Docia Eveline and Sarah Elizabeth Garrison were the daughters of Francis Marian and Mary Elizabeth Moore Garrison. They were born in Stone Co. The place where they lived was known as the “Old Crow Place”. It was located a little over a mile south of the old McCullough School House which was on Big Indian Creek. The present day land joins the Clark Meadows place which is across the road from the old Berry place or Hershall Bonham home place.
I am not sure of the exact date they moved to Kings River in Barry Co. Mo. but it was a very good river bottom farm and at one time Frank Garrison was proclaimed the best farmer in Barry Co.
They lived in a very small house–I presume it was log. As a child I just faintly recall an old building at the curve past the new house, which was being used to store farm supplies. I am not exactly sure when they built the new house, but it was a very nice house. It was a story and half with a large porch on the front. It had a large kitchen and living room down stairs. Most homes in those days had one or two beds in the living room where the parents slept and the children slept upstairs.(I am relating what was common in our community in those days).
Lucy and Docia and Lizzie being the oldest shouldered much of the work on the farm. Fact is I have personally heard that Frank “worked those girls awfully hard”. Docia, my Mother, never said a word about them being forced to work so hard, but she did say she only got a third grade education because there was so much work to do on the farm. She knew how to do any of the farm work and continued to help with any of the chores where she was needed. It is a fact that she worked on her parents farm until she was nineteen years old. She would laugh and say that Lucy had always had a bad temper,”even sassing Pa”. Well, Lucy is not included in this story because she is a story all by herself!!
When Docia was 15 years old, she was riding a horse and fell off and then the horse stepped on her arm about the elbow. Of course they didn’t have a doctor handy so she ended up with a stiff right arm. I never heard her complain about it. You see she still could write with it, but unable to feed herself with it. She had 11 children and I could almost guarantee that most of them never realized she ate with her left hand. Fact is she did anything she wanted too—chopping wood, making gardens, hoeing, rocking babies, anything. The only time I ever really gave much attention about it was when she combed her hair. She always wore her hair long and rolled into a bun at the back of her head. She would just sit in a chair and put her head down throw her hair down and then when she had combed it good with her left hand, she would give it a twist anchoring it with her stiff right arm and do the bun, again anchoring it while she placed the hair pins in place. I recall one time when the “rat” was poplar for women with long hair to wrap their hair around their head, she allowed me to fix it and she really looked pretty, but Oh, how it must have felt to her.But I recall we laughed and had a good time while I struggled with all that hair.
Decoration Day at the McCullough Cemetery has been going on for at least 100 years. Docia told me that the first person buried there was a Garrison. I have records of early Garrison families giving money for this place. It is still celebrated every 30th of May. I recall it being one of the most important days of the year for our family. Of course Dad being a preacher he was usually involved in the program and I along with other community children either had poems or songs to sing. There was an old frame building in my early days—not sure if it was the original or not. But a new flag-stone building was built in the late 30s or early 40s. It sets high on the hill about six and half mile east of Viola, Mo. You are now able to see the back water of Table Rock Lake on Indian Creek to the south of it. This is where many generations of our Garrison and Swofford family are buried.
This place was not just special to Docia and Matt because of all the families buried there, but this was where they first met. I believe they met in 1901. If so Docia would have been 16 since her birthday was in September and Lizzie would have been 14 or 15. Madison Elbert Swofford would have already been 17, because his birthday was on March 1st. Charles Henry Swofford was the older one in the party being 19 years old. They were the sons of John N. and Elizabeth Maria Tippet Green, Swofford. Viola tells me that she heard her parents talking of their first meeting and said the girls were crossing the creek on the rocks or stepping rocks and Charley declared that the little dark haired one was his!!! I assume that since he was the oldest he got first pick!!! This is interesting because this would put the family either coming or going toward the place where Mom and Lizzie were born and not toward Kings River. It is very likely they were going to Isom’s place since he did not die until 1912 and he lived in the McCullough community. I can just hear all the giggles of those girls as they relived this first meeting with the Swofford boys!
What a beautiful little girl Lizzie was! Docia was a petite woman, although I recall a time when I thought she was a very large woman. She did not have the delicate beauty that Lizzie had, not even the dark and tiny features of Lucy, but she had a strong, calm appearance and a definite friendliness that must have been there all of her life. I can see why Matt would have been taken with her, because she would have listen to him and even though she never felt she was pretty she would always call him her “black-eyed boy”. He was her hero.
