ELLIS W. WADE

Don't paint my life rosy and bright. Many were the struggles. Many the strife. Many were the hardships. By day and usually carried on all night.

Starting to pull the old cross-cut saw all the day long at age 8 or 9 while older brother Leon had money for nice blocks of chewing gum, running free and no work at home. (Daddy is referring to his half-brother, Leon Wade who inherited land from his mother who died at early age and never shared a cent with his family even as a child). Seemed if there was a word toward us--it was a hard word.

Then at age eleven with a flour sack full of cantaloupes on my back walking to Gilmer, going door to door selling the nice melons. I did not spend my very hard-earned money on candy. But soon Mama would come so pitiful to borrow a nickle or a dime. Never a way to repay me in money. But I learned the seriousness of the need to help my family and did help them as long as either of them lived on this earth. Often giving when I had nothing to give. But in it all the Lord regave to me in so many ways.

Yes, at age eleven I was using two mules and a middle buster plow in the field. The old bottom gumbo mud and grass on the plow point and having to stop the mules, pull the plow (extra heavy) and back the mules up to get the plowpoint into the ground again would just about be more than I could do.

At home, dried blackeyed peas with no taste. Mom had no meat to give it seasoning. Long since had the one hog been used and gone. No ice. No reserve of butter. Never scarcely ANY butter. Hardly any milk. Mom and Dad going without that us children could have milk--never cold. Old waterbread cornbread with coarse home-grown corn meal three times a day with no taste to it scarcely at all--sure did get old. No syrup. No preserves. No biscuits for weeks at a time. Work hard, stay home. Too tired to walk to the neighbor's house to play. Just work and rest because the next day was another hard day of work.

School started after crops was in. Cotton picked. Short school terms.

More every year. Have to fix the yard fence, garden fence with palens Daddy would rive with the Froe--hand made. Make hog pin. Fix cow pin. Fix barn and work all winter getting ready to start cotton crop early spring. Old farm land poor. Move every year. Behind in school always. New school each year. New brats to call me "Red"--and I hated that. They called me bean pole and I hated that. Called me freckles and I hated that. Because I was tall and skin and bones only--I was called search light and that really did me in. I often tried to chase the larger brats and hit them and they loved that because they could be mean to a smaller kid.

Had very few marbles. Did not have the money for that. The game of marbles was popular in those days. I don't think I had a spinning top. That cost money. Old overalls with galluses over the shoulders, usually striped.

Many times I was sent to the meadow on the Pounds Farm to drive the two mules up to the house for the work day. It was a hard one miles down one way, the meadow covered thirty inches and often higher in grass. I would get the mules almost to the neck of the lane and they would break and run as hard as they could run to the back side again.

And often run back several times with me running with all my strength to try to head them off from the back of the meadow. But me 11 or 12 years old, they could out-do me.

Then when the crazy old mules got to the cotton field they could barely creek along. They had run at breakneck speed what seemed to be half the morning. No wonder they could not pull the plow. The crazy things was run to death of their own making.

When I chased the mules and was late Dad always understood. Never one time with a word of scolding to me for being late. He knew I had done my best and that was all it was to it. Never one word of scolding about being late.

Meat was scarce and nothing to eat but those blackeyed peas and hotwater cornbread and after a whole winter that would get awful old. Dad made rabbit gum, take a hollow tree 30" long with a trap door and trigger set with a sweet potato bait inside and if there was a large swamp rabbit we would get him. We kept count one winter and caught 39. Thirty-nine nice rabbits. When there is not a bite of meat anywhere and dry peas is all there was that rabbit, the way mother fixed it with gravy, was really a treat to hungry country folks. Maybe if we were lucky enough to buy a 48 pound sack of flour for 98 cents we lived good with those biscuits my mother made. She made the best I ever did eat on earth. She made them with her fingers squeezing and mixing the dough. She sure did know how. That evened with thicken-gravy especially if Mom had home-made chili sauce and hot biscuits and gravy. Then we lived like a king.

