From today's reading
Psalm 71
Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
your mighty acts to all who are to come.
Having seen clear and strong evidence of God's faithfulness in the lives and writings of my ancestors, I am compelled to pass on their stories to succeeding generations.
I carry their torch of faith forward.
This week I received this little message of faith from my great grandmother, dated 1906, when I found this tag in a 1849 book on the Middle East and specifically biblical sites. Her signature and date are on the back.
She had become an orphan at the age of 16, when her father Loren Webb (and Civil War veteran) passed away at age 41. We have evidence that she later spent time at a school in Florida established by the Methodist Episcopal Church to educate freed slaves, Cookman Institute.
She was there to carry the torch from her father who had wanted to teach at the school but was unable to do so because of a chronic respiratory condition.
The lettering at the bottom of the tag stands for Women's Christian Temperance Union, founded in Cleveland in 1874. The ribbon is not decoration but represents the logo of the WCTU, a white ribbon bow, representing purity.
In 1910, The City Mission was established in a former saloon in downtown Cleveland. Perhaps the temperance movement paved the way for the saloon to be transformed to a rescue mission.
Several decades later I became employed by The City Mission and was there 19 years. It was no coincidence. In a sense the torch had been passed on...
Mabelle Lorena Webb Hester, 1903