I assume the courtship began pretty soon afterwards. Dad often related how he and Charley rode their horses through the hills, coming out into the lane by the George Wise farm and close to the farm which would later belong to his brother, Oscar. This was near Carr Lane. Then he would follow the old road which led to Viola to the place near the McGuire community where he would turn off to the left and go all the way to the river.
He often recalled how one moonlight night he had gone to the “river” without Charley. On his return home he came to the little mountain just west of the Jim Swofford farm when his horse just came to a complete stop stomping her feet, and refusing to go any farther. He was afraid to get off,afraid she would run away , so he just kept easing her on and finally he got her through the little grove of trees. He said he was so scared. To make it worse near that same area a man by the name of Burris had beaten his daughter to death. Of course Matt didn’t stop going to the “River”, but I would imagine he insisted that Charley go the same time he was going to visit the girls.
On one of the visits to see the girls, Matt and Charley were having dinner.(Farmers always had their big meal at noon because of all the hard work they did and if the wife was “lucky” she could serve left-overs or cornbread and milk at night). Anyway, to show you that all generations are basically the same and experience the same shyness, nervousness and foot and mouth problems, Docia never let Matt live down his encounter with pickled beets. You see Matt loved pickles and as was always the case much food was pickled, preserved or cured in those days especially in ambitious farm families. When Matt ask for seconds he ask them to pass the “Pete Piddles”! My how embarrassed he was but knowing the whole group, I imagine that broke the ice and they had a good laugh.
Another thing that they remembered was of the cured pork hanging from the ceiling. It was especially so of the Garrison that they would kill many hogs in the winter and cure the meat. Of course this was long before refrigeration, electricity, or any other method of keeping food fresh. It was cured with salt and sugar and spices and smoked and usually there was a “smoke house” where all of this was kept and I would almost guarantee that Frank and Mary Garrison always had a smoke house and maybe the meat hanging from the ceiling was extra or what was being used. Anyway on one occasion when the Swofford Boys called, the weather was warm and the meat was losing some of its fat and kept dropping in Matt’s plate.
The following was difficult for me to really believe, but then again I never met Frank Garrison—my grandfather. He died in 1928 two years before I was born, but I do know that he put the fear of God into people when he took a notion. So, perhaps this was the reason that Docia told of the first time Matt kissed her was in front of the Isaac Reynolds place –old Carr Lane–on the day they were on their way to get married!!!
Charley and Lizzie and a cousin named Clifton and Matt and Docia got married the same day by a Rev. Minick. This was just south of Carr Lane and just over the line in Carroll Co. Ark. The day was Oct. 9, 1904. How ironic it was to bury my mother on her 61 wedding anniversary at McCullough Oct. 9, 1965.
The two couples lived together for sometime. I am not sure of the exact location, but according to Viola and Alta it was close to what became Charley and Lizzie’s permanent home. It was probably more in the bend of that mountain range. Docia and Matt had their own little place somewhere in that same area later because I heard my father, Matt, say, “When I was coming home from on the mountain, what a cozy sight it was to see the light in the window of that little house.” This sight was still fresh in his mind when he was about 81 and was reflecting on the year without Docia being the worst year of his life. It was a moment that as a busy wife and mother I actually sit down and listened to him for a few minutes. How lonely he was living around with all of us children.
The next year, 1905 would bring children to the two couples. Virgil, a pretty blonde boy to Charley and Lizzie and Melvin, a dark eyed-mischievous boy to Matt and Docia. What joy these two babies must have brought. I recall Mom saying that when they moved-probably the next year- or it could have been from the place they shared with Lizzie and Charley–that Melvin cried and wanted to return to his “pretty little house with paper on the wall”. Mom said she “tacked” up some newspaper by his bed and that made him happy. She also told of cooking outside in the summer time because of the heat.
It was the common thing for women of the hills to want paper for their house just like they must have read or seen pictures of great house elsewhere. The method they used was to first put cardboard on the walls of the log house and then paste newspaper—if you could find it- or any sort of paper to it. Later years I would experience many changes of real wallpaper to our home. It was always a nice thing to get new paper for the wall and new linoleum for the floors–a good cleaning!!
