I'll never forget Spring 1946. I was 14, my little sister, Ocy, 12, and my older sister, Darlene, 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was like to do without many things.
My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946, my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home.
A month before Beltain, the pastor of the local church sent door to door in the neighborhood for a special Easter offering that would be taken to help a poor selected family from everyone in the area. He also asked everyone in his parish during services to save and give sacrificially, the collection would be taken the day before Easter..
We talked about what we could do as Pagans. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering.
Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us baby-sat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders.
That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. There were about 80 people in that church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be at least 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday their Pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.
The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before.
That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new things for Beltain; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to that church to present our offering!
On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet, but we sat in the back of the church proudly, despite how we looked. I heard some teenagers talking about the us dressing in old rags, and saying how only Christians were welcome here not some Pagan trash. I looked at them with their hate and sitting there in their new clothes, and I felt so rich.
When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting in the second row from the back. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us girls put in a $20. As we walked home from the church, we sang all the way. At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled eggs with our fried potatoes!
Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 bill, and seventeen $1 bills.
Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, but instead, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.
We kids had had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our mom and dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we passed around to whoever needed them.
I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That Beltain I found out we were poor. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.
I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn't want to be seen by anyone who went to that church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time.
We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed.
All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know.
We'd never known we were poor.
We decided, though we are Pagan, to go back to that church on Sunday, Mom thought that was a good idea. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse.
At the church we sat again in the back as a missionary spoke. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they need money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?"
We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering plate.
When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this area."
Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the area. Hadn't the missionary said we were rich?
Deep down, I knew that we were actually a rich family. Remember that rich and poor are things of the heart and soul. To be truly rich, you must have love of your neighbors, whether they be Christian, Jewish, Muslim etc. My family loved each other and everyone else they met along the way.
We visited that church each year at Beltain thereafter, to give to the truly poor, those with no love in their hearts. No willingness to give to others without thought to their faith and stature.
Submitted By: Anthony Miller
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