This is my two hundred and twelfth monthly teaching letter and continues my eighteenth year of publication. In the last letter, WTL #211, I discussed my boyhood and teenage church affiliation, which consisted of a mixture of tenets from the Church of the Brethren and the Evangelical Church. Through childhood, I was not aware of who believed what, or why they believed it. It would take years and a kaleidoscope tumbling of events to bring all the bits and pieces together, before they somewhat gelled into a clear picture. My parents often stated, “When Clifton gets on to something, he rides it to death”, and I have to admit they were right. I was never satisfied with the ordinary, as the ordinary bored me to tears.

An example of my riding something to death was when I was a water boy for a farmer, and it came his turn to have his crop of wheat threshed. A group of farmers owned a wheat threshing machine, and in would come several horse drawn wagons and a couple of trucks, and they would serve a thresher’s dinner at noon. Resting after eating the noon meal, several of the farmers started to discuss the going price of wheat. The conversation turned to the Chicago Board of Trade, where they would have to take whatever the jews offered them. From this, it didn’t take me very long to figure out why Hitler didn’t particularly care for the jews, and that Hitler was probably right. Right away, I started to tell everyone I could how the jews were robbing the farmers blind, and that Hitler had the right idea. I continued telling this to everybody I could for several months on end. That’s the way I am, and there is no changing me.

I left off in the last lesson explaining how Pastor Fox and a few of his partisans at the Evangelical Church in Fostoria, Ohio used a woman evangelist by the name of Pauline Stevens to preach a tear-jerking sermon, using popular male and female chaperones to pressure the young teenage girls and boys to go forward to the altar, then scheduling baptism and then formal church membership. Although both my sister and I were sucked into this, neither of us displayed any demeanor of conversion. Not only that, there was no Bible study or spiritual guidance on the part of our father or mother, outside of my father returning thanks at the dinner table. Evidently, our parents left all of that responsibility to the Sunday school teacher! So going to church for my sister and I, it was just something that was demanded of us, and was just a matter of going through the motions to get it over with. And that’s the way it continued until I entered the Navy on December 7, 1944.

When I joined the Navy, I was only seventeen years old, and my father had to sign for me to be eligible. When joining the Navy, it was for the duration of WW II, which at that time they estimated would last another ten years. But when the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it shortened the war considerably. Then, I was transferred from signal school back to general duty, sent to a Philippine ship repair base, then transferred to the tanker, USS Monongahela, and later discharged July 6, 1946 at Great Lakes, Illinois.

When I returned home to Fostoria, Ohio at nineteen years old, my parents had moved to a new address, but they still regularly attended the same Evangelical Church. However, I attended if I didn’t have other things to do, but most of the time I didn’t attend a church anywhere.

I shall now go back and review some of my basic duties overseas in the Navy and bring us up-to-date where we are now.I will repeat what I had written in an article, The Fallacy of the Pentecostal & Charismatic Movements,^#1, as it is a concise description of those duties up until the time I was discharged and living with my parents:

“While in the navy, three of my assigned duties were at a sheetmetal shop, and then I was transferred to be a barber in a 12-chair shop on the island of Manicani (a ship repair base) in the Philippines, and later as the lone barber on the tanker Monongahela (which fueled other ships at Manila and Subic bays after VJ Day). After being discharged and working at various jobs I didn’t much care for, I entered barber school in November of 1946; got a barbering job in Tiffin, Ohio, in September of 1947. That same year; met a very beautiful young lady in December of 1947 by the name of Trillis (Tillie) Almina Moehlman, and married her August 29, 1948.

“Tillie had a very fine Christian grandmother, and she wanted to be just like her, so we were converted and started attending my family’s Evangelical Church. Little did I know then that about 25 years later I would be given the Israel Identity Message, and when I came home one evening, I would have the privilege of telling her we were Israelites, and she never gave me any argument in return. [end quote]

I should point out here that the first time I saw Tillie was when she accompanied John and Marie Crabtree to the Evangelical Church in November of 1947, the same church where my parents and my sister and I had attended for several years. A couple of weeks after I first saw Tillie, Marie asked me if I would like to meet her, and I surely didn’t turn down the invitation!