In 1906–a year and about 6 weeks after their first son was born, Matt and Docia had another boy they named Elbert. Lizzie and Charley would have another boy in Jan. of 1907. He would be named Alvin. The two couples and the four boys began building a relationship which would last a life time.
In 1909 Docia would give birth to a blonde blue-eyed boy name Oliver Wesley. This lively little boy was a contrast to their other dark haired boys. He must have had plenty of attention from his brothers. Mom told of how he would hide and not make a peep and they would just look and look for him. Once after a long search they found him humped up in the back of the cellar. He thought this was great fun. Dad told of how he would always run to meet him when he came home from the fields on his horse. He would stick up his hands and Dad would pull him up and let him ride on to the barn. But one day Dad decided to tease him and just past him by pretending not to see him, and he just cried and cried. Of course Dad went back and got him, but Dad never forgot those tears.
Oliver died in 1911 at age two. He had what they called at that time as “Summer complaint”, but of course now it would be call something else, but he had diarrhea and vomiting. Mom always blamed wild strawberries. Too make it worse, the Doctors in those days cautioned them not to give him water!!! Oliver begged and begged for water!!! This horrible experience haunted them the rest of their days. Only when a grandson experienced the same thing and was pronounced dead, but was revived and the Doctor of that time (1930’s) said give him all the liquid you can! Mom and Dad had a special place in their heart for that grandson who lived.(George David Swofford). Dad said he would never stand by and let another person call for water. One of his brothers experienced the same thing with a son. Matt and Perry vowed never again would they let that happen. But they were doing what the doctor had instructed.
The next year a healthy girl was born. They named her Bertha Bell. Due to Uncle Bill Greens profession of photography, there were pictures of Oliver and Bertha. Bertha only lived one year and I believe it was measles which caused her death. Dad recalled how she would just reach out and take her medicine even though it tasted badly.
Now Matt and Docia were going through some terrible times. The loss of both of the last two babies. Meanwhile, Lizzie and Charley had two children John and Della. It was probably a soul searching time for Matt and Docia. I am not sure just when they became Christians, but it was a period after Matt had almost died of Typhoid fever. A neighbor by the name of Hayhurst brought him buttermilk and witnessed to him of Christ. He told Matt that if the Lord allowed him to live over this fever—he was so poor he had to be turned in a sheet– he should do something about his relationship with God.
I have heard that my Grandmother, Bettie Tippet Swofford had belonged to the Methodist Church, but I also recall my Mother saying that Grandpa Swofford became a Christian after she and Matt did. I never heard about any religious beliefs of my Garrison grandparents, only I do know that Grandma Mary Garrison believed and would often join in as Mom and Dad studied their Sunday School lesson. I am not sure that Mary could read, but she had a very sensitive spirit, because although she was not told of her son’s death at the time because her daughters were afraid it would upset her too much at her age, she came in from a walk one day and simply declared, “Mart is dead, ain’t he”? Mom said yes, and Grandma said, “I just felt he was”.
In 1913 and 1915 Matt and Docia would have two girls. One had black hair and the other one blonde. Alta would become very special to them since the loss of the other children and Mary would make their life interesting, because she had such a strong personality. (One time when she was six or seven she decided she wanted some black patten leather shoes at the near by store. She just walks there–two miles—and bought the shoes and puts them on Dad’s account plus a sack of candy. Needless to say she was cut off the account at that point.)
In 1916 Matt and Docia bought a house and land in Missouri. It was located north, northwest of the McCullough Church House and Cemetery. It had a beautiful white story and a half house with barns and cellar. They moved on Docia’s birthday, Sept. 6, 1916. Elbert told me once that Mom was the happiest person you ever saw. Alta was only three, but she recalls the move and holding her doll that grandma Garrison had made for her. Melvin and Elbert walked behind the wagon and drove the cattle.
Financially Matt and Docia were doing good. Melvin and Elbert were old enough and did lots of work around the farm. Dad repaid them by giving them cattle of their own. When they married they had a “good start” of cattle. He did all of us kids that way. I recall having sheep until I learned what happened to the lambs, so I went out of the sheep business, and had a cow which for some reason I didn’t think so bad for a calf to be sent to market. Anyway, one year in high school my calf brought $25 dollars and we went to Cassville and I picked out five new dresses and though it came to a little over the twenty-five dollars, I ask them if they would take the $25 dollars and they did!! That is one thing Mom and Dad did for all of us, they taught us to work and be thrifty. Some accused Dad of being stingy. Perhaps he was but he knew exactly what he had to spend from the sale of lambs and wool in the spring and the calves in the fall. He knew it had to do them until the next year.
