<TITLE>26. Par 97-101</TITLE>L-97 So then a woman stepped up from up around somewhere way up in the northern part of Michigan. She was with the Indians. She said, "I just know.. while you were preaching, the Lord told me that you should come and help me up there with the Indians."
I said, "Just a minute. Let me get a piece of paper." And I went to writing down these names and addresses. And my, I had a string of them that long, last me a year. My, was I happy. Out of there I went, jumped in my old Ford, and down the road we went to Jeffersonville as hard as we could go, sixty miles an hour: thirty this way and thirty up-and-down that way, just as hard as he could go, right down the road a flying as hard as we could, to go to Jeffersonville.
I jumped out of the car, as my wife, always, she come, run to meet me. And she said, "What you so happy about?"
I said, "Honey, you just don't realize." I said, "I met the happiest people in the world."
She said, "Well, where they at?"

L-98 I told her all about them. And I said, "Looky here. Let me show you something. You wouldn't believe that this preacher boyfriend of yours, looky here. All them people asked me, this whole line, down through Texas, Louisiana, and everywhere, come preach for them. See there?" I said, "I prayed all night under a cherry tree out there, and God told me..."
Said, "What kind... what do they act like?"
I said, "Oh, don't ask me." I said, "They just act any way."
And so she said, "Oh, my." Said... She said...
I said, "And they asked me to go. I'm going to quit my job and go to preaching right out with them, leave my church."
She said, "Well..."
I said, "Will you go with me?"

L-99 God bless her heart. She said, "I'll promise to go with you anywhere, and I will go anywhere that you go." That's a real wife. She's in her grave today, but still I'm glad that I can say this, and her son, her and my son standing, listening. His mother was a queen.
And I--I said, "Well, look," I said, "We..." I said, "We'll tell our parents."
I went and told mama, I said, "Mama, looky here." And I told her about the people.
She said, "You know what?" She said, "Billy, a long time ago, down in Kentucky, we had what they all call the old Lone Star Baptist." And said, "And they used to shout and scream, and carry on like that." She said, "That's real heartfelt religion."
I said, "That's what I believed in all my life." And I said, "You ought to see them."
She said, "Well, the... I trust that God will bless you, Bill."
And I said, "All right." So we went to tell her mother then.

L-100 And during this time, her mother and father had separated. And I said... We went to tell her mother. And I said, "Mrs.--Mrs. Brumbach," I said, "I--I have found the wonderful people," like that.
And she was setting on the porch, you know. Now, don't get mad at me if you're here. So she said... She was setting on the porch fanning. She said, "William, I will give you to understand; I will never give my daughter permission to go out with a bunch of holy-rollers like that." Oh, my. She said, "That bunch of trash..." Said, "She'd never have a decent dress to put on her back."
I said, "Well, Mrs. Brumbach, it isn't a dress proposition." I said, "The thing of it is, is that I feel that God wants me to do it."

L-101 And she said, "Look, why don't you go up there at the church where you have got a congregation coming, and think about getting yourself a parsonage and a place to take your wife and the baby to, and instead of pulling her out: today she's got something to eat, and tomorrow she's got nothing, and things like this." She said, "Never indeed, will I ever permit my daughter to go like that. And if she does go, her mother will go to a grave broken hearted."
And Hope said, "Mama, do you mean that?"
And she said, "That's just what I mean." That settled it.
Hope started crying. I put my arm around her and walked away. I said, "But Mrs. Brumbach, she's my wife."
She said, "But she's my daughter."
Said, "Yes, ma'am."


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