Lights and shadows of seventy years

Contents

Chapter. page.

I. Memories of Childhood 1

II. Tossed About — War Experience 36

Foreword

To one who has finished his "three score years and ten" life is chiefly a memory, and, like the Ancient Mariner, he yearns to tell his story to every one who will hear him.

It may be the natural garrulity of age, encouraged by the request of a few friends, that has prompted me to publish this book. I know not. "Who can understand his errors?" Howbeit, the book is published and submitted to the friends whom I love, and who, in years past, had patience to hear me talk.

I have entitled my book "Lights and Shadows of Seventy Years," because it deals with the changes of these years more than my personal work. The record of what I have done will be of some interest to those who know me; to others there may be a general interest in a record of changes which, through the lapse of three-quarters of a century, have taken place in church and society, and our mode of life.

It will be observed by dates, here and there, that what is recorded in these pages has taken form through a period of seven years. Memory has been my guide and I have given only sketches of life's journey and experiences.

At the age of seventy-four I am still a busy man. I feel sound and vigorous and have not yet heard the Master 's call to retire from labor in His vineyard.

This book will go chiefly to my friends, to all of whom I send greeting.

St. Louis, Mo., 1913. J E. G.

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Family Tradition and History.

The writers of history have been strangely unobservant of the merits of the Godbey family, or else the family is of so recent an origin that it has not had time to make history. I find not the name on any honor roll of ancient worthies, neither is it so much as mentioned, so far as I know, in any Encyclopedia or Biographical Dictionary.

It is reported to me, however, that the Virginia Historical Magazine, vol. 1, page 191, has this record :

''Thomas Godbey, of Kiccoughtan, Elizabeth City, yeoman, an ancient planter, as his first dividend, 100 acres, between Newport News and Blunt Point, granted, December 1, 1624.

"Thomas Godbey, born 1587, came to Virginia in ship Deliverance, 1608, and Joanna Godbey, in Flying Heart, 1621."

I understand that the first settlers of Virginia were mostly bachelors, and that after a few years some of them bought wives with tobacco, and so began to establish families, and that this circumstance gave rise to the term ' ' First Families of Virginia." Of course these first families, getting the start in the new country, became the ruling aristocrats in time, so the title "First Families of Virginia" became a badge of aristocracy- The record cited above is my ground of claim to have descended from this distinguished class.

In support of my opinion that our family has been but lately introduced on the world's stage,

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x Family Tradition and History.

our tradition is that the name originated in the time of Cromwell, and was, at first, Godobey This seems to be fairly well established, and brings me some comfort in the thought of an ancestry distinguished for piety I am the more disposed to this persuasion, as I have knowledge of twenty-eight Methodist preachers among the descendants of my grand-parents, and, further, because I have never known a drunkard among any of my kindred.

My mother's name was Kelly. The Kellys stoutly contend that they are descendants of the Kelly clan, which was virtually wiped out at the battle of Augrim, fought on their property in the County of Galway, Ireland. Their coat of arms bore the inscription, "Turns fort is mihi Deus," which further suggests pious ancestry The marriage of a son of the Kelly clan with the house of Marr merged the families under the name of * ' Marr and Kelly. ' '

As to the coming of the Kellys to America, it is a family tradition that it was on this wise : Two boys by the name of Kelly were playing on the beach on the coast of Ireland, when a sea captain told them if they would come aboard ship he would teach them how to play the "hautboy-" They ventured, expecting to learn a new game. The captain sailed away with the lads to Virginia, and put them in the field to hoe corn. I suppose this is true, because the family has been especially devoted to agriculture. One of the boys got tired of "hoeboy" and escaped to England. The other became the ancestor of Thomas Kelly, my great-grandfather.

Definite history begins when the Godbey and

Family Tradition and History. xi

Kelly families emerged into the light in adjoining counties, Montgomery and Botetourt, Va., about thirty years before the Eevolutionary War. Both great-grandparents were soldiers of the Revolution when my grandparents were babies — Wm. Godbey, born in 1775, and Samuel Kelly, in 1776.

Both grandparents came to Kentucky, and there settled in adjoining counties — Casey and Pulaski. My parents, Josiah Godbey and Sena Kelly, were married in 1836 ; father being nineteen and mother eighteen years of age.

In the Minutes of the Southwest Missouri Conference for 1890 is the following memoir:

"Josiah Godbey was born June 30, 1817, and died April 20, 1890. Between the above dates was lived a quiet, contented, industrious, happy, useful, and successful life of seventy-three years, less one month and ten days.