I have now covered my own church affiliation from about eight years old up until I got married to Trillis (Tillie) Almina Moehlman. Next, I hope to cover the history of the church affiliation of my wife, Tillie, back through her mother Ruth Eileen Moehlman, and the grandmother that my wife, Tillie, loved so well, Almina (Hartman) Carter, second wife of Thomas Corwin Carter. (As a second husband, Almina (Hartman) Carter married Henry Garing.) After Tillie’s loving grandmother had died, December 21, 1949, Tillie’s mother, Ruth Eileen, gave Tillie her grandmother’s Bible, and Tillie wrote on the inside cover: “Trillis Almina (Moehlman) Emahiser, given to me by my mother. This Bible belonged to my beloved grandmother Almina (Hartman) Carter Garing.” After completing Tillie’s church affiliation, I will endeavor to cover the church affiliation Tillie and I had together as husband and wife.

I really have to explain something about Tillie’s grandmother’s, Almina (Hartman) Carter Garing’s, Bible. When I met Tillie’s grandmother, she was quite old, I believe in her 90s, and she was a faithfully devoted, Christian, 100%, although that didn’t make her perfect in all of her beliefs. She had a small military widow’s pension of some kind that fell well short of her living expenses. Her daughter, Ruth Eileen Moehlman had a small two-room building moved onto her lot, and Ruth took care of her the rest of Almina’s life. Almina couldn’t find a church to her liking in Rudolph, Ohio, or in the surrounding area. In Rudolph, Almina had only two choices, the Church of Christ or the Nazarene Church, and she chose the latter. Well, I personally knew the pastor of that Nazarene Church in Rudolph, and his name was Cloyce Elsea, and he was strongly opposed to the Scofield bible, and Tillie’s grandmother’s bible was a Scofield bible. This bible (and I am not about to capitalize “bible”, as I also oppose it) has a copyright of 1917, so Almina could have had this bible for quite some time, but maybe not as long as one might suppose.

In order to determine how long Almina (Hartman) Carter Garing might have had this bible, I first went page by page through the New Testament to check Almina’s pencil written notes along the edges, or wherever space would permit, or lines around certain verses or passages of scriptures she deemed important. At the edge of p. 1002, starting with Matt. 6:2, Almina wrote, “Rev, Kehr’s text, 12-8-1935.” At the top of p, 1174 (end of Acts 17 and beginning of Acts 18), Almina wrote, “Rev. Chamber’s text, Dec. 9, 1938. Rudolph, Mission Church.” At p. 1213, starting with 1 Cor. 1:28, Almina wrote along the edge and top of the page, “Rev. Brafen’s first text at Republic, [Ohio], Sept. 13th, 1936” These three dates of 1935, 1936 & 1938 are significant. Also the binding and cover appear like something of the 1930s, with a rubberized surface over coarse woven cloth to make it appear as leather, and in spite of that, it has held up quite well. Note: Almina above mentions a “Mission Church”, and I believe that the Nazarene denomination often called some of their smaller congregations, “Mission Churches”.

One of the important things to notice here is the fact that two different small towns in Ohio are mentioned, Republic and Rudolph. If I understand my wife Tillie’s family line correctly, Tillie’s grandmother Almina’s second husband, Henry Garing, lived in Republic Ohio. I oft heard it said that Almina was disappointed with her second husband, Garing. It should be noted, then, that Almina (Hartman) Carter Garing was Trillis Almina (Moehlman) Emahiser’s grandmother and Thomas Corwin Carter’s second wife. Thomas Corwin Carter was previously married to Rachel Ellis until she died. Thomas Corwin Carter was also a minister in the Friends Church. If Almina Carter Hartman Garing’s pencil written notes in her Scofield bible are correct, she must have moved from Republic, Ohio to Rudolph, Ohio shortly after 1936, and this was probably the time when Almina’s second husband, Henry Garing died.

