Miss Mae, The Preacher's Widow

In life you often meet some fascinating people, and especially when you are in church circles.  One of those we met recently is a 91-year-old preacher's widow known affectionately as "Miss Mae."   Back in November, we had a wedding at our parish church, and the bride, a sweet Korean lady named Kim, had as her "maid of honor" this little 91-year-old lady (Kim is in the picture on the left above, with the beautiful traditional Korean wedding gown she made herself) that happened to be her neighbor.  Being we also took part in the wedding preparations (Barb decorated the church for the couple), I got an opportunity to chat with Miss Mae, and she was very interesting to talk to.

Miss Mae's late husband, Rev. Carl Beatty, was at one time a minister in the Free Methodist Church.  Anyone who knows me personally knows that this was one point of connection with me as well, being my family had for years attended the Free Methodist Church in my hometown of Hendricks, WV.  Unfortunately, in October 1973, Rev. Beatty's life was cut short when he was involved in a car accident with a drunk driver, and Miss Mae has been widowed since.  I was reading up a little on the Beattys and their legacy, and it turns out they were quite the pioneers in the early Free Methodist work here in the Southeast, as practically every Free Methodist congregation on the I-4 corridor here can trace its roots back to them.  They were largely instrumental back in the day for the growth of the Southeast Regional Conference of the Free Methodist Church.  Although there is some good information about his ministry at http://www.lightandlifepark.org/History/History.html, I unfortunately don't have access to a lot of photos of the early ministry and such.  Maybe later in a revision I can include some more stuff after another conversation with Miss Mae later.

Miss Mae herself was a native of Georgia, as she originally was from up around the area of Athens or Gainesville.  She attended Toccoa Falls College up there, although she tells me her education was cut short in 1941 by a little thing called Pearl Harbor.  She doesn't seem to regret that interruption, and at present she lives in a retirement park over in Winter Haven near where our own parish church is.  She has been a frequent visitor to our parish since Paul and Kim, the couple who recently got married and are her neighbors, began to be regular parishioners last year.  Miss Mae normally attends a local Baptist church (she is none too pleased with some of the modernity that the Free Methodists have embraced, and chooses not to go to a Free Methodist congregation - she is very old-school!) but we are seeing more of her recently, but that is a blessing to us.  Plus, she loves the potlucks too - that little lady does love fried chicken!

Paul and Kim, our parishioners who are Miss Mae's neighbors, love her like she was their own mother, and she reciprocates, always wanting to do things for them.   That charitable notion on her part though has led to some amusing stories.  For instance, Kim is a talented cook, seamstress, and all sorts of other things, and to aid in her culinary projects, Kim plants and grows a lot of her own produce.  One day, while doing some work around the house, Kim hears some activity outside near her vegetable patch, and she notices - to her horror! - that Miss Mae is whacking away at her napa cabbage plants.  In great panic, Kim rushes out the door and frantically asks Miss Mae, "What are you doing??" to which Miss Mae responds that Kim had some "weeds" that needed taken care of, and she thought she'd do the job.  However, the "weeds" were actually Kim's vegetables!  She is also noted for amusingly micro-managing the landscapers in the community where they all live, and for some reason she takes a pair of HUGE pruning sheers and "corrects" the landscaper's work because they didn't do it right according to her. Although probably a source of consternation to the landscapers, Miss Mae's intentions are good, and she just wants to be helpful - plus it is kind of cute to see a 91-year-old lady out there giving the landscapers grief!  Paul also noted that Miss Mae tends to have some hoarding tendencies, as she never throws anything out and her house has been described as being a combination of a museum and a warehouse.   One day, when Paul was visiting her to check on her to make sure she was OK, he had to somehow maneuver between a wall of boxes in her place to get to where he was going, and upon expressing the logistical difficulties of the passage to Miss Mae, her reply was "Don't worry about it - fatter men than you have gotten through there."  My mother, who has an interest in Free Methodist heritage herself, is interested in finding out if Miss Mae has any of the old Light and Life magazines (the official denominational organ) from years back, and my guess would be that might be highly possible - I probably will ask Miss Mae about that when I see her again to be sure though.

Being Miss Mae was also a secretary-historian for the regional Free Methodist organization, she is also a wealth of knowledge for anyone interested in the early history of this denomination in the South.  I have actually enjoyed talking with her about all that stuff, and she is quite overjoyed that someone actually knows what a Free Methodist is (many of our own parishioners, God bless them, thought Miss Mae was United Methodist, which she instantly corrected - Free Methodists and United Methodists are actually very different!) and we talk a lot about that when she visits the parish.  One day, I need to really sit down with her and get some information from her too, as much of this should be recorded in some shape or form, and she is a wealth of information.  In this day and age, with so many people squawking the mantra of "change" even in church circles, many younger people have a serious disconnect from the older generations.  It is sad too, because much of what is wrong with society today is due to the fact some younger people don't appreciate or listen to the wisdom of the old.  This is so unfortunate on so many levels because with these older folks (Miss Mae being 91 now, for instance) having only a short time to be on the earth yet, it is important to preserve the legacy they carry, because once they die that legacy is buried with them if they don't.  The purpose of me telling you stories of people like Miss Mae here is the same - it is to preserve a legacy.  Many of the other people's stories I have shared with you here in recent months have already passed on to their eternal reward, but fortunately I have a wealth of knowledge of my own I had inherited from them to aid in preserving their legacies, and that is something I hope to continue doing for a long time.  Fortunately, Miss Mae is still alive and doing very well at this point, but remember she is 91, so there is so much more of her legacy that needs to be preserved in the time she has left.

Although I have only gotten to know Miss Mae in the past year or so, she is someone you can't help but love - she is a precious lady, and I personally pray that this eccentric little Southern preacher's widow will be with us a few more years, and hopefully I can share more about her legacy later.  God bless until next time.