After high school in 1939 there was not one penny anyplace to be made. I remember telling Moma if she did not give me one dime (for a picture show) I was going to leave home. Getting about fifty yards she called me back for the dime.

Later that summer Hal Bonner and I went west to pick cotton. We rode a freight train from Gilmer to Big Sandy, going to ride further but the train came through non-stop and waited long hours before the next freight train. Finally we went on Highway 80 to Terrell, a long ways out and a Mr. H.P. McGuire, Route 3, Terrell (about 12 miles northwest) saw us on the street and asked if we was going to pick cotton. Hal stayed at their house I think 3 or maybe 4 days. I stayed several weeks. We made 50 cents per 100 pounds of cotton picked. One Saturday late PM Mr. McGuire came from town and I was still picking. He was going to give me a raise to 55 cents per 100 pounds. I picked 288, my best day and I sure did my best.

The old water in the field with a toe sack around a one-gallon jar carried an old sour drinking water. Sure was hot and a dose to drink--that old sour hot water. The heat was hot and got hotter each day.

Cotton was half knee-high and not filled out good at all. I can still see the old scorched field with the blazing heat. Bent over all day. On knees once in a while to rest a little. But cotton so sorry you couldn't pick very little on your knees.

I came home for the weekend and Dad told me about the CCC Camp. $8.00 a month for me and $22.00 for my family and I entered in the fall of 1939. $2 a week! Not one penny from home. Entered Army Air Force November 6, 1941 for $21 a month. Insurance for $5,000 was $3.50 per month, laundry sent out $1.50 per week. So was again a hard old go of things. Not many 10 cent movies after paying insurance and laundry.

In the CCC Camp I chopped brush in the forest so if there was a fire it would not burn so high in the forest. Now that on hot days walking day after day chopping with an ax was about the most dreaded work I ever did.

Somehow I got reassigned as a carpenter-helper at Tyler State Park at the bath house. I loved that! Then soon was appointed camp carpenter. That was a very fine job. Doing plumbing, painting, general maintenance work. I loved that. Later went on detached duty to 14 camps to sand the recreation hall floors. This again was a fine job. I sure did like it. While in North Texas headquarters of Forth Worth I visited Aunt Lois Roland on St. Louis Avenue, just a medium distance east of Fort Worth. She told me to go to the Acme Floor Company on Hemphill and work, which I did. I lived with her and Cathleen. I was sanding floors for 25 cents an hour. I told old Mr. Butcher I would quit or get a raise. So I got 30 cents an hour. I worked all over Forth Worth and loved it. One night I sanded tops of tables for the Pangburn Candy Company. I never had seen any of those fine candies in my life. We ate and ate and stuffed our pockets all full of fine candy and enjoyed this immensely.

Leaving Fort Worth in mid-August, 1941 for North Texas Teachers College, I worked in the maintenance department for 50 cents an hour any hour I could be off. Roomed on northwest corner of the campus in a fraternity house (me not in club) for $5 a month. For $14 a month I got 3 meals a day in a cafe right there 1/4 block from my room. After school started I was going to be drafted and I changed my studies to pre-Air Force coursework. Two weeks after school started, me two weeks behind, I did not have a dog's chance.

I hitchhiked home sometime on Highway 80 off East Grand. Would be twenty hitchhikers and maybe work my way back up to the top of the line and finally get a ride. One night I slept at a little town, probably Wills Point, in a bus station chair. They saw my college bag with North Texas on it and let it go by. Next morning early I was on the road again and caught a ride on in home. Another time, I know this was Wills Point on the east side with one Y of the road going toward Tyler--one on to Shreveport on Highway 80. No cars, no ride, I slept behind shrubs in the fork of the road. No one seemed to notice. No one seemed to care. Next morning I caught on into Gladewater and on to East Mountain. Sure looked good. I went to see Old Man Sid Martin at First National Bank about a student deferment. Earlier while working for Acme Floor Company I was in San Sabath County sanding a fine resort home and registered for the draft. In my records it always showed San Sabath County. Never there before and I don't guess since. But had doctor exam for service (compulsory) at Denton. Things was bad. I was failing about all my subjects in school.

