Page 23 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Spring 2021 - Online Magazine

I stayed with them the week Vacation Bible School was
being held. Faith roots run deep.
Our family called Dad’s mother, Ollie B. White Wilson,
Mama. Mama’s mother was Matilda Hatfield, whose
family feuded with the McCoys for a time. My grandad,
Daddy Bob, died when I was only three, so I don’t
remember him well. What I remember is what my
mother told me – Daddy Bob would drive by, see me
outside in the yard and take me in his pickup around
the farms, without informing her. It caused her a level of
consternation, but kidnapping wasn’t too prevalent back
then.
ministry. Ten days after marrying
Mama survived my grandfather by 25 years, and I, along Jody, I was appointed back to
with my siblings and cousins, have many fond memories. that same little Methodist church
She was a typical farmer’s wife who raised eight children where, for five years each Sunday,
and helped raise nineteen grandchildren. The matriarch of I had the privilege of sharing the
our clan was much-loved and venerated. She was a great gospel of Jesus. I have inherited a blessed legacy and want
cook as well and noted for her homemade rolls and sugar to hand that down to the generations following me.
cookies. It wasn’t unusual for her to prepare eight or nine
dishes for a meal and then apologize for the amount.
From the song “The Blessing” – May His favor be upon you
Mama lived in the house my granddad built, and I got to and a thousand generations – and your family and your children,
spend many nights with Mama, while my dad farmed the and their children, and their children. That is our calling for
family land. Mama had a sweet disposition and loved her these challenging times.
family devotedly. I enjoyed helping her harvest her
garden and prepare meals. I especially liked watching
her make homemade rolls, which sometimes turned
into cinnamon or chocolate rolls. I was blessed to
witness her simple, gentle faith up close. She died in
the same hospital just hours after our twins were born,
and she was informed of their birth. It was as if she
was saying, “I’m leaving and making room for two
more Wilsons.”

Although I don’t have many memories of my
granddad, he left quite a legacy. Daddy Bob, Robert
Elton Wilson, was a farmer; he helped establish
the co-op hospital in Hale Center, was active in
the establishment of co-op gins in Hale Center and
Petersburg and was a Hale County commissioner.
That house that he built for his family was the house
in which I started out with my family and farmed
the land he had originally bought. He was Sunday
School superintendent at Lakeview Methodist Church,
six miles west of Petersburg, and later at Petersburg
Methodist Church. His name was engraved on the
corner of that sanctuary when it was built in 1948, and
a stained-glass window bears the Wilson name, as
well.
I am part of a living legacy of the generations
preceding me. From those who have lent me their
genes, I have experienced love, laughter, and faith.
Now it is a big part of my own legacy. When I moved
back to the farm, my first wife and I joined that little
Methodist Church in Petersburg and eighteen years
later, that church body sent me into the pastoral

Amarillo Senior Link 23