The next thing I will endeavor to do is connect my wife, Tillie, with Thomas Corwin Carter, for Thomas Corwin Carter was the father of my mother-in-law Ruth Eileen Moehlman and Ruth Eileen Moehlman was the mother of my wife Trillis Almina (Moehlman) Emahiser. Believe it or not, I have my wife, Tillie’s, genealogical records all the way back to Ireland in the 1600s, thanks to Lena Carter Taylor, Tillie’s cousin, whom Tillie always addressed as “Aunt Lena” because Lena was somewhat her senior.

The records I have at hand include a 59 page “Carter Family History and Genealogy” by Miriam Carter Douglas, 1907, and revised by Elizabeth Berry Buffa, 1971, with Additions & Corrections to Carter Family History, (Edition Limited to 60 Copies, Copy No. 21); and a nine page typewritten letter to Aunt Ann Carter Osborn by her Sister Miriam Carter Douglas, Plymouth, Kansas, December 3, 1912; and a handwritten six column chart consuming six 8½ x11 landscape pages, from 1662 to 1912. Actually, the first 4 and 4/5ths pages cover 1662 to 1912 and 1/5th of page 5 and all of page 6 is an update from 1913 to 6-29-1932, and concludes with Ruth Eileen Moehlman’s six children, Charles Author, Ruth Eileen², Gula Elma, Juanita Aldene, Trillis Almina and Thomas Allen. There is also an 11 page typewritten letter from Ann Carter Osborn, Plymouth, Kansas, Dec. 4, 1912, to her brother George L. Carter.

At this time I will narrow this search down to page 11, in part, at “Carter Family History and Genealogy”

“6.1 Jesse Carter, eldest child of George and Miriam Wilson Carter, was born February 2nd 1806 in Orange Co., North Carolina in the home where his grandfather, John Carter, had settled when he first removed to N.C. In 1811, Jesse’s parents took him to their new home in Clinton, Co., Ohio, which county was his home until April 1865 when he, with his youngest son, a young boy, removed to Plymouth, Lyon Co., Kansas where he remained until 1868, when he and his wife returned to Clinton Co., Ohio on visit, attending Indiana yearly meetings of Friends held at Richmond, Indiana. At Grassy Run he was very sick and died November 6th, 1868 at his brother-in-law’s, Lewis Hunt’s [home], near the church, and was laid to rest in the old burying grounds near his little daughter Rebecca. Jesse Carter and Malinda Bentley were married by Amos Wilson at his home in Clinton County, Ohio on August 7th, 1823. Malinda Carter went back to her home in Kansas for a time, but finally gave up her home and spent her remaining days with her children in Kansas a part of the time, and in Ohio, where she died at her son’s [home], Thomas C. Carter [died], on the morning of January 3rd, 1899, and was laid to rest in the Friends burying grounds at Masseys Creek Church near Old Town, Green Co., Ohio, 21 miles from Grassy Run where her husband was buried ...” [At which time Jesse and Mailnda’s eight children are recorded, and we are especially interested in child number six on page 12 following] ....

“Jesse and Malinda Carter’s 6th child:

“7.6 Thomas Carwin Carter was born October 12th, 1840 in the old home. Married twice – first Rachel Ellis by Friends ceremony in a meeting at Spring Valley, Warren Co., Ohio (date not given), that being their nearest meeting. Her home at the time was a mile north of Old Town, Green Co., Ohio, and three miles from Xenia. They had three children:

“8.1 Lydia Ann Carter Chertton, who lived in Goes, Green Co., Ohio.

“8.2 Charles Address unknown.

“8.3 Miriam, who died in infancy.

“Rachel Ellis Carter died December 1884, or 1883 at her home near Masseys Creek Meeting, and is buried in the cemetery of the above Meeting, which is her family burying place.