Mom often told of the time when they sold enough cattle in the fall to pay off the debt on the place. She wanted to pay the debt—always hating debt. He wanted to invest in more cattle. They were having a “good-loud” argument when Uncle Perry Green came up and took Mom’s side. Dad and Melvin ended up walking to Reed Springs, Mo.-across White River and through the hills –25 miles by road, but some shorter distance through the hills. At Reed Springs they caught the train and rode the 8 more miles to Galena. There they paid off the land.
In 1928 Matt had Charley to help him build a new Bungalow house up on the road on land they had recently purchased. There they would live the rest of their life. Even though the two older boys were now married, this house still housed a family of five kids and Matt and Docia. Dick, Nellie, Alma, and of course Alta and Mary.
During this time Matt was feeling the call to become a minister. He was studying his Bible with such diligence that Grandma Swofford subscribed for the newspaper, The Kansas City Star. She was concerned he was becoming too religious or might even lose his mind with “too much Bible reading”. (Isn’t it amazing we get more concerned when someone becomes interested in spiritual matters than when they are wondering away with the world). He would continue this search until 1924 when he was ordained as a minister in the Church of God denomination at Crane Mo.
He would continue preaching for 35 or 36 years. In that time he never charged for preaching!! It seems the only stipulation Mom had at his becoming a preacher was if he ever began to charge for his preaching she would not wash and iron his shirts! They felt that they made their living by farming just like all of their neighbors did She always kept his white shirts starched and ironed and laid out for him to get dressed. She would fix his tie and see that he looked just right before he got in the pulpit. Someone told me recently that at one revival—revivals often lasted 3 weeks or more in those days—he received $2.80 as a gift. I recall the Church at Carr Lane—where he organized the only church of his denomination—made them a wonderful quilt. Most of his ministry he preached in school houses, arbors and at the very last bought land at Viola, Mo. The Carr Lane Members,plus those from Viola and Shell Know built a church building and moved the Carr Lane membership there.
I slept through many of his sermons!! Mom would take a quilt and make a “pallet” for me and any other small child who wanted to share it and we would soon be fast asleep. Of the many sermons I heard, only two of them I can remember and can still see him deliver. One was from Matthew 11:28 “Come unto Me”. He would go through all of the Scriptures which show Jesus’s invitation and love for us–any of us, or “Whosoever Will”. The other sermon was began in John 14 where Jesus says, “He was going to prepare a place for us” and then Matt would go to Revelations 21 and describe the beautiful city of God. That is when the tears would roll and he would name those little ones and other loved ones who were waiting there. I know the other sermons influenced me, for the One thing I know he touched the families of the community. Many became Christians and were baptized. He performed marriages and held the funeral of many of those you find buried in the McCullough Cemetery.
I will always be grateful to God for being a preachers kid and for being taught to have a personal faith in God. To me he was a kind, loving man who enjoyed teasing, but encouraged us to learn and kept up with what was going on in the world. The Kansas City Star continued to come to our house and as soon as radio came to the common people we had one and all the neighbors gathered on Sat. night to listen to the Grand ole Oprey.
Matt and Docia differed in personality as much as night and day. They say opposites attract, well it must be true. Docia went in a whirl wind. I never quiet figured out if she went in a slow run or a fast walk! She didn’t always accomplish a lot that you could see–especially in the house, because she would have a half-dozen things going at the same time. She loved to be outside. She made huge gardens even when it was only three of us at home. She canned every food she could get her hands on. We picked blackberries and she would can them until they were gone, not just so many quarts, it was only at the end of the harvest that she would quit.
To tell you about her personality. She was known in our family as having a high temper. She could give Dad “what far”, but you let any of us kids or anyone else say a word about him and she would as quickly turn on us.
