Candy, she will not hurt you, she loves little girls." With some encouragement from Diane she came over slowly, and Candy, bless her loving heart, rolled over onto her back—the ultimate position of surrender—as the child softly touched her—and so started the healing of a cruelly injured little lady.

Rex and Debbie

At  this point I want to focus on Rex and Debbie for a while. Deb had left Harding and enrolled at Alabama Christian College, because her lifelong friend, Beverly Kidwell, had persuaded her to do so.  She wrote to get our approval and moved down lock, stock, and barrel. At this time we were already living on the SABS property. When we had been in the boys dorm for a short while we received a very short  little note from her in which she stated, "There is a cute guy here who is teaching me to drive – don't get any ideas!" Being her mother I, of course, immediately got "IDEAS," but wisely kept my thoughts to myself.  Well, it was not very long until we were asked if it was okay to get engaged to that very same "Cute guy" named – Rex Dutton!! It was some time before they married and we kept in touch until the great day. When the time came I very bravely kept my eyes dry as we lived through the day. I was dry-eyed until the photos arrived – then I lost it and made up for all the tears I should have wept. We were very happy that Rex's family loved our dear daughter from the very first, and once we met Rex we, too, fell in love with our new "son."

Life as SABS Surrogate Mother

Now to continue our surrogate patenting at the Boys' Dorm. After the cat experience we found an advert for Labrador puppies. I have always enjoyed having a dog as a pet, and Mel and I both decided we would like one now. Thus started the delightful saga of Candy. We went to view the puppies and Candy immediately captured our hearts.  When we got her home everybody fell in love with her.  As she grew older she loved to join the boys as they played football in the yard. One day, when she was still a youngish pup, I was washing the lunch dishes when I looked out the window and saw what I thought was a piece of thick rope, about two feet long. Candy was very interested in it and she circled to the front and to my horror the rope reared up and spread its hood—it was a spitting cobra.  I threw down my cloth and dashed out of the house yelling "SNAKE!!" I rushed over to Candy, picked her up bodily and carried her to the side of the house, just as shock took over, and I slumped against the wall. Mel rushed out with the only weapon he could lay his hands on, a broom of some sort, and took care of Mr. Cobra. Phew!! That was a very scary incident. The Lord took care of us and no one was hurt. I asked our boys to take the dead body to the woods across the road, and dispose of it.  Candy, a couple of days later, found its body and presented it to me in the yard—smelly.  So we sent the boys back with it telling them to bury it deep.

Our Years at SABS

It has been some time since my last post, so here goes for the "SABS experience," which will likely take up several new posts. While we were still going to the Hillside Church of Christ Al Horne came to hold a gospel meeting there. We were planning a vacation to Durban and the Hornes invited us to call by their home in Benoni on our way back to spend a few days with them before returning to Bulawayo. This we did and while we were visiting them Al asked Mel to consider coming to SABS as a student. We decided that we would like to do that and as soon as we returned we started to make plans to do so. Deb had already left to attend college in the States. War with the black Africans was on the go and Tim was of the age that he was called up for compulsory army service. Mel tried his best to get him exempt so he could also attend, but the Rhodesian authorities were adamant and we had to leave without him. It almost broke my heart, but we went ahead and arrived in Benoni and were invited to live in the Hardin's house as they were on a visit to USA. This was just to be until one of the houses on the SABS property was vacant.

When we moved to the SABS property we moved into the smaller of the two available houses. The other house was used to house the six teenaged boys who were placed in the care of another couple.

About two weeks later, after classes were over, I looked out the kitchen window and was startled to see the faculty wives stopping in our yard.  This indicated a serious problem and I was, to put it  mildly, alarmed. When they were all seated I set about getting tea ready for them, and while they were drinking it they told us why they were there. They were worried because the boys were very unhappy with the care they were receiving from the family who were put in charge of them. It had reached the pitch that the faculty felt it necessary to make a change and asked if we would consider taking on the job. We agreed and subsequently we moved , lock, stock and barrel, into the large house.

When I first walked into the house I saw the stove  I thought, "Oh, good, a black enameled stove!" But, on closer inspection I saw, to my horror, that it was a white stove which had not been cleaned in ages!! So, job number one – get that stove back to its original beauty, which literally took hours of hard labor – but, at last we had a nice clean white stove!  Now, I had  a house full of hungry mouths to feed. Thus started my period of being a surrogate Mom to these boys, and  our own two sons. Unfortunately, they seemed to think I was going to be doing ALL their washing and ironing – an impossible task for one woman, so we had a little talk and the boys all agreed to see to their own ironing.

While we lived there we acquired a kitten from one of the married couples. It decided that the place to do its business was behind the radio, and I found a perfect cure for that.  She was bothered with fleas and I often had to apply flea powder, which she HATED, and she protested bitterly – so I stood the container in the the cat's chosen corner – end of problem.

Steve's painful bike experience and Elias's knowing what to do.