“Thomas [Corwin] Carter married his 2nd wife ?????? Hartman. They had one child;

“8.1 Ruth Carter.

“They lived in Wilmington, Clinton Co., Ohio. (see pp. 19 & 20) ...

Pages 19 and 20 in part:

“After Rachel Ellis Carter’s death, Thomas C[orwin] Carter married Almina Hartman of Athens Co., Ohio on October 14th, 1886. They were both living in Wilmington in 1907. Thomas C[orwin] Carter was a minister in Friends church and was successfully so both at Wilmington and Masseys Creek.

“They had four children;

“8.1 Ruth Carter, born 1897 near Oldtown, Ohio.

“8.2 James Carter, born July 26th 1889 who died at birth.

“8.3 and 8.4 not named.”

We have just witnessed two accounts of Thomas Corwin Carter and his first and second wives. The Ruth Carter underlined at “8.1” was later to become Ruth Eileen Moehlman, the mother of Trillis (Tillie) Almina Moehlman, and the “Thomas [Corwin] Carter married ??????” is Almina Hartman of Athens Co., Ohio. Actually, “Ruth Carter” is mentioned in both of the underlined accounts above at “8.1”, as they are the same Ruth Carter, who would become Ruth Eileen Moehlman. It should be noticed here that both Thomas Corwin Carter and Almina Hartman were married twice, as they both had two spouses, and Almina Hartman was the mother of Ruth Eileen Moehlman! I know that this is a bit complex, but that is the way it happened.

Now that we see how all of this ended, let’s determine how it all started. For this, I will use part of the letter Ann Carter Osborn of Plymouth, Kansas wrote to George L. Carter, Dec. 4, 1912:

“The first generation that I know of is Nicholas Carter of Dublin, Ireland and his wife Mary of Droggheda (do not know her maiden name). The older generations in this country said he belonged to the nobility of England but married out of rank and his father disowned him and disinherited him, and went to Ireland, from England, and there started life anew. He was a brick maker and builder by which he became what was then called wealthy. I do not know what it took then to be rich.

“I have no written evidence that this was the fact but I have a copy of the minutes of the records of the people called Quakers of Dublin, Ireland, which gives him and his wife’s names, and one son named Nicholas Carter, who was born about 1675 or thereabouts.

“I have the exact date and that would make the above born sometime from 1640 to 1665 apparently. This second Nicholas, the son of Nicholas and Mary lived in Dublin no doubt with his parents, and he seemed to be wealthy too. He married about 1695 to Margaret Bennyham, daughter of Richard and Margaret Bennyham, of the Friends meeting of Dublin Ireland.

“These people above mentioned were all Friends, so our people must have gone with the Friends, from the first of their rise and holding meetings, in England and Ireland.

“This Nicholas had from about 1698 to 1707 three sons and four daughters born to him. The oldest child died single, and young I think. The next was John who died in infancy. Then came a son Nicholas who married and was a rich man, but had no children to heir his estate. If there ever was an estate in Ireland, that should have came to the Carters, it was his no doubt.

“I will speak of him later. Then in Nicholas II and Margaret’s family, were three daughters, Rebecca was one, the other two I do not recall now. She, Rebecca married Thomas Rutter, of Cheshire, England and they had a family of children, six or seven, all died single, and most of them in infancy except two. One I can’t find, and the other Samuel, I think was in Eastern Pennsylvania in 1773, but that was after our Carters left Pennsylvania for North Carolina. I have not yet been able to find any trace of them.

“This Samuel Rutter was a son of Rebecca. Rebecca’s husband belonged to the nobility of England, but his father disowned and disinherited him because he married a Quaker.

“Thee (you) will see they were married about 40 or 50 years after George Fox began to preach and before the English rulers quit persecuting the Friends, or Quakers as they were called. So, it is not strange that he was greatly incensed at his son marrying a Quaker.

