Great Gran’s Bible

I received a real treasure from my mom over the holidays. On the occasion of attending her church where my sister was making her debut with the hand bell choir, my mother presented me with my great grandmother’s Bible. She said it has been passed down to the first daughter of every generation. I’m a ‘first daughter’ and as it happens my own daughter and her oldest daughter are first daughters of their generations as well. I haven’t thought much about that until my mom gave me the Bible.

At home I spent some time looking at the precious book. Those of you who read my writings regularly know that I love family, I love traditions and I love God’s Word. The combination of all three is irresistible. I was curious to see how this Bible has been used or if it had. It’s a black leather bound copy, a presentation Bible, which means it has pages in the front starting with a Presented To page, then a family register, then pages for births, marriages and deaths. This Bible was presented to my great grandmother, my mother’s maternal grandmother, Christmas of 1965 by her pastor. His inscription is very sweet and recognizes the scripture as a source of strength and joy.

I don’t know if any of my younger siblings remember my great grandmother but I do. My grandmother and I used to visit her when she was in a Senior Living Center. One of my special memories is that we would bring her fresh hot onion rings. Oh how she loved them, and the smell of them coming into her building brought many individuals to their doorways. But even before that I have a fun pocket of memories: we went to visit her when she was house mother at SMU and when she had a management position of the Ambassador Hotel in Dallas. To me she always seemed elegant. I never knew her when she didn’t have white hair and she wore a charm bracelet that always jingled. The end joint of one of her pinky fingers was missing, having been cut off in a folding lawn chair. I remember thinking that was odd, to see the knob where another polished fingernail should have been. To her great grandchildren she was smiling and kind and I remember liking her laugh. I have a picture of her surrounded by all of us little great grands on a rose-colored sofa. I remember getting to sit next to my two older cousins and feeling special.

My grandmother had and my mother has different memories of Ella, just as my own children see me differently than my grands. But I wanted to see what this Bible reflected about that woman. This copy of Scripture is the RSV, common back in the fifties and sixties. The good news is there are markings, this Bible was read and used. There are lines going down the side of a paragraph, certain words and phrases underlined. I like that. Ink that I’m sure was originally blue has faded to more of a light purple which tells me that was my great grandmother’s.

There are also occasionally words written in the margin or above a chapter heading. And in some places there are dates: for example 1st Timothy 4 has the date 6-1-68 next to it. She had only had the Bible for 3 years at that time. I wonder what she was thinking when she read this section that speaks to false doctrine and latter times as well as the fact that everything created by God is good. Continuing to flip through the Bible I saw also some yellow highlighting. I suspect this may have been my grandmother’s. I’m glad there are differences in markings, as it is hard to say by the handwriting which notes are great gran’s, which are grandmother’s, and which are my mom’s. Some of the handwriting is that of an older person, but some of it is clearly printed in my grandmother’s hand. Some I recognize is my mom’s so I think the unfamiliar handwriting must be my great grandmother’s. There are helpful notes with references as to who people are and historical time and date references for certain passages, as well as study notes.

I’ve learned some interesting things about my family from the family record pages. I always heard my great-grandmother referred to as Ella but her full name was Mary Ella. In some of her handwriting she refers to the name Mary. I wonder which or how many of the Mary’s in the Bible she identified with. I also learned that my great grandmother was married in July of 1907, over 100 years ago. She died when I was a sophomore in college, but her legacy of belonging to the Christian faith lives on.

The scripture I turned to this morning when I was having my own devotional was from 3 John verse 4, about the great joy of knowing that one’s children walk in the truth of Christ. Great Gran underlined that verse. What a wonderful thing to know that, like my great grandmother, my grandmother and my mother before me, I too love God’s Word and study it while praying for my children and theirs. My great grandmother was far from perfect and from what I know her personal relationships needed improvement. But knowing that she read the Word and studied it tells me she was a believer, and that connects me to her in the way that is the most important.