 While we were living in Fairspire Court our boys, Paul and Steve, befriended another young fellow, about Paul's age. This boy offered to give a bike ride to Steve. On the back of our bikes there was often a carrier on which one could fasten his school satchel or case. It made quite a nice carrier for a passenger too. Well, suddenly we heard a real horrified scream from Steve. I and Elias ran to the window and we saw Steve sitting in the pavement with a lot of blood streaming from his foot. Without a second's hesitation Elias said, "Call the Master (Mel), " as he tore downstairs and picked Steve up holding the deep cut on Steve's foot closed. He rushed upstairs and went directly to the bathroom where he filled  the handbasin  with water, all the time holding the wound closed. Mel rushed home and we tore up to the hospital where they cleansed his foot and sewed it up with several stitches (I think it was seven) and the doctor said that it had missed the tendon by a hair's breadth, which would have meant the loss to movement to his foot. What had happened was that Steve's foot was caught in the spokes of the boy's bike.  When we left Bulawayo to go to Southern Africa Bible School we had to tell Elias that we couldn't take him with us, but I gave him a wonderful reference and he, very soon, was hired to a responsible job with the Municipality. I tell you all this to illustrate what a treasure we found when we hired Elias. When we got home from the hospital Elias was still there, even though it was long passed his knock-off time!! What a Gentleman!!

More about Our Hillside Membership

  When we moved our membership to the Hillside Church of Christ we first moved into a small condo but after a couple of months we moved next door into a very nice apartment in Fairspire  Court. Deb had been getting ready to fly to the USA in order to attend Harding University in Searcy Arkansas. Her interest was aroused by Bro. Shewmaker who was an alumnus, and highly regarded the institution.  The time came for her to leave we all drove out to the Bulawayo Airport. When the call came for the passengers to board we watched her leave the terminal to get on the plane. We were all standing on the verandah upstairs watching them. She did not turn around once — I think she was trying not to cry, just as we were. We waited there until the plane took off with our beloved daughter going away with very little chance of seeing her again for several years — actually it was about 11 years!! But more about that a little later.

 We had a very real black gentleman working for us, cooking our meals and keeping our home clean. This was because I was spending so much time teaching. He was a youngish married man and was really more suited, mentally, to be holding a white man's job, but, sadly the colour bar was still in place at this time. His name was Elias. We tried to convert him but he was a very staunch member in the Dutch Reformed Church. I asked our black preacher to speak to him, but he was unsuccessful also. Anyway Elias loved  our children, and they loved him. While our kids were small I made all their clothes and I had an old Jones Treadle Machine. When I bought myself an electric machine I asked Elias if he would like my old and he was beside himself with joy, so I started giving him pieces of material and he proudly showed me the dresses he made for his little girl. You would have thought he had had sewing lessons, but, no, he worked it out for himself. One day Norman Flynn, a friend who worked for a clothing factory, gave me a fair-sized piece of suiting fabric which I gave to Elias. A few days later he came to work and said, "Madam, do you remember this material you gave me?" He had taken a pair of his worn-out pants apart and used the pieces as a pattern and made himself a perfect pair of trousers, even with the fly made correctly, and he was proudly wearing them to work. I was astonished. More later.

"Intelligent Chatter" and Eye Glasses

When Steve was two years old he was not yet speaking, but only, very intelligently, baby chattering. This highly amused Reg Kidwell, our very good friend, who would hold him up in his arms and Steve would start pointing at things, especially on the ceiling, and would chatter endlessly. Well, a short time later I noticed that Steve seemed to be squinting and I took him to the doctor who confidently stated, "No, I don't think so, his flat baby nose makes it appear so." Not long after that Steve was sickening for something and was running a raised temperature and I noticed that his left eye was moving significantly slower than his right eye — so back to the doctor we went. This time the doc agreed with me and sent us immediately to the eye specialist who had rooms in the same medical block.

He told us that there was a worrying difference and set up some exercises for his eyes, and after treating him for several weeks he prescribed glasses for the little guy. We took the scrip to the same person who always made our glasses. When the glasses were ready we took Steve to have them fitted. The practitioner sat him on the counter and put the glasses on him. Steve sat there, as good as gold, but his little eyes filled with tears, and very soon there were little pools lying in the bottom of the specs.  I took the glasses off and cleaned them and put them back on, talking soothingly to him as I did so. And this time he accepted them. Only once did he pull them off in a temper — I don't know why, but from then on he never tried to see without them. A whole new world had opened up to him — and almost immediately he began to speak fluently (for a two year old). Prior to our discovery of his eye problem he would bring picture books to his Daddy to show him all the interesting things in them. We found out later that young children who are extremely interested in picture books often have an eye problem.

I also remember a time when Paul had a birthday party out in the back yard, and we sat Steve in his high-chair. We put his goodies in his plate and he had the time of his life mixing them all together into one sticky mess, which he proceeded to eat with great enjoyment — much to the amusement of Paul's young guests.