“Thomas Rutter and wife went to Ireland to live. Both died there, he first, but neither lived to be more than middle age. This about the father of Thomas disowning his son for marrying as he did, I get from the letters, the other from records of the Friends Dublin meeting.

“Besides the above children, of Nicholas II and Margaret Bennyham Carter – they had one son, their youngest child named Nathaniel Carter, born in 1707. His mother died in 1730. He came with his father’s full consent in 1731 to Philadelphia. His father died in 1733 – (Nicholas II) the year that Nathaniel Carter married Ann McPherson of near Kennett Friends meeting, Chester County Pennsylvania. They were married in the old Swedish Church in Wilmington, Delaware, December 17, 1733, but lived in Chester County, Pa. until 1766 when Nathaniel Carter and his youngest children and wife went to Orange County, N. Carolina. Already in 1763 his oldest child, John Carter (Thy and my great father on the Carter side), Elizabeth Carter Harvey, and her husband William Harvey and Edith Carter, a single daughter had gone to N. Carolina. Nathaniel and wife both [died] in Orange County N.C., he in May, 1795, and she in September, 1795, and are buried in old Springfield Meeting Cemetery there. Nathaniel Carter never brought his right of membership with Friends to America, but the records in Dublin show that he was never disowned there, so he died a member. Both of Nathaniel’s brothers died young, and the other Nicholas married but left no children. His two sisters besides Rebecca that married I have no knowledge of, except that the Friends records give the birth and marriage dates and says ‘Married by a Priest’. That is the last of any of the sisters, except what I have written about Rebecca and family of the Rutters.

“I will now give you the names of the children of Nathaniel and Ann McPherson Carter, who were all born near Kennett Friends Meeting, Chester County, Pa. First, thy and my great grandfather John Carter, born in December, 1734 married Ann Whiffle of Wilmington, Delaware in the old Swedish Church, the same place his parents were married. He remained in Pennsylvania until 1763, when he went to N.C., as I have written above. He became a great preacher in N.C.

Second, Elizabeth Carter married William Harvey, and in a few years went to Orange County North Carolina, where William died the day of the Battle of Cowpens in the Revolutionary War. She and all her children came to Clinton County, Ohio in 1805, and in 1810 they were all there. She died and is buried in Springfield burying ground about 1830 I think. Nearly all of her children except one or two about 1830 went to Indiana, where they married and intermarried and are still at it in Indiana and Clinton County Ohio, until none of them can tell what their kinship is. The mother of the older Hales was one of Elizabeth Carter Harvey’s daughters, and Jacob Hadley’s mother was her other daughter, Old Aunt Lydia Hadley. That is the way Jacob Hadley and all his brothers and sisters are akin to us and all the Harveys and Hales, except Henry Harvey. They are akin through another channel and no kin to Elizabeth Carter’s family of Harveys on the Harvey side, but are on the Carter side” .... [Note: “intermarriage” above surely not racial intermarriage. CAE]

This would be a good place to discontinue this letter that Ann Carter Osborn of Plymouth, Kansas wrote to George L. Carter, Dec. 4, 1912, as it demonstrates how the Friends (i.e., Quakers) movement came from Ireland and England and later spread throughout North America. Neither do I wish to bore the reader with endless genealogies, although I am sure that some of my readers are very interested in some of the families named here. If any one of you are, I can’t personally help you, as my plate is already full and overflowing with this ministry.

What I have established here, beyond all doubt, is the fact that my wife, Trillis Almina Moehlman’s family background on her mother’s side was definitely from the Society of Friends (i.e., Quakers). Funny thing, from the very first day that I met Trillis (i.e., Tillie) up until I started this research into Tillie’s family background a few days ago, neither Tillie, nor any of the members of her immediate family or close or distant relatives ever so much as mentioned the word, “Quaker”! Occasionally, I did hear the “Friends Church” mentioned, but to me the “Friends Church” was just one of the hundreds of Protestant church denominations in existence at that time. Does the fact that Tillie had a Quaker background cause me in any way to love her less? Tillie died of cancer on Thursday, September 16, 1993 at Flower Memorial Hospital in Sylvania, Ohio. If anything, I find myself loving Tillie more than ever, and I wish she were still living so I could assure her of that, although I surely don’t agree with some of the Society of Friend’s tenets (i.e., principles of belief)!

