Letters from the ‘brary

Category: dribblings

I found a wonderful letter in the book sale stuck in a book called Blessings on Thee, Clergy Wife. The book appeared to be a witty take on being a preacher’s wife written by Susanne Bowman, a preacher’s wife, and published in the year of our Lord, 1970. The letter in the book is from some lady in Texas. I have changed the names to protect, well, myself, mostly.

Dear Gaynelle,

I couldn’t resist getting this book for you. I have read it and found that it was delightful book. I met Mrs. Bowman one day this week. She came by the office to present her book to my boss, Dr. Smith. Dr. and Mrs. Smith are very close friends to the Rev. and Mrs. Bowman. Dr. Smith donated his book to our library, and we also put it on sale in our bookstore.

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church is a neighboring church, much smaller than ours. She refers to St. Michael’s Episcopal Church (page 55) in a rather harried way. St. Michael’s is a beautiful church and the people are beautiful people. There has been quite a bit of hard feelings placed in that chapter, and I am afraid the author has hurt a lot of people’s feelings. St. Michael’s (like us) is the other large parish in Dallas. It is a very wealthy church, and can be considered as the Incarnation’s (my church) rival. It is so sad to see one church downgrading another church, and I see a lot of that.

But overall, I liked the book. It is rather amusing to read all the things a clergy’s wife has to put up with – “I’m sure you know from experience.”

I hope you enjoy reading it. Let me know what you think about it.

Tell Bobby and the children to “straighten up” and “to take care.” Also tell Bobby that our church has just purchased a $20,000 pipe organ from Wick’s Organ Company in Illinois. It’s the most beautiful organ I have ever seen in my life. This organ went in our chapel — mind you not in our main church. There is no end to what this church can do.

Must close now. Take care and tell everyone I said hello.

Love,

Rayanne

P.S. Also tell Bobby that the organ came in a huge moving van in many thousand pieces, and they had to assemble it. Wish he could see it. It took 3 weeks to put together.

Wasn’t that delightful? This letter was dated 1970 and the organ was $20,000?!

ALSO, did the sentence, “There is no end to what this church can do.” sound as ominous to you as it did to me?

“Yeah, we dropped 20 Gs on a pipe organ for the chapel, no bigs. There’s no end to what this church can do. WE CAN BUY OR SELL YOU. THESE ARE END TIMES. DEATH TO OUR RIVALS.”

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