Brother Godbey was converted and joined the Methodist church September 7, 1833, was licensed to exhort in 1840, and to preach, March, 1841. In October of the same year he joined the Kentucky Conference. He was ordained a deacon in 1843, and an elder in 1845. He traveled Albany, Burksville, Somerset, Perryville, and Maxville circuits in Kentucky — one year each on the first and last, two years each on the other three. He was superannuated in 1846, and put in a supernumerary relation in 1847-8. In 1852 he located, moved to Missouri and bought a farm in Cooper county. He served as a supply that year in the Boonville station. In 1853 he re-entered the itinerant ranks in the St. Louis Conference, since which time he has served the following charges : Bell- Air, nine xii Family Tradition and History.

years; Georgetown, four; Sedalia, four; Longwood, two; and Arrow Rock, Marshall, and Windsor, one year each. He was presiding elder of the Boonville district in 1864-5.

Josiah Godbey was married to Miss Sena Kelly, October 27, 1836. She died in 1888. He married a second time in 1889. Four of his sons and one of his sons-in-law have been itinerant Methodist preachers in Missouri. One, Rev J E. Godbey, D. D., is now a member of this Conference, and another, Rev. S. M. Godbey, is a member of the Pacific Conference, editor of the Pacific Methodist and professor in the Pacific Methodist College at Santa Rosa.

Brother Godbey preached the gospel fortynine years and one month. For several years before his death he had been on the superannuated list, but preached frequently His last message was delivered in Otterville, where he lived from the time of his second marriage. This was April 13, 1890. The next Sabbath he entered into rest."

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

REV. JOHN EMORY GODBEY

CHAPTEE I.

Memories of Childhood.

"The family Bible that lay on the stand" in my childhood home contained this record: "John Emory Godbey, second son of Josiah Godbey and Sena, his wife, was born in Casey county, Kentucky, August 11, 1839."

At that time my father cultivated a small farm. He afterward became a minister of the gospel in the Methodist church, and traveled as an itinerant preacher and served in the Kentucky and Missouri Conferences for almost half a century.

My father had two brothers who were preachers; my mother, four. They were all Methodists. My father's brothers, John and Joshua, served in the Kentucky Conference. My mother's brothers, Clinton, Gilby, Samuel, and Albert, all served for a time in the Kentucky Conference, but later Samuel transferred to the West Virginia Conference, and Clinton and Albert emigrated to Oregon. Gilby died at Covington, Ky., while presiding elder of the Covington district. Thus it would appear that by natural causes I was predestined to be a Methodist preacher. I have record of twenty-eight Methodist preachers descended from the families of my grandparents. I am sure there are others.

My earliest recollection is of a log cabin, with a shed on the back side as a shelter for a rockaway, a great chestnut tree a few yards to the left of the door, a rail fence in front, and across the fence and the public road, a well from which the water was raised by a sweep. This was when we lived on the Albany Circuit. I was but three years old when we left the place, but from that time forward all my life history stands distinctly in memory.

An incident in the experience of the family, while on the Albany Circuit, will serve to illustrate the hardships of a preacher's life in those times.

The circuit had fourteen appointments, and my father made the round once a month. He was generally from home two weeks, and then could be with his family only a day or two. I think my father 's entire stock of earthly goods was his horse and the rockaway, and the pots, pans, chairs and bedding in the cabin, and, as he received just $28 for the year's work, we were often reduced to great want. Bread and meat made a good living, but once, when my father came home, he found that his family had lived several clays on bread alone, and that my mother's appeal for help to a well-to-do steward, who owned a large farm and several slaves, had been refused with rudeness. My father 's feelings were greatly stirred when he found his family in such a situation, and he declared he would not spend another day in the place. But my mother urged his call to preach the gospel, and with tears begged him to stand to his work. So he went, the next morning, several miles, to a week-day appointment. He declined all invitations to take dinner, resolved to eat nothing till his family was supplied. He returned home at nightfall to find my mother thanking God, and the children happy, for the neighbors had brought both meat and meal.

How much grief comes from unkind speech. My poor, sweet mother, then twenty-two years of age, with three babes to care for, had borne her burden until there was no oil in the cruse and only a handful of meal in the barrel, and then, in her extremity of need, had gone to a steward in the church to beg for a piece of meat, to be answered : "This is a poor place to come for meat; we haven't as much as we need for ourselves." That she came back to weep was like a woman, and like a woman, no less, to endure and to pray. This same steward, I suppose, secured the supplies that came in two days later. But that rude speech was never forgotten by my mother, though I know it was forgiven as soon as spoken.