On one occasion She, Dad and I went to the Blackberry patch and to our surprise we found a neighbor woman picking our berries. Dad and I just stood back and watched as she scolded the lady who just poured the berries out on the ground. Mom proceed to make her pick them back up and take them on home with her, because as she told the woman, ” I don’t eat stolen berries”. Another time a young neighbor boy, Clay McCullough found our geese at our spring and killed some and others had skin and feathers torn from them. When she discovered who had done this she insisted that Dad drive her to the boys home and she told his parents. Clay came up during this reporting and sassed his dad and before the boy knew what was happening, Bill McCullough had him on the ground and sitting straddle of him proceeded to slap him several times. Bill was far from being a young man at the time, but he man handled the boy easily. Well, Dad declared that was the last time he would ever report to any family about any member and cause that kind of trouble. Of course Mom said he got just what he needed. Later we would be hunting cattle which had gotten out on another neighbor and before we knew anyone was near a bullet whizzed by us. Clay was hunting on that neighbors place and we were convinced he deliberately shot toward us.
Mom worked so hard. I recall as a child—I was born when she was 45—just wishing she would lay down and rest for awhile.
She made all of her every day dresses. She had this shirt waist dress pattern which she had made to fit her and she would just cut out a dress and sew it up in no time. Of course she didn’t have many cloths. I know of times when she only had one “Sunday” dress and would just wash it and wear it again. During the depression days she made many of our clothing out of feed sacks. She made me one pretty white dress with ruffles out of curtain material—it scratched me, but I loved it.
Dad would insist that we all have new outfits for Decoration Day . That would be just after the sale of lambs and wool. We would go into Berryville and each one pick out a new outfit. He would personally supervise the buying of Mom’s hats. She always wore a hat in the early days.
She would order large quantities of outing flannel for underwear and night gowns for winter. She even made Dad’s underwear–flannel for winter and cotton for summer.
I heard him tell one funny thing that happened when he was preaching. He said he felt the elastic break on his underwear and pretty soon he began to see the edge of them slipping out of his britches leg. Sooo–as he said,”I had to cut that sermon a little short”!!
They were always interested in the community. Mom would share the clothes off her back with anyone. Dad often laughed and said, “I was just never that way”. But, it was not unusual for them to load their car down with canned food and perhaps a quilt for anyone who had a house burn. They would visit anyone who was sick. They carried the burden of the local tragedies home with them. Especially one I recall as a child was a young boy about 16-18 years old, son of Alex Allen, who died of what was thought to be –bad whiskey.
Matt and Docia were very opposed to whiskey, whether from experience from their youth or just observing the consequences suffered by the families of their neighbors. When my brother, Dick, came home drinking, it would hurt them, but they would never say anything to him until he sobered up, then they would catch him at the breakfast table and the lecture would go, “Ain’t you ashamed to do such a thing”. Dick didn’t learn for many years, and today I believe he is still living in the shadow of his Mother and Dad’s prayers. So many of his drinking buddies died long ago.
Charley and Lizzie lost a little boy in 1913 and again a two year old in 1918, also their son, John, died at age 22. This was a terrible thing for them to endure. I heard Charley say later, that it was bad losing a baby, but to lose one with whom you had so many memories and who was married and left a wife and child was so much worse to endure.
Matt and Docia would again experience the death of a baby girl named Lena Irene. She died in 1926 at about six months old. The three little graves are beside Matt and Docia grave at the McCullough Cemetery. Mom was always faithful to make lots of home made crepe paper flowers for their graves and we would often gather any fresh flowers that were in season and take to the graves in the late afternoon. I recently got a start of the pretty blue bells-Dad called them the Bells of Ireland–that grew along the roadside near our house where an old house place had been. I recall going with him and gathering large arms full of the velvet blue flowers and taking them to the graves. Also, on decoration morning we would go upon the little mountain west of our house and gather Mountain Lilies. They were lovely yellow wild lily type blossoms which wouldn’t last long, but were so pretty when they first bloomed. I recently saw a seed catalogue with a picture of them and they were called Ozark Mountain Lily.
Life had been good financially for both Charley and Matt and I believe much of their success was due to the ambitious wives. All went well for them until 1930 and the depression. They just existed for the next 10 or 12 years. By the time the depression was over they were too old to recover by planting large crops, besides a terrible drought followed in 1936. Some of their families were married by that time. Charley and Lizzie had two sons old enough to work but they would go to World War II and both would return safe, but would marry shortly afterwards.
Matt and Docia had some good years after all of the family was gone. I recall getting a letter from them when I lived in California which told of them going “visiting” most every afternoon. They would continue to have a special relationship with Lizzie and Charley. I recall many visit there as a child. I suppose it was only natural that they visited each other more than the other Uncle and Aunts. I am sure Mom felt the loss of Lizzie very much when she died in 1950 of Tuberculosis I am sure they had been sisters who confided in each other through all of their married life.