The question at this time is: How much of the Friends (i.e., Quaker) principles of belief rubbed off onto Trillis Almina Moehlman, who became my wife? With my very close observation of Tillie’s family over many years, I would have to answer, “not much”! According to some of the chroniclers of the Friends Society, there has been a gradual change over the last 125 years in dress, belief and incentive, but the close loving fellowship between the members of the Friends Society remained strong over many years. This Friends Society kinship showed up in Tillie’s family, as they were very close-knit, and showed much love for each other. One of the first things that Tillie noticed about my Emahiser family was that we were cold to each other in contrast to the love her family showed for each other. So when I married Tillie, I gained a love I never knew before, and that seemed a fostered trait from the Friends Society.

The Friends Society had a strong Christian belief that the younger family members had the responsibility to care for their aging invalid parents, and sometimes uncles, aunts and cousins, which we see so little of today. Evidently, some of the Friends Society’s beliefs rubbed off on Tillie’s mother, for when her grandmother, Almina (Hartman) Carter Garing had become aged and an invalid, as well as a widow, Tillie’s mother, Ruth Eileen Moehlman (although it was during the time period while the great 1929 depression lasted, and Tillie’s father had died, and Ruth had little to no income of any kind), managed to have a small two-room building moved on to her own lot, where Tillie’s mother cared for Tillie’s grandmother until her grandmother died in 1949, a year after Tillie and I had married. There are many other ethics among Tillie’s relatives that would match some of the Christian morals the Friends Society embraced.

“MEMORIES OF A QUAKER LASS: (From Party Line – Whittier News, Whittier, Cal., Friday Evening Jan. 22, 1954) in part:

“Miss Mellie Douglas of North Washington Ave., who will celebrate her ninety-third birthday anniversary January 31st, was the daughter of old-time Quaker parents, her father having been a wellknown Friends minister, and some of her earliest memories are filled with mental pictures of the quaint old-fashioned Quaker meeting houses she knew in the East. Little children, even babies, went to meeting, and they kept still, for those earliest meetings were silent meditation meetings with no minister and no speech except as the inner voice prompted someone to speak. (We suspect that small fry were not encouraged to feel so prompted.) There was no music even. Mellie recalls that each meeting house had an ‘uppen block’ in front – a block perhaps four feet by nine feet onto which the church go-ers dismounted from the high-wheeled vehicles that ploughed through the often muddy roads. The meeting house was divided, the men on one side, the women on the other, with a movable partition that could be raised or lowered. It was closed while the men and women each had their business meeting, and when there was communication, a messenger sedately carried notes around the partition.

“Mellie says she never wore Quaker dress, but her mother did. She says the Quaker bonnet made a pretty frame for the face. Although Quaker women in stories are usually pictured wearing quiet gray, Mellie says only the older women wore gray. The Quaker young women and children wore dresses and matching bonnets of pale pink or white or light blue or other soft tint. However, the trim dresses were severely simple, and Mellie remembers that women of one church severely criticized her mother for dressing little Mellie in a green plaid dress with scallops and piping.

“None of the Quaker women could wear jewelry, even wedding rings. Mellie says she yearned for Jewelry and pretties. In fact, it seems that the yearnings of Quaker children made them act as human as any other children, and Mellie remembers doing some things that might seem naughty to grown-ups even today. She made button earrings and attached them to her own ears and those of her little brother by piercing the ears with a needle. Brother did not object ....”

