VII

 

 

 

      

 

      THE PRESENT GENERATION

 

MY FATHER, MOTHER AND FAMILY

 

           

My father, Herbert Joel Bolender, was born August 15, 1890. Herbert, his sister Josie and their brother Harry, attended Penn Academy together. They walked one and one-third miles each way to school. When they transferred to high school in Felicity, they took the horse and buggy.   Josie, upon graduating from high school, attended normal school at Miami College, before teaching  at Maple Dell School.  Harry was one of her students there. When she transferred to the Penn Academy. Harry transferred as well but he did not graduate from high school in Felicity. Instead he enrolled at God’s Bible School in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he was still age 16.  Up to that time, he was the youngest person ever to be accepted in their ministerial training course.

 

Around 1909 Herbert also enrolled at God’s Bible School. He caught typhoid fever during his first semester there and decided to return home to the farm in order to recuperate. After recovery he never returned to the Bible School. Instead, he took the examination and obtained his State Teacher’s License. One of the ten questions on this test was, "Name all the bones in the human body and spell them correctly." After passing the test, he taught in a one-room schoolhouse at Bee Run Creek.

 

Herbert married Genevieve Gertrude Love Conley on December 23, 1919.  Gertrude was born May 8, 1899 at Pt. Pleasant, West Virginia, to Jesse Boston Love and Mary Mendana Dawson Love. Gertrude’s father, Jesse, was a farmer.  When Gertrude was two years old, Jesse, her father drowned while swimming in the Ohio River.  Her mother, Mary Love, wanted Gertrude to have a better chance in life, so she allowed Mr. and Mrs. O. W. Conley of Middletown, Ohio , to adopt Gertrude when she was eight years old. In later years, my mother told my sister Eleanor that she remembered her foster mother, Mrs Conley, had once worked as a cook in a lumber camp for a time.  Mr. Conley worked in the steel mill there in Middletown.  After graduating from Middletown High School my mother worked in a bicycle factory called 'Raycycle.'         After marriage Herbert and Gertrude lived on the farm with his parents, John Jacob and Sylvia.  Herbert helped his dad with the orchard and farm duties.

         

As a boy Herbert had attended the Methodist Church in Felicity. He told us about his Sunday School teacher who would stand outside on the steps of the church at intermission time between Sunday School and the worship service, chewing tobacco and telling dirty jokes. Daddy never heard the way of salvation taught or preached there.

         

When Herbert was about 21 years old, an evangelist came to Felicity, pitched a big tent and held revival services. The salvation message was preached and holy living emphasized. Herbert went forward to commit his life to Jesus Christ and found inner peace and joy.  He was eager to share the good news with others. A few nights later a young man staggered into the meeting under the influence of alcohol. His name was Charles B. Fugett, the town drunk. When the invitation was given to come forward to make a commitment, Herbert approached 'C. B.,' as he was called, asking, “Would you like to go forward to give your life to Jesus?  Jesus loves you.” C. B. didn’t respond that night but the words; “Jesus loves you” kept ringing in his ears for the next several days.  He found it hard to believe that anyone could love him.   Before the revival closed, C. B. came back to the tent meeting. When the invitation was given, he went forward and was transformed by the power of God.  Afterward, his life was never the same.

                                                                                                                              C. B. desired to clean up his life. He went to various people in town, from whom he had stolen things and offered to make restitution. Wishing to take responsibility for his life, C. B. opened up a barbershop in Felicity and built up a business giving shaves and haircuts. One morning as he was opening up his shop for business, he felt the Lord was impressing him to witness to his customers about the way of salvation. Not to waste any time in his religious fervor, C. B. decided he would start with the very first customer who walked through the door that day.  Chilt Bolender was usually to be seen loafing around Felicity.  Although he was  distantly related to the Bolender’s, no one seemed to claim him.  A bit slow mentally, he had stooped shoulders and was overweight.  On this particular morning he walked into the barbershop, sat down in the barber chair and asked C. B. for a shave.  C. B. wrapped a towel around Chilt's shoulders, lathered up Chilt’s face real good, picked up his long straight razor and began to sharpen it on the leather strap hanging on the wall.  All this time C. B. was trying to think up a good opening question to get the conversation started.  Holding the razor up in front of Chilt's face, he tilted Chilt's head back and asked, “Chilt, are you ready to die?"  Startled, Chilt jumped out of the chair running out the front door and on down the street. With the towel still around his shoulders and lather on his face, he was shouting, “ No, I don’t want to die! No, I don’t want to die!”  It is possible this story has been embellished and exaggerated a bit over the years.

