Martha Ruth, Preacher's Daughter: Her Journey Through Religion, Sex and Love. Marti Eicholz

She brushed a hot lotion on his thumb. Nothing seemed to work. I thought, “Why not just hold him, rock him, sing to him, tell him how much you love him, hold his thumb, and encourage him not to put his thumb in his mouth? He will understand.” I don’t remember when it stopped.

      One evening, my father had gone across the street to comfort the Bennett family. Mr. Bennett was old, frail, and dying. My mother and I were home alone with my brother, and my brother was ill. His fever kept rising. My mother was worried and fretful. I noticed that when people are worried and fretful, they just run around in circles. My mother was running around in circles. Her mind was so full, so confused. She needed my father, but Dad was busy. I bent over my brother and whispered to Jesus. Jesus was close by. He was in my heart. My mother kept taking temperatures, and I kept leaning over the baby, my brother, putting a cool cloth on his forehead and whispering to Jesus. By the time Dad got home, the fever had broken. Mr. Bennett was gone.

      After the baby started walking, he ran, chased, and took charge. He had no fear. I was five-and-a-half years older than him, but that made no difference. He was a wild one. And he would run you down. I still have a scar on my face from the time he flipped my chair over, causing me to fall and puncture my lip.

      I began sneezing, I had a runny nose, and my voice grew muffled and nasal-sounding. I had so much congestion that I had difficulty breathing through my mouth. My breathing was noisy, and it became a snorting sound in my sleep. I developed a cough and a sore throat. The doctor confirmed that I had an inflammation, and once that inflammation was under control, they would remove my tonsils and adenoids. A date was set for the removal. Well, this sounded painful and unacceptable to me, so I headed up the hill, walked through the meadow, and talked to Jesus. He was still nestled in my heart, and the song we sang in Sunday school was “Jesus Loves Me This I Know for the Bible Tells Me So.” Jesus loves me. Does he want me to go through this? Is there a reason why I should? The day came for the removal. We were prepared, and I had been promised an ice cream after it was over to ease the hurt. The doctor did a final check and stated there were no tonsils to remove. My tonsils were gone. They had disappeared. This was a miracle to me at this time in my life. I learned later that tonsils atrophy and waste away when you have severe sore throats or tonsillitis. To put it not so sensitively, they rot out a little each time you have tonsillitis until nothing of them remains.

      The Apple family had a farm and a sawmill not many miles from the church. On one occasion, I visited my friend Diana, who was always dreaming of becoming a movie star. Diana was a natural beauty, and she didn’t mind that I was younger. We still had fun. It was a busy time for the farm, and the sawmill was active. Diana and I walked through the woods to watch the action.

      The guys saw us coming and decided to have some fun, so once we got close, they fired off the engine whistle. What a blast! It sounded like an explosion. Being afraid of noise, I started running wildly, not knowing where to go. I ran underneath a huge dump truck to escape to the other side. Thinking I was safe, I reared up and hit my head, creating a hole in my forehead. Blood gushed everywhere. The gash was washed, cleansed, medicated, and stuffed with gauze. The scar on my forehead still lives with me. No more sawmill trips!

      I did return to the Apples’ farm, not only to visit my friend Diana but also to pick strawberries in the summer. I loved competing to see how many baskets I could fill. My first earnings came from picking strawberries on that farm. I was so happy and proud of my accomplishments.

      One fall, my dad opened a box chock-full of boxes of Christmas and all-occasion cards. He proposed the idea of presenting his collection of samples to friends, family, and neighbors, taking orders, and making some money. I was all in. I spent time examining the cards in each box, checking their prices, and learning the procedure of taking orders, and then I was on my way. I remember vividly my first afternoon out in the neighborhood going door to door up and down the hill, talking to people, sharing the cards I thought were the prettiest, and writing orders. It was dark before I returned home, but I was tickled pink with a fistful of orders. This was my second source of income. For years, it was the same every fall: studying the new collections, presenting samples, and writing orders.

      Yearly, a group of church members would come to the house, and the men would butcher one of the pigs. The wives would help my mom with preparing food for the hungry gang. This was always a long day of cleaning, carving, and preparing the meat for some months of good eating. It did not take me long to know that the tenderloin part was my favorite. I knew early on the good things in life. Brains and eggs would grace our table. Headcheese was a dish made from the head of the pig. The head was washed and scraped clean, the bristles shaved or plucked. After splitting or quartering the head, it is simmered in a large stockpot until the meat is so tender that it falls off the bone. The skull is removed from the cooking liquid and allowed to cool, and then the meat is picked off the skull and chopped. Seasonings and vegetables are added along with the strained cooking liquid. This mixture is poured into pans or molds and refrigerated. When it is set and solid, it is ready to be served. Sometimes it is served cold and sliced, and other times it is lightly fried.

      The parishioners were good to us. They invited us to their homes for meals, sharing the fruit from their gardens and heavily laden trees. Bushels of fruit, green beans, tomatoes, and other vegetables were canned for the winter months. Late in the season, you could find bushels of reasonably priced fruits and vegetables for canning at farmers’ roadside stands.

      Once a year, we would take a trip to Austin, Indiana. Austin had a warehouse that would open to the public to rid its stock of dented cans at a few cents each. We would fill the car with boxes of dented cans, an excellent resource for supplementing our food supply.

      We had our cow for milk and churned our own butter, the garden for fresh vegetables in the summer, chickens for eggs and eating, as well as rabbits and pigs. There was no need to go to a grocery store other than for a few items like flour, salt, pepper, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and Crisco.

      A baptism service was scheduled for all new members. The church did not have a baptistery, and the belief was that a person should be fully immersed in the water, not just sprinkled with it. I was on the list of participants to receive this Christian sacrament of rebirth, and my time came. Everyone sang the hymn by Robert Lowry, “Shall We Gather at the River?” My father waded out into the water. All I could see was his head sticking up. Names were called, and each person walked out into the water. My father greeted them and quoted something (I guess it was from the Bible), and then immersed them into the water. I watched as they came up dripping wet and shaking from the chill. I decided this was not for me, so I ran through the woods and waited while my name was called, hidden behind a tree, and then quietly walked to the car. After the ceremony, my parents and I drove home in silence. Being baptized was never, ever mentioned to me again.

      It was rare that my parents would go away without me, but when they did, Grandmother Hertel would come. She always had a handful of books, which I loved. It seemed something unusual would always occur. The happenings were mostly self-inflicted, because with her there was a sense of freedom, relaxation, laughter, and “just plain fun.” One of these times, I decided to go up to the meadow and pick wild blackberries along the fence rows. I came home with a few berries in my basket and my body full of hard, red, infuriating, itchy chigger bites. These were summer pests, mites or bugs that would suck your blood and cause intensely irritating itching. I had more chiggers than berries. Chiggers loved the blackberry habitat. Grandmother wrapped me in cool, wet towels, and we slept on the floor. Throughout the night, she replaced the cool, wet towels to comfort me.

      Another time, I came down with the mumps and began hallucinating in the middle of the night. Grandma was a great nurse. She had the right touch to comfort, cuddle, and help make the worst situations better. There was a trip, and Grandmother could not come. Let’s be realistic: She lived in Fort Wayne as a working woman; and even though she came by train on Granddad’s passes, this was still a chore for her.