FURTHER MEMORIES OF A QUAKER LASS: On her 95th Birthday; Whittier News, Whittier, Cal., Wednesday Feb. 1, 1956, in part:

“.... Life was real and life was earnest for Quaker maids nearly a century ago. Mellie Douglas was one of the seven children of John Henry Douglas and Miriam Carter Douglas. Her father was an evangelistic Quaker minister and spent 64 years in the ministry, helping organize Quaker (Friend) churches in the Midwest. Mellie’s mother, Miriam, kept the home together.

“Before he became a minister, John Henry Douglas was a tanner and shoemaker. He was born in Maine, son of David and Chloe Douglas, but he migrated to Ohio about 1820. When teaching in Grassy Run Church School, one of the many Quakers established wherever they went, he met and married another teacher, Miriam Carter.

“She recalls the stories her mother told her about the wedding of Miriam and John Henry in 1856. They were married in the Quaker Meeting House at Grassy Run, Ohio, but before that they had to ‘pass the meeting.’ A committee called upon them and questioned them and ‘passed’ them.

“On the wedding day, John Henry sat on one side of the church and Miriam sat on the other. There was no minister. The clerk of the meeting asked John Henry, ‘Is thee willing?’ He said, “I am.’ The question then was put to Miriam and she said, ‘I am willing.’ So the clerk declared them wed. The bride wore shoes made by the bridegroom.

“Her father’s gifts as a minister were so apparent that he was drawn away from the cobbler’s bench. At first, he preached without pay, as was the custom, but later drew a salary. In 1865 and 1866 he preached in Europe and all over the East and Midwest and started many Friends churches. His retirement years were spent in Whittier and Miss Douglas nursed both her parents through years of invalidism.

“She said her father always had a defective heart and was refused for military service after being drafted in the Civil War. The war did not touch the quiet Douglas home in the country near Wilmington, Ohio.

“Early pictures of Mellie’s mother and father show him with heavy beard and whiskers and Quaker coat with small standup collar and no buttons, and show Mellie’s mother in Quaker garb. Miriam discarded her cape and replaced her Quaker bonnet with a lace cap about 1858, and John Henry discarded the plain garb about 1864.

“Mellie’s own school days began in a one room country school at the edge of Wilmington, Ohio. As a little school girl she wore long dresses and high button shoes. Her teachers were women, and she says they drilled her in reading and spelling and arithmetic and taught her to read by the sight of the words, not by the alphabet, as had been done earlier ....” 2 excerpts taken from Lena Carter Taylor’s research.

What we should learn from all of this is, there is only one way for one to draw oneself closer to our Almighty Yahweh in the flesh, Yahshua. Some of the ante-Nicene fathers tried to draw themselves closer to God by having themselves castrated, like Saint Augustine in his book, The City Of God! The Pentecostal and Charismatic tongue-waggers try to draw closer to God by speaking in many unknown tongues. There are several other problematic creeds, too numerous to mention here! Why then, should we be surprised had someone come along promoting, if people would assemble themselves in a meeting house, and place a partition between the men and women (shades of Augustine) and sit quietly, waiting for God’s Spirit to come causing their body to quake, like in “Quaker”?

We have to realize that by the 1600s, many new Bibles had been translated, and some passages varied greatly in rendering, and the few who could afford to obtain a printed copy read things into the Scripture that were not in the original languages, and this brought about a number of various sects. The Society of Friends (Quakers) was such a sect, and viewed natural sexual intercourse as a vulgar sin, thus they separated the men from the women. However, as time went on, the Society of Friends adopted many Scriptural tenets.

The bottom line is, I married a young, beautiful blue-eyed blond lady who had Quakers in her family tree on her mother’s side of her family, and she had all the superb qualities that a man could want in a woman (and she was not a “feminist” in today’s definition of that word)!

Originally, I planned to present, (1) the background of my own church affiliation, then (2) the background of my wife’s church affiliation, and lastly, (3) The church affiliation that Tillie and I had together as husband and wife.

Well, I’ve completed two out of the three, and I will address the last part, #3, in the next Watchman’s Teaching Letter.