The church owes much to the wives of the preachers. My father was a successful minister of the gospel, loved and honored by the church, and, long before his career was closed, blessed with a comfortable home. But oftentimes, while I have listened to his stirring appeals and marked his power to move men, I have said within myself, "It is my mother that is in the pulpit." My father would certainly have abandoned the Methodist itineracy after one year's experience, had my mother not held him with prayers and entreaties to the work.

My father was appointed to Burksville Circuit in the fall of 1842 and spent two years on this charge, and here I spent the time from the close of my third to the close of my fifth year. I remember well the move to this place, the house in which we lived, with two rooms, or rather one room with a half-story finished above, and a stair in the corner; the great Catalpa tree at the stiles, the mulberry down by the lane, the orchard on the other side of the house; the tobacco field, and barn on the hill, and the creek back of the orchard, where I first saw fishes caught with a hook. The names of all the neighbors I remember well.

Here my brother, William Clinton, two years my senior, started to school. During this time an incident occurred which made a deep impression upon me. There was a house-raising made by our neighbor, Mr. Frazier, on whose farm we lived. I was most of the day near the men, looking at their work. Some of them used profane language. I had no knowledge of its meaning, and a day or two afterwards, while in the orchard with my father, I used the same words I had heard from the men. My father, whom I had thought to please by this exhibition of manliness, sat down upon the grass, took me in his arms, and talked to me a long time about the wicked men, and the wicked words that I had learned from them, until my V./^rt was very sad.

Then he told me if I would pray to God he would forgive me. I knelt on the grass, at his knee, and repeated the prayer after him. I never again used profane language, and I am sure that a deeper conscientiousness and a stronger faith were mine in after years, because of this wise and loving correction.

We were on the Burksville Circuit but two years, thenmy father was appointed to the Sommerset Circuit. On our way there we stopped at my Grandfather Godbey's, in Casey county- It was the first time I had seen my grandfather. He was very old. His appearance impressed me with a great veneration. I saw him but twice afterward; that was during the ensuing two years. He died at the age of ninety-six. He was a devout Christian and a member of the Methodist church.

There were no parsonages in those times. We found a home in a log cabin on the edge of a meadow on the farm of James Eece, who had married my father's sister. Gregg's Chapel, a log church half a mile away, was one of father's preaching places. It was there I first heard preaching, so far as I remember. The same year I was at a camp-meeting at Gregg's camp ground. The majesty of the forest, the weird scene of light and shadow, when the torches burned at night; the penitents, praying and pleading for mercy at the altar; the wild melody of the singing, the fervent and fiery preaching made an abiding impression upon me, and I obtained some knowledge of what it is to be stricken with penitence for sin and saved by faith in Christ.

While at this place I first went to school.

The school house was a mile and a half away. I was six years old and had learned to read — when or how I cannot tell. I have no memory of earlier teaching, though a clear memory of many scenes and events connected with the daily ongoing of my life during these early years. After two years on the Sommerset Circuit my father took a superannuated relation for one year, and was supernumerary for two years following. During this time we lived on a farm on Clifty creek, eight miles from Sommerset. The farm had been owned by my mother's father, Samuel Kelly, and came into my father's possession partly by purchase, and partly by inheritance.

The three years spent on Clifty constitute an idyllic period in my memory. The wide flat, constituting the body of the farm, was covered with chestnut and poplar trees of heavy growth, and with varieties of smaller timber. The creek, which ran near our house, was walled with precipitous cliffs, along the summits of which was a growth of spruce and ivy. The ivy is a bramble of very hard wood with crooked, serpentine branches, and a heavy green leaf like mistletoe. It grew in dense thickets and bore in the spring beautiful white flowers. Under the ivy grew abundance of wintergreen, so extensively used in the manufacture of salicylic acid, much used in the treatment of rheumatism. These growths, with other evergreens and ferns, made the cliffs a perpetual charm to me. In the winter, when the snow weighed down the pines and ivies, and hung its great icicles along the cliffs, and the low clouds and mists shadowed the scene, my fancy peopled the caves of Cliffy with bears and panthers. They had been there in the childhood of my mother, and many a thrilling story had she told me about them, but now only occasionally did the hunter find a bear or a catamount. But when the clouds and mist cleared away, and the sun lit the snowy pines and icy cliffs with flames of rainbow hues the scene wrought in my fancy pictures of the heavenly city, of which my mother had told me, lighted forever by the glory of God.