The sixth of November, 1941 I enlisted in the Air Force at the Dallas Post Office. Had to pay 50 cents for a cot under the staircase the fifth and go back the sixth to leave out for Fort Sill, Oklahoma at Laughton. I don't remember much there. We must have been confined to camp without leave all the time. Soon to Biloxi, Mississippi for bootcamp. While in a beautiful park on the air base one Sunday afternoon at 3:30 PM (December 7, 1941) I was told of the war while a young private in the park.

April 22, 1988, Night

The first night this year for the whip-o-will to sing. It is so peaceful to hear his soft call. The whip-o-will calls so sweetly long until late hours of the night and seems to be a song of peacefulness.

Back on the farm as a youngster after the one hog was fed and chickens gone to roost, cows (usually one) was milked, two mules fed, Mom, Dad and Sis and me and baby Truman all had supper and would sit out on the front gallory. Then the peaceful call of the whip-o-will so sweet. Supper usually at our house was cold coarse cornbread--no taste scarcely at all. If a little milk for us children then none for Dad or Mom. Cold blackeyed peas, not a delicacy. It was only the means of survival. No meat even to season the blackeyed peas. That was a hard old go--when it was endless years and always the same old thing to eat. Never enough milk. Never enough eggs. Never enough a start of enough meat with one hog for a whole year. People remember the good old days but they were hard old days for US.

I was pulling the old cross-cut saw with Dad on one end of the handle when I was very small. I must have been 9 years old.

Using the heavy middlebuster-breaking plow with two mules some of the time at 11 years of age--was the hardest work I ever did in my life. Not all good old days.

I seemed to be tired a lot even as a small boy. We worked long, hard hours. Picking cotton. Boy, hot was no word for it. Not all good old days.

INTERESTING POINTS ON CLARK FIELD (MANILA, PHILIPPINES)

I was a long-long way from home. Homesick was no word for it. At Clark Field a short ways from Manila we were not yet (1945 early summer--late spring) assigned to a unit. We were sent out daily to a clean-up detail near many many crashed airplanes. We would pick up trash, etc. That is not the point. As stated above I was at the bottom of despair. A fine young man on the work detail would tell me day by day, in fact, if he did not tell me I would ask him each day to tell me in detail about his plans for a farm when he returned home from the war. He would tell in detail this part of his farm or that part of his farm. Now to someone home and busy daily and enjoying his or her life they would never know what I am talking about. But somehow for this fine young soldier to tell me each day about his farm was a great help to me as I was in such lonely despair.

Little did I know for one year after my return from overseas I would farm. Mr. Cliff, Mrs. Vida kept us, Rosedyne and I for $25 per month. I got $90 per month from the government for farming. So we made it well as far as money. Poor little Deanie was in a body cast on I suppose 2/3 or maybe 3/4 of her body for much of this time.

Day-by-day I would go plow and work on the farm. Love the call of the cardinal bird. Have a good time just being free and home. The sweet sound daily of the forest, the sprouting of seed and growing big fine ears of corn. Many times I wished I could have afforded to farm all the years. But had to survive for more money than a farm would pay.

Good years but many ups and downs. Many times more downs than ups. I would never wish to go back and relive all the hard years.

MESSAGE GIVEN BY ELLIS W. WADE AT PITTSBURG CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE IN EARLY 1969

One rainy day in town I was wrapped with overcoatvand slicker and a little old man so cheerfully asked me if I thought if the weather would ever be better--Then he added a lady lost her husband and said it could be worse.  Then I thought, yes it could be worse with you having me this morning but HOW???

Brother Bennett said when he got up to preach once he went blank and couldn't remember what his notes meant. Then today lest I forget and not remember my notes I wrote word for word or almost so what I am to say lest I forget.

