Chickamauga Chapter Has 4 First Place Wins In DAR Heritage Contest

The Chickamauga Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution had four first-place wins in the Tennessee State, NSDAR Division of the annual NSDAR American Heritage contest.

The winners will advance to the national level to compete with other division winners. 

The theme of this year’s competition is “Moving Family Traditions Forward with the Arts”.

Carol Rogers won in the Miscellaneous Fiber Arts category for her pillow “Remembering Jimmy”, crafted from pieces of her late brother’s clothing. Shelia Nelson’s original story “Revival at Hoot Holler Church” celebrating her family’s storytelling tradition, won first place in the Literature and Drama/ Fiction Short Story or Narrative category. Judith Hepplewhite’s intricate knitted cape “Encircled”, featuring a stylized DAR logo, won first place in the Knitting category.  The first-place award in the Cross Stitch and Needlepoint category “Shoes from 1890”, is a needlepoint piece researched, drawn and stitched by Mary Bob Hagmann, honoring the founding of the NSDAR in 1890.  

For more information see the Chickamauga Chapter, NSDAR website at www.tndar.org/~chickamauga. 

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Sheila Nelson's entry: 

 

I’ve been listening to stories all my life. My first memories are of sitting on my grandparent’s front porch, listening to my people talk.  Aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, cousins, visiting distant and not-so-distant relatives---all had a story to tell. And they told them well enough that I can remember most of them fifty years later.  

As the years passed, I noticed after a family dinner was eaten the men moved into the living room, to talk about work, sports, hunting… 

...but the women stayed in the kitchen to clear the table, wash the dishes, divide the leftovers….and tell stories. This was as good as the dinner itself and oh! how I looked forward to it!!! They wove tales about life in general, kinfolk that had lived and died, strange occurrences that bordered on the supernatural, Bible interpretations, and yes, a little bit of local gossip.  Sometimes the stories were scary, sometimes hilarious, sometimes reflective, and sometimes without a proper ending….and always spoken in the cadence and dialect of Southeast Tennessee Twang. It IS our mother tongue.  I love these stories and I love these women.   

This is my family’s art. Storytelling. And the women excelled at it. They still do. To this day we gather at my grandparent’s house, where my Mother now lives, and we sit on her porch and we eat in her dining room and we tell stories.  

My submission  “Revival at Hoot Holler Independent Church” is based on a true story told by my Aunt Martha long ago during a summer evening spent on my grandparent’s porch.  

Revival at Hoot Holler Independent Church 
By Shelia Parker Nelson 

I always did like to go to a good church service.  Every weekend me and Margaret Ann would drive over towards the ridges, lookin’ to see if some little old church was a’havin’ a revival.  It was good to sit in the house of God after workin’ all week.   Sometimes I’d slide my shoes off during the singin’.  It felt s’good to work my toes and if the choir cut loose on Heaven’s Jubilee, my toes got some good exercise!  

They was one time when Hoot Holler Independent Church was a’havin’ a mid-week revival and me and Margaret Ann took a notion t’go.  Hoot Holler had the best choir you ever heard. They sang them old convention-style gospel songs out of the red-back Church Hymnal and their four-part harmony would come in so clear and sounded good to my ears! The sopranos was airy-like, liftin’ their notes to the ceiling and the altos would sing middlin’ notes, partin’ the hair on the top of your head. The tenors would hit you in the kneecaps and then here come the basses, makin’ that old tongue’n groove floor rumble under our feet. Ever’body would clap their hands durin’ singin’ time—and we left our earthy cares behind us for a little while.  

Plate-passin’ time come around after the last choir song. Me and Margaret Ann always give a dollar each. Yes, I think the gospel is free, but somebody’s got to pay the light bill and it’s nice to have a bathroom inside the church house. Well, we give our dollars and we settled ourselves down, waitin’ for the visitin’ preacher to come bring the message.  

The pastor led us in prayer and we prayed for them that couldn’t be at the revival because they was sick and afflicted, and then we prayed for the missionaries around the world and then he said to raise up your hand if you had lost loved ones that needed to be saved. I raised my hand 
and I could hear other hands going up. Ain’t it funny how you can hear people’s hearts in that holy time of prayer?  We prayed that we would be revived and the pastor declared ‘amen’ and we all ‘amen’d’ after him.  

Then he introduced us to the revival preacher. He was an older man, but looked to be right spry from the way he hopped up to the pulpit. His hair was white, just as white as it could be and he had a lot of it too, it put me in the mind of a big white cloud. His blue eyes were deep-set and sparkly and he had the air of a joyful man.   

He said he was glad to be there and then he read his text from the book of James.  I always did like the book of James. You know James was the Lord’s earthy brother and his book teaches about facin’ trials and temptations and not bein’ stuck-up and givin’ all of yourself to God and doin’ good works and takin’ care of widows and orphans and bridlin’ your tongue. More people ought to read it and study on it.  

Well, I knew this was goin’ to be a good sermon! I looked over at Margaret Ann and she nodded her head. She likes the book of James too.  And, sure enough, that revival preacher had barely got started preachin’ before the amens started! Ever’body was agreein’ with him on ever’thing he was preachin’! And I did too, but I didn’t ‘amen’ out loud. Margaret Ann did though. She don’t hold with a woman keepin’ quiet in church.  

Well, the revival preacher was preachin’ real hard on the fourth chapter. It’s the one about quarrelin’ and fightin’ amongst each other. It says not to speak evil one of another and not to judge your brother. The revival preacher was bearin’ down on how we ought to treat each other and his blue eyes was a’blazin’ with the Truth and his voice was like a gentle thunder. 

Well, I was a’listenin’ with my whole heart. I was so intent on what he was sayin’ that it startled me when I saw somethin’ come flyin’ over the pulpit and land in the middle of the aisle, about halfway down the church. I leaned over and saw his teeth a’layin’ there on the floor. 

That revival preacher didn’t miss a lick. He kept on a’preachin’ and people acted like there never was a set of false teeth come flyin’ out of a preacher’s mouth to land on the floor. They didn’t bat an eye when he strode out from behind the pulpit, waving his big, worn Bible while tellin’ us to “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.” 

He walked down the aisle towards his teeth, never lookin’ down, but instead raisin’ his Bible and preachin’ the Word. He reached down and picked up his teeth, put them in his coat pocket and preached all the way back to the pulpit, never once loosin’ his place or his dignity. 

Well, he ended his sermon and we had altar call and there was a lot of people on their knees askin’ God to forgive them for backbitin’ their brothers and sisters and thankin’ God for this vapor of a life He give to us. 

Me and Margaret Ann both shook his hand when we left. His joyful blue eyes looked at us, full of the love of God. And he’d put his teeth back in. We didn’t talk about it on the way home. I was beginnin’ to think maybe I had imagined his teeth flyin’ over the pulpit, to land on the floor not three feet from me.  

When we finally go to my house and I opened the car door to get out Margaret Ann said to me, “You reckon that kind of thing happens has happened to him before? He acted like nothin’ happened.” And I studied on it for a little bit and I said to her “Well, I believe it was like he told us from the Bible tonight. ‘Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.’ I 
reckon he was being lifted up so much that it didn’t bother him at all to see his teeth a’lyin’ there on the floor.” 

Well, we went to Hoot Holler Independent Church revivals for many years afterwards, but we never did hear that old preacher preach the Word again. He went on to Glory just a couple of weeks after preachin’ so hard that his teeth come out. I like to think of him stridin’ down them streets of gold, never once fearin’ that he’ll lose his teeth while shoutin’ hallelujahs to the King of Kings.