Our house was an aristocratic mansion for the times. It had been built by my Grandfather

Kelly in 1803. It had four rooms in the main building and two in the ell, which served for kitchen and dining room. It was of logs, but weatherboarded. The siding was sawed by hand and dressed with beaded edges. My grandfather had devoted his time to milling. He had two mills on Clifty, one a grist mill, the other a mill for manufacturing powder and flaxseed oil. Every part of the machinery of the mills he made with his own hands.

The reader will pardon a digression here, while I relate a story, authenticated by my mother and the members of her family Mr. Kelly's sons tended his mills at night. They slept at the upper mill, and about 2 o'clock in the night went to the lower mill, which was the oil mill, and shut down the floodgate. The mills were half a mile apart, on opposite sides of the creek, and the crossing was on a pine log. When it was Sam's turn to stop the mill, he would get up in his sleep, go down and cross the log and let down the gate, return and lie down, without awaking during the time. I have heard of many feats of somnambulism, but nothing better than this.

While on the farm I went to school, when we had school, which was three months in the vear. It was a typical, old-fashioned district school. Its type has passed long ago. I describe it in this year 1913 that the reader may have a distinct picture of the schools which the farmers' boys attended sixty years ago. The best educated farmer was selected to teach the school. He was expected to teach reading, writing and arithmetic to the rule of three, or proportion. He also was expected to be expert in making pens for the children out of goose quills. We had no steel pens. The pay of the teacher was thirteen dollars a month, in corn, potatoes, or other produce. The children started to school as soon as they got breakfast, and were expected to go to work at their studies, though the teacher should not arrive for an hour. When the teacher came he began recitations by calling, "Come first." That meant that the first child who got to the school house, and, therefore, had studied his lesson longest, should come and recite. There were no classes, and each scholar was expected to keep his number. Sometimes two or three boys came at the first call and disputed as to which one got into the school-house first. Often they saw one another coming and made a race for the door. After the first comer recited the call went on, ' ' Come next," the day through.

All the children at their lessons spelled and read aloud, for the teacher wanted to hear them, and know that they were at work, hence the loudest was apt to be reckoned the best scholar. One could hear the school at work, in this way, a quarter of a mile. The teacher was equipped with a long switch. If there was any lull in the noise, he brought his switch, thrash, upon the floor, and shouted, "Mind you books." Solomon Newel, my old schoolmaster, I see thee vet. Thy broad face, firm set jaw, large gray eyes and bushy hair upon a massive head, completed my early ideal of dignity and wisdom — verily a second Solomon.

1 l Turning the teacher out ' ' at Christmas was a standing custom of those days. The big boys planned the job weeks before hand. They were up an hour before day on Christmas morning, and off for the school house. They must beat the teacher, who would also try to head them off by getting there early In this case possession was "nine points of the law" If the big boys got in first they shut and barred the door, by nailing planks across it, and piling the benches against it. If the house had a loft of loose boards, a reserve corps was sent up there to see that the master did not climb up and come through the roof. When the master came the contest began and lasted for hours, he exhausting his resources to get in, for once in possession the boys would surrender. It was a point of manliness to get in if he could. When he despaired of getting in the boys would propose to let him in if he would treat. That meant 5»lve a day's holiday and a basket of apples to the school. We never got but one day's holiday at Christmas and that only when we "turned out" a teacher. Poor Solomon! I saw thee brought to this stage one Christmas day, while we small fry stood out in the snow waiting to see how the battle would end. But when Solomon despaired of getting in he declared he would not treat. Then planks and benches flew from the door and the big boys came forth with a yell like Comanches, and Sol Newel l ' took to the woods. ' ' It was like hounds chasing a stag. The echoes of the chase waked the hills of Clifty after silence had settled wide and still about the school house.

At last the schoolmaster was run down and caught. The boys were prepared for all emergencies. When Solomon still refused to treat they produced ropes, tied him hand and foot, heaved him up on their shoulders, and started for Clifty. Through the woods and snow they tramped, taking turns in carrying their load. It was only when Solomon saw the icy hole of the creek into which the boys were ready to plunge him that his wisdom came to him and he agreed to treat. We got the day 's holiday and the basket of apples. How we did honor the big boys when the apples were distributed in school, and wish we were big! The whole affair, when ended, was regarded as royal fun by teacher and" scholars. Outlandish it seems now, and it is best, no doubt, such customs should pass away. But good humor and manly pluck redeemed, in a measure, their rudeness.