Scripture Psalms 96 in Part

I wish to speak to you about the Lord this morning. If I should brag it is only to brag on the Lord. Paul said for me to live is Christ.  I will try to speak about PAST PRESENT FUTURE.

My parents and grandparents were not rich in earthly goods but very rich in HEAVENLY THINGS:

1. I sought the Lord early in life.
2. I was hungry for the Lord when I was young, as far back as I can remember.
3. In 1934 I was hungry for the Lord. A man went home with us from church and told me John 3:16 and other verses.

SEEK THE LORD WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND

I found the Lord:  Then I knew about sadness in going overseas.   Then I learned more than almost 20 years ago the blessings of TITHING. What a blessing it can be to anyone.

SONG: HIDDEN PEACE (Page 133)

I cannot tell thee whence it came. This peace within my breast;
but this I know, there fills my soul, a strange and tranquil rest.

Chorus:

There's a deep settled peace in my soul.
There's a deep settled peace in my soul.
Tho' the billow of sin near me roll,
He abides. Christ abides.

I cannot tell thee why He chose to suffer and to die,
but if I suffer here with him I'll reign with Him on High. Chorus

Song Sung by Mr. & Mrs. E. W. Wade (HOLY TO THE SON OF GOD)

I went to a city called Glory
so bright and so fair.
When I entered the gates I cried Holy,
the angels all met me there.

They carried me from mansion to mansion
and oh, the sights I saw.
I said I want to see Jesus
the One who died for all.

I thought when I saw my Savior
O, Oh Glory to God.
I just fell right down before him
singing prayers to the name of the Lord.

I bowed down and worshipped Jehovah
My friend from Calvary.
For I wanted to give prayers to Jesus,
For saving a sinner like me.

Then I bowed on my knees and cried Holy, cried Holy, cried Holy.
Sang Glory, sang Glory, Glory to the son of God.
I went from mansion to mansion and saw:

Uncle Frank Wade: Saying as he died:
Look at the waving grass outside,
The Wheat is Waving.
IT IS WAVING UP TO GLORY.
THAT IS GLORY and slipped out to be with God.

Uncle Chester Wade: Said as he died,

LOOK, The Train is coming for me to carry me to Glory,
It is stopping,
Get on,
ALL ABOARD,
GOODBYE.

And went to be with God in Glory.

Grandpa Whit Wade: While dying he sent for two men, one a friend and the other a doctor and on his deathbed told them to be saved. He repeated as he died THERE IS REALTY IN SALVATION.
Clapped his hands and
Shouted his way into heaven.
Clapped his hands and went to be with God.

ORIS LANGFORD: Sang Amazing Grace so sweet.

Couldn't work on the church like I could but so anxious that he would stand and hand me nails so I could do more.

SONG SUNG BY ELLIS & ROSEDYNE

Heaven is a beautiful place with Golden Streets and walls of Jasper and Gates of Pearl.
No sadness, sorrow, disappointment or anything to mar the beauty there.
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
The glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow with erase.
So bravely run the race til we see Christ.
In the Resurrection Morning when the trump of God shall sound,
We shall rise, we shall rise.
Then the Saints all come rejoicing and no tears will er' be found,
We shall rise, we shall rise.
We shall rise, hallelujah, we shall rise, Amen.
In the resurrection morning, when death's prison bars are broken.
We shall rise. We shall rise.

ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH OF WHITFIELD A. WADE

Whitfield Wade loved his children and it was while visiting one of his children he became sick. The sickness was severe and from it he never recovered. Unlike today there was no medicine to dull the senses as death approached and Whit used his last hours to their fullest. From his deathbed he called in his children one at a time, from the oldest to the youngest. To each one he addressed their particular problems and how they could correct those problems. He told them of their weaknesses in life. This is similar to the account of Jacob in the Bible calling in his children and giving them instructions.