 

C. B. later attended God’s Bible School in Cincinnati. I’m sure they taught him more effective methods for sharing the ‘good news.'  C. B. Fugett became a well known evangelist, traveling around the United States for over fifty years, preaching the gospel and winning thousands to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

                                                          

When he was 32 years old, Herbert and Gertrude, my parents, along with a few other families, desired to see a church at Felicity where salvation through Jesus Christ was preached and holy living emphasized. He learned about an abandoned church building along the Ohio River at Smith's Landing.  It survived a flood, which had washed away most of the rest of the community.  He secured the donation of the building.  All he had to figure out was how to relocate it.  With the cooperation of other members, it was dismantled and transported it by horse and wagon up the mile-long river hill and then several more miles on to Felicity.                                            

          Load after load was hauled up that hill, the men driving the tired horses until they could go no further. Wedges were put behind the wagon wheels to allow the horses to rest. The process was repeated until the top of the hill was reached. Eventually the church was reconstructed at the corner of Light and Union Streets in Felicity and was organized in affiliation with the Church of the Nazarene (the same denomination which Gertrude had attended as a teenager in Middletown).  My parents and grandfather were listed amoung the charter members.

 

The first person to pastor the church was a 16-year-old boy by the name of C. B. Cox. The church grew slowly over the years. There were times when the church struggled financially.  As a farmer, Daddy had sometimes to go to the bank and borrow money in the springtime to tide the family over until the crops were harvested and sold in the fall, when he could pay off the loan. During some of the lean times at the church, Daddy would also borrow money to keep the church afloat financially.  He would pay off the loans himself when they came due, but never asked for repayment back from the church.  He cared that much.  The church became the church home for all six of Herbert and Gertrude’s six living children.

                            

Herbert Joel and Gertrude Bolender had children as follows:

          1. Arnold Joseph was born October 24, 1920. He married Berl Fortner on December 28, 1949.  Arnold served in the Army during WWII.  He became an auctioneer, insurance salesman and worked at Chrysler Air-Temp for a number of years.  He is retired and they now live north of Dayton, Ohio.  Arnold and Berl had five children:

1.     Dale Joseph

2.     Randall Joel

3.     Arnold Lynn

4.     Timothy Lowell(Tim was killed in a car accident           December 28, 1991)

5.     Carolyn Sue( lived only a few days)

 

 

          2. & 3. Twin girls, Theresa May and Thelma Faye  (both were stillborn in the spring of 1923).  Aunt Bertha dressed them in little white dresses and put them into a small casket she made out of a shoebox.  She said a little service for them and they were buried in the old McKibben cemetery located in the old locust thicket on the family farm.       

4.     Wanda Leota was born March 24, 1929. She married Wilmer Roe on June 19, 1954. Wanda is a graduate of Olivet Nazarene University with a B.S. degree in Home Economics and later earned her M.S. degree in Special Education.  She taught high school for many years until her retirement and now is a substitute teacher.  Wilmer farmed about 500 acres.  They have lived all their married life near Piketon, Ohio. They had two sons:

 

                             1. Kenton Lee (deceased April 23, 1998)

                             2. John Herbert

 

5.     Leon Ronald was born October 9, 1930. He married Dorothy Hutchens on August 1, 1952. Leon served four years in the United States Air Force.  He worked for IBM for a number of years until his retirement.  They now live in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Leon and Dorothy had one son:

 

1.     Ronald Keith

 

6.     Ralph Burton was born July 10, 1932. He married Patricia Lee Langsdale  December 10, 1954.  Ralph ran his own excavating business until he died in 1975. Pat  lives in Felicity, Ohio.  Ralph and Pat had three daughters:

 

                             1. Cherie Lee

                             2. Deborah Jean

3. Michelle Joy

 

7.     Eleanor Shirley was born July 18, 1934.  She married Joseph Dedek on June 14, 1958.  Eleanor is a graduate of Olivet Nazarene University with a B.S. degree in Music Education and a M.S. degree in Elementary Education from Indiana University, South Bend.  She taught school for several years and also worked for eight years in healthcare.  Joe trained as a tool and die maker,  working for a number of years as an engineer for Allied Signal Bendix.  Both retired and live in South Bend, Indiana.  Eleanor and Joe had four children:

 

                             1. JoEllyn Kay (called Jody)

                             2. Jane Ann

                                              3. Jon Joseph

4. Katharine Sue

 

8.     Kenneth Merrill was born September 7, 1936.  He married Kathy Brooks in 1955. They had two sons:

 

1.     Mark Lee

2.     Jeffrey Scott

 

Merrill and Kathy divorced in 1963.

 

Merrill married Donna Jean Ewing on August 22, 1964.  They live in the Indianapolis area.  Donna is a graduate of Olivet Nazarene University.  She went on to Purdue and earned a Masters degree in Mathmatics.  Donna taught a number of years in public and Christian schools and is presently a substitute teacher.  She served as Principal of a Christian School for a number of years.  She also works at home doing accounting and tax preparation.  Merrill is self-employed, installing elevator equipment for residential homes and accessibility equipment for disabled and handicapped people.  He has installed equipment all over Indiana in homes, churches, schools, universities, state parks, and even installed equipment in the State Capitol Building.  His hobbies are writing, cabinetmaking, stained glass, gardening, and fishing.

 

Merrill and Donna have one son:

 

1. Roger Merrill