I do not know much of Aunt Lizzie’s personality. I have heard she had a temper also. I do know she was a better house keeper than Docia. She was always so neat and her house clean. She made lovely quilts and taught her daughters to do nice work also. They had a nice orchard as did Docia and Matt. She canned and did all the things to promote the home life just like Docia.
Charley died in 1958 of cancer. After Lizzie’s death he had traveled to California to visit his daughter and I was also honored to have him visit me when I lived there. He finally moved in with Tommy and Daisy who cared for him until his death in 1958.
In 1954 Mom and Dad was helping us–Bettie and Al Heatherly-move to Ozark, Mo. They were along to help control our two boys, Doug and Nick. Nick was only about 6 months old. Al and Matt were putting up a heating stove in the living room of the house we had rented when Docia just turned and sort of sit down. We helped her to a chair and tried to get her to go see a doctor in Springfield since we were only a few miles away. But she didn’t think it amounted to much. We drove the almost 40 miles back to the place near their home where we were moving from and she held Nick on her lap all the way, but when we got there she could hardly move. Al and Matt immediately took her back to Springfield where it was discovered she had a broken hip!!! That began a long process of illness and broken bones. They would later have a car wreck which would splinter her leg bone from the knee and from that time she would only walk for short times in between the next time when she fell and cracked her hip again. From the time she was 68 years old until she died at age 80 she would suffer from the results of broken bones. She was able to stay in her home by having someone come in and stay with them until she died. How little they lived on during that time makes me very sad today. But just as in the time during the depression when Dad would take other folks to get the Commodities which the government gave but refuse to take any for us, he never ask any of us for help, we were blind and did not look beyond their pride. She was able to draw one hundred dollars a month—which they were lucky enough to get a girl to stay with them for that amount and they only drew about sixty dollars a month above that to live on. It is unbelievable to think of how they lived, but only once did I ever hear him complain and then only that it “made his head hurt” to try to figure it out.
Docia died on Oct.5, 1965 in St. John’s Hospital in Springfield of pneumonia and heart attack. She was buried at McCullough. Many said there was more than 400 people at her funeral. She was well thought of in her community. She was known either by Mrs. Swofford or Aunt Docia by both friends and relatives. After her funeral when the immediate family was gathered back at the home place where neighbors had brought an abundance of food, Dad prayed for us all and I recall his words, “Lord take our minds away from the sadness of this day and help us remember only the good things”.
Matt lived almost six years longer than Docia. At first he enjoyed moving from child to child because he had been home bound for so long while Docia was bed fast. I am sure the financial burden was lifted because he didn’t have to spend anything except on his tobacco and any clothing that he might want. Usually Christmas gifts supplied most of that for him. But after about a year of moving about, he became lonely and mentioned it being the worst year of his life.
It was to become much worse for him when he had to be place in a nursing home. Some of us tried to take care of him after he had several light strokes and had a catheter, but finally thanks to our older brothers who were wise and strong enough to make the decision the home place was sold and the money used for his care. He lived about 4 years in the nursing home finally suffering a stroke which left him unable to speak, but still he knew us. He died on Jan. 28, 1971 in Cassville Hospital. Rev. Duncan who had preached Mom’s funeral, conducted Dad’s funeral also. He took the passage of Scripture from Jeremiah which states ” A great man has fallen today”.
How would they want the younger generations to remember them?
They would be the first to admit that they had many faults. But I can say with all honesty I had a wonderful childhood in their home. They loved each other. They loved their family. They loved their God and His Church. They had basic wisdom. They were cultured individual in as much as the definition of culture is a way of life that appreciates manners and letters and scholarly pursuits. They had attained these not from opportunities to education, but from the concepts taught in the Bible. They made folks welcome in their home–no matter what time of day or condition the house. They would almost be insulted if you did not eat with them. They would walk with you to your car when you left and you would always leave them standing there waving your goodbye and assuring you that they would be waiting for your return. I can’t help but believe they are waiting in Heaven with that same anticipation for our home coming. How blessed I am to have had them for parents.
Written by —Bettie Swofford Heatherly 1997, daughter of Matt and Docia Garrison Swofford.