Whit called his son, Harvey S. Wade, into the room. He sat him next to him on the old rickety bed and in a weakened voice told him that his weakness was that he would take and take something until he would get too mad. His anger would by that time be too severe. Whit advised not to let anger build up for such a long time.

He called for two of the leading men in the community, one a medical doctor--not as a physician but to try to lead him to the Lord. The doctor was probably Dr. Carson of Rosewood. He also called in a Mr. Musick, likewise as a friend to instruct him in the way of salvation and encouraging both men to become a Christian.

His final hours were fleeting. Many neighbors and relatives had gathered about and many years later a cousin, Loyd Knight, told Ellis Wade of the experiences of that day.

Whit said "I am getting cold up to my ankles." He called in yet another of his children for their talk. In a little while he said "I'm cold up to my knees." All through his instructions to his children he repeated over and over to them and to all around him "THERE IS REALITY IN SALVATION." Minutes would pass and another child would leave the room and he would say "I'm cold up to my thighs," and as life was draining from his body he continued to talk with his children. He knew he was dying. After completing his instructions to his children in his final praise for God he raised himself straight up in the bed, clapped his hands, shouted, and went to be with God. He literally shouted his way into heaven.

Whitfield Wade was preceded in death by two of his sons, Frank and Chester. The strength of their religious faith was shown also in their deaths. As Frank was dying he peered across the bed and out the window at the grass blowing in the breeze. He said "The wheat is waving. It is waving to glory. THAT IS GLORY! And slipped from life to live with God eternally.

Chester Wade faced death similarly. In his last minutes he said, "Look! The train is coming for me to carry me to Glory! It is stopping. Get on board. All aboard! Goodbye," and went to be with God in glory.

Years later Harvey Wade approached the end of his life almost ninety-seven years old. He had spent his entire life teaching the good news of Jesus Christ and living a Christian life. Unable to walk himself he was brought in by wheelchair into each Sunday church service, and with all his strength he sang the old song "I'm in the glory land way." "Heaven is nearer and the way groweth clearer and I'm in the glory land way."

He joined his children and grandchildren in song, prayer, and praise and left this life as he lived it praising God.

With his son, Ellis, in the room moments before his death, unable to talk, with all his might raised himself upward on his deathbed to let him know that he knew that his son was there.

One decade later it was Ellis Wade on his deathbed. His children were called near 4:00 am and he was near death upon arrival. His breathing was shallow but our presence seemed to bring him back. But coming back was the last thing he wanted.

He called over and over for "Roman." For hours he called out for Roman. We asked if he wanted Romans read. But he called for Roman. I feel he was calling for his guardian angel whom had walked with him into heaven. He had already been to paradise and returning to this old painful earth was more than he could bear. Tears streamed from his eyes as he called for Roman. Throughout the day I would say "It is well" and he would respond "with my soul," referring to one of his favorite songs as well as his personal testimony.

I think he was brought back that day to minister to his children the way Grandpa Whit Wade ministered to his children.

The day was long as again and again he called for Roman. Danny, Joy and I were all in the room. He could not raise a hand, open an eye, and breathing was again very shallow. I knew his time was near. Then suddenly he rose straight up in the bed. His eyes were bright and shining. He was smiling in near rapture. He raised his arm and pointed back behind me and above my head toward the window and said "the Lord is here!" and fell back into the bed to speak no more on this old earth.

Somehow he hung on to life and my wife, Cathy, and I went home for rest. It had been a very long difficult day. I was exhausted and lay down on my bed and no sooner than my head hit the pillow I heard a voice as clear and as real as any voice I've ever heard. It was the voice of our Precious Jesus Christ--I have no doubt who was speaking to me and He said "my child, this very moment he is with Me in paradise!" Those words were so real I thought a good long while about them and their meaning until exhaustion prevailed and I drifted to sleep only to be awakened by a call from Danny and Joy telling me that Daddy had indeed left this old world. But as he left Daddy wanted to send a message and again to reassure each of us that:

THERE IS REALITY IN SALVATION!