Alone On A Limb: For Sister Number Five

Thursday, July 28, 2022

For Sister Number Five

Daddy had just graduated from Asbury College that Spring. During the summer he had moved his five children, pregnant wife, and a small trailer load of belongings from Mackville, Kentucky to Griffin, Georgia. He had enrolled in Emory University's Candler School of Theology and accepted an appointment from the North Georgia Conference of The Methodist Church. Daddy would serve Midway, Sunnyside, and Vaughn churches near Griffin. Our modest, and might-as-well-say-it, sort of rundown parsonage was at 333 South Ninth Street.

Santa arrived with our Christmas present a few days early that year at the Griffin/Spaulding County Hospital. Mother held a beautiful little girl, my fifth sister, up to the window so we could see her on December 19.

You gotta admit, that's a cute baby cleaned up for Olan Mills...

... or cleaning up the icing spoons and bowls for Mama.

The whole family for Christmas. This must have been 1955 when Beth
would have been a few days past her first birthday.

When I think of little Beth I think of what a cutie she was and I think of fishing. I think of the day most of the family climbed into that '54 blue and white BelAir to head to a lake for a day of fishing. Hot and tired and six of us, at least, if not all eight, were riding back from the lake when somehow Beth got a fish hook embedded in her earlobe! A few years later, when we were on another fishing outing in a trout stream (maybe Noontooley?) a very surprised Beth reeled in a Hellbender!

Another Olan Mills picture taken at Belk Gallant department store in Griffin about 1958.

This Olan Mills shot was taken in a second story studio on the square in Ellijay about 1960.

This snapshot was taken the front yard of our parsonage on Dalton Street in Ellijay about 1960.

Mother used those Olan Mills coupons... maybe 1962?

I sometimes fought with my closest sister, Carol. Maybe even with Debbie occasionally. But little Beth could do no wrong in my book. She was only ten when I went off to college.

A school pic. I wonder what grade -- I'd guess about fourth.

I took this sideways picture of Beth in the yard of Trinity's parsonage on Timothy Avenue in Rome.

Two more of my pictures of Beth...

... in the yard at Trinity's parsonage.

Beth and a couple of her buddies on a Trinity church school outing
to the Pocket in northern Floyd County.

Beth's Sunday School class at Trinity, Easter 1964.

A picture we printed ourselves of Beth in the yard in Rome.

Our family did a lot of camping. L-R: Terry, David, Beth.

Sometime in there she became a wonderful singer. When Sheila and I wrote our vows and planned our wedding ceremony we definitely wanted her to sing. It was almost a Beth Shaw concert. She sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", and "Follow Me" -- yes it was a 70s wedding.

Now, sixty-seven years after that day in December 1954 when Mother held that pretty little baby up to the window, Sharlyn Beth Shaw is going through some rough times. But she is a strong and determined woman, and she will do it.

I thought this would be good time to share some random pictures of her and hers; maybe she will enjoy seeing these during her recovery.