Eleanor’s first Testimony
Sometimes when a person has had a long relationship with God, there will be a history. Not just one testimony to give, but several. This is Eleanor’s first of many testimonies.
First off – God is the judge.
There is a court room in heaven and He is the judge. It is also His plan, and he knew me.
From when? From the very beginning. But I didn’t know ‘that’. The background of my birth is that my ‘mother-to-be’ was Edith Loraine Wright. She had an older sister, Ada Alice Wright Price who took my ‘mother-to-be’ in when she was just eight years old.
Edith got married to Alfred Bailey at an early age and they were married only five years. He would not work was the reason for the divorce. Edith began to date a divorced man who my uncle worked with and who he brought home with him to meet Edith.
Edith was a beautiful natural red haired lady, who was seated at a dresser with a big round mirror when that man first saw her. He made the remark, “She was the prettiest thing he had ever seen in his life.” His name was William (Willie) Garrett. They got married and she moved in with him and his two children. Paul Garrett, seven years old, and Ella Mae Garrett nine and one half years old.
Edith had lived there for a few months when she got sick. It was before time for Willie (also known as ‘Shorty’) to go to work at the Lenoir City Car Works (also known as the Foundry). When she told him she was sick he threw a mad ‘fit’. He tore all the buttons off of his shirt, his socks off his feet, he threw the stove eyes off the stove and kicked the bed across the room and went on to work.
Edith walked back down to her sister Ada’s house and sat in her yard until Ada and her husband John Price came in from work. Ada said, “Edith, why are you sitting here crying?” So Edith said, “Because I am sick and Shorty throwed a fit and I need to go to the doctor.”
So Ada said, “Well, we will take you to Dr. Leeper.”
After Dr. Leeper examined Edith, he went out to talk to Ada. He said, “Ada, she’s pregnant but she does have a bad kidney infection.” Ada replied “Don’t tell her she’s pregnant, I’ll tell her after we leave the office.”
So as they walked down the hill beside Goodwin’s Drug store, my Aunt Ada told my ‘mother-to-be’ “Edith, you’re pregnant and you do have a bad kidney infection.” She said that when Edith heard this she began to cry and said “Now I will have to go back to him and take his abuse.” Then my aunt Ada, who could not have children of her own said, “No. You won’t. A little baby would be sweet.”
So Edith stayed with my Aunt Ada and I was born on September 29th, 1934 in my Aunt’s house. I called them Mama Ede and Mama Ade.
While I was little, I guess maybe four years old I didn’t know who was my ‘real’ mama. I thought at one time maybe Edith was my sister. I remember I felt more care for my Mama Ade because she really took care of me and taught me right from wrong. If she had to spank me it was with a ‘little’ switch from a little hedge bush. And that’s what made me care more for her. I considered disciplining me was a form of love.
I went by the name Eleanor Price and both John and Ada were considered Daddy and Mama to me. When I was in the fourth grade two business looking men came to my school to get me to sign my name on an insurance paper. They told me I had to sign my name as Eleanor Garrett. So that was the first time using that name. But at school I kept signing my name Price. One day when I was about eight or nine years old, I was in the yard and out in the road there were two men walking past the house, the short man looked right at me and said to the man that was walking with him “That is my daughter.” I ran into the house and all the way back to the kitchen where my mama was wiping off the counter and I said, “Mama, there was a short man walking up the road and he looked right at me and said “That is my daughter.”
My mother didn’t stop wiping off the cabinet. She didn’t even look up. She just said “Well -that’s your daddy.” Just like, “Turn the page!” No explanation. That’s it. Whatever. Period.
When I was twelve Mama Ede heard about a blind lady who was eighty-one years old. Mrs. Laura Gaut lived on West Broadway and would teach piano lessons for fifty cents a lesson. So my Mama Ede told my Mama Ade if she would go up to T.D. Pickles and buy me a piano, she would pay for the piano lessons. I found out that my elderly blind music teacher knew the Music books by heart. She sat on the bench with me to start with and if I missed a note she would spank my hand and say “No, no, no.” If I thought I was right but looked just a little closer, I found out that she was correct every time.
Now we are getting sort of close to ‘Getting Saved’. So as the beat goes on (snicker!) when I was in the eighth grade I was going to school with some girls who went to a different kind of Baptist Church (Primitive). I was going to a Southern Missionary Baptist Church on West Broadway. There were some of the ‘primitive’ girls who said they were saved. I went to Sunday School and Church all my life. A little bit here and a little there and at that time I even played some at Church and funerals. But I had never felt the ‘wooing’ of the Holy Spirit. But that week I was with my Aunt and Uncle and we were going on a ferry boat across to Greenback (Bussell Town) where another uncle, aunt and kids lived. It was after dark when we returned across the river, and as we crossed back to the Lenoir City side, I was looking down at the dark water and I didn’t see any “flames”. All I saw was blackness.
Then once I was back home I began to be drawn by the Holy Spirit with these words: ‘If you went into that dark water and died what about your soul?’ Then because I had been taught that you must keep yourself “Unspotted from the world.” And the movies are of the world. So I cried on my pillow because I told myself “If you get saved you cannot go to the movies.” And was I willing to give up the movies?
So I went to school on Monday morning under deep conviction and there at my desk I felt trapped. I had not repented of my sin yet. The first prayer I prayed was “Lord give me till the ten o’clock recess bell rings and I will ask you to save me!” So I sat in ‘ready to go’ position and when the bell rang, I bolted out the door and ran up the hill to the Girl’s Rest room. I took steps that my feet did not touch the ground. I ran into the rest room, got down on my knees bawling like a baby and I said, “God forgive me my sins and save my soul.” And the burden came off my shoulders and joy and peace filled my whole being and I went back to my class room and walked up to the teacher’s desk and said, “I just got saved!”
When I got home I told my Mama Ade and she said “If you really did get saved you should join the Church and be baptized.” I said, “OK, I want to.”
So I did, I got baptized in Fort Loudon Lake in the winter, in January. I remained a pianist there until eighteen years old plus, and I was a member of West Broadway.
I want to tell this also, when I was a baby my aunt and uncle were members of Highland Park Baptist Church. So I just know there were prayers prayed for me at HPBC when I was a baby. Shouldn’t be strange that I’ve done some piano playing here in this place, starting in the old church. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Thankful,
Eleanor Spears
PS: I really did have more love and understanding for my birth mother AFTER I HAD A BABY!!! I couldn’t imagine how she suffered to carry me and they said she almost died when I was born. She was living with me when she died – I held her hand and loved her.