It was during our three years upon the farm that I received my first impression of the uncertainty of life and the solemnity of death. A farmer, Elisha Gregg, a good man, was killed by the falling of a tree, while ploughing in his field. The funeral was very romantic and awe-inspiring to me. I stood with my parents on the hill slope, before the log meeting house, Mount Zion, waiting for the funeral procession. We had a view down the road through the beech and poplar trees for a third of a mile. The procession came, with the coffin borne on a farm wagon ; some of the people following on horseback, but most on foot. Brother Burke, the class leader, walked before, singing with a voice that could be heard afar:

"Why do we tremble to convey Their bodies to the tomb?"

My father preached the funeral. As he read,

"Dangers stand thick through all the ground To push us to the tomb,"

the hymn seemed to me prepared for the occasion. No other church service during these years is so vividly impressed on my memory. Once in six months a funeral comes to a quiet rural community and ail the people are arrested in their business and give thought to the solemn issues of life. Funerals are passing daily in our great cities, but they are too common to make us serious. One cannot always be listening to exhortations. Too much admonition hardens us ; too much lecturing makes us heedless— a truth this, not always remembered by parents and preachers.

My parents held family prayers morning and evening; not hastily, as now we do, who still observe family prayer, but giving the occasion time. The family and hired hands were all assembled. A chapter was read from the Bible, a hymn was sung, and prayer was offered. When father was away mother held the prayers. My mother lived in daily communion with God. I well remember how, one day, I came upon her engaged in private prayer down by the spring. There, unconscious of any one near, she was praying God to take care of her children and make them good men and women. Sweet mother, she seemed to me as pure and perfect as God's angels. In pious parents I had God's best gift and life's greatest opportunity -

The big wheel for spinning wool, the little wheel for flax, and the loom for weaving the cloth which clothed the family were essential to the housekeeper of those times. Our family, both parents and children, dressed in garments of jeans and lindsey, spun, woven and made up by mother. Father made the shoes for us all. I remember when father started to Conference dressed in a suit of blue jeans that mother had woven and made up. I seem to see him now as he rode away, with his high hat, long saddlebags and swallowtail coat, the skirts coming down to his stirrups. No other Methodist itinerant looked braver than he. He came back, I remember, somewhat crestfallen. Some boys, gathering chestnuts, had ran after him as he passed them in the woods, shouting, ''Yon-

14 Lights and Shadoivs of Seventy Years.

der goes long-tailed blue!" Ever after that coat was known as "long-tailed blue."

The circuit riders of those times preached nearly every day I have known a preacher to carry his hammer, awl, last and leather in his saddlebags, and sit down and peg away making shoes while the congregation came in, and economize time in the same way when he lodged in the homes of his people. Such was the custom of Clinton Kelly, my uncle, and the uncle of my talented cousin, Dr. Grilby C. Kelly, who has served many prominent city churches.

The farmers ' wives of Clif ty took up enthusiastically the raising of silk. The silk moth, which lays the eggs, can not fly. It is milk white and has a heavy body and short wings. If put upon a newspaper, when they cut out of the cocoons, the flies will not move two feet away in their life time. They eat nothing and die in a few days. But they produce hundreds of tiny eggs which stick fast upon the paper where they are deposited by the mother. These papers are put in a cool place and when the mulberry leaves, which begin to come out in the spring, provide their food, the silk worms can be hatched in a few days by putting the eggs in a warm place. The worms are placed on scaffolds and constantly supplied with fresh leaves to eat. I have gone miles on horseback, with ax and bags, cutting down mulberry trees and stripping leaves for silk worms. We learned later that bois d'arc leaves are about as good.

In a few weeks the silk worms attain their growth and wind themselves up in the cocoons. The pupa would soon turn to a moth and cut out, spoiling the silk, but a day's exposure of the cocoons in the hot sun kills them, and the balls are laid aside for reeling at convenience. Forty bushels of cocoons was the crop which one of our neighbors raised in a single season. I have seen young ladies come to church in silk dresses which they had spun, woven, cut and made up. Domestics, linens and calicos were bought; but for heavier wear the people depended on their own manufactures.

A flint, a good piece of steel, such as a rasp, and a tinder box of cotton and powder, or a piece of punk, were kept on hand for use is case the fire went out. It was quite common for the people to send for a chunk of fire to a neighbor's a mile away-

In 1849 my father sold the farm and resumed work in the Conference. He was sent to Perryville Circuit. This was in the blue grass region. Most of the farmers were slaveholders and well-to-do. I remember when we came to Perryville, the good people had a beautiful home ready for us. But father refused to live in the town. He said he would quit the ministry sooner than bring up his boys in town, with nothing to do but loiter about and learn badness.