What’s your story?
Reba loved a good story. She loved to read them. She loved to hear them. And she loved to tell them, even if she didn’t always get the details just right.
My mother’s life was a classic story with some themes that we love. Certain themes speak to our souls. And my mother’s story includes several of the themes we truly enjoy hearing.
These themes include:
Rags to Riches
A hero on a white horse
The story of an everyday Heroine
A story of a great adventure
A Story of Revenge
A Most Epic Story of Eternal Love
The first theme is a rags to riches story of a little girl who grew up with no shoes on her feet and became a woman who had enough to help other people who lacked the resources to take care of themselves.
Born in Murphy NC, and moved to Granny Lee Swamp in Englewood, TN. Picture the house on Dolly Parton story from the television special last year. She shared the house with 10 siblings. Her mother was an amazing woman who loved her children well and her father was an alcoholic who was unable to provide for his family. Young Reba and several of her siblings were determined to rise above poverty and shame. The house had no running water and in the winter they would gather around a small stove to stay warm sleeping close. She used to walk to school with no shoes. The teacher would sit her next to the wood stove and rub her feet until they were warm again. It is a wonder she didn’t have frostbite. Apparently, at some point she had gotten so sick with an untreated throat infection that she no longer had tonsils. A doctor asked her as an adult when she had her tonsils removed and she said never. He said well they are gone. Her father would promise if they would work in the fields he would take the money from the crops and buy her shoes. They would anticipate new shoes, but he would come home drunk instead with no shoes. How my mother turned out to be so trusting after being lied to time after time by her own father is a testimony to God’s grace. There were many other stories of the humiliation she suffered as a child, but we won’t get into them. Reba was determined to escape the poverty that seemed to define her. She went to Chattanooga to work for an Uncle, she went to live with her sister Irene in Knoxville and went to school for a year at Bearden High School. She eventually graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in education and became a school teacher. This young lady had not only escaped poverty, but was determined to help others get an educaiton to change their situations too.
This is where the story changes a bit and we see a hero ride into her life on a white horse, make that a 1950 pale blue chevy truck. Young Carroll McGinnis noticed a new girl at Bearden High School in Knoxville. She only attended her Junior year, but that was enough for this young man to have his sights set on this beautiful young woman named Reba. The next school year Reba went back to Englewood to go to High School. My dad showed up one day at her house in Granny Lee Swamp unannounced. When he pulled up she was just coming from the swamp where they got their water from the springs. She was in overalls and no shoes carrying two five gallon buckets of water. One in each hand. He was in love. He chased her for a while and she finally said yes.
Once she complained to her mother that Dad hunted too much, but her mother said, “Reba, as long as he is only hunting 4 legged animals, then let him.” So she did. He hunted and hunted. And she would make delicious meals from the harvest.
These two have done life together and in love. She has loved him well for 59 years last Saturday and He has never been anything but madly in love with her since. He has been faithful to his vows for 6 decades to love her “in sickness and in health” and “til death do us part.” These last 2 decades he has loved her so well through Alzheimer’s and I know that if the tables were turned, she would have done the same for him.
Some say that we lost mom a while back when she could no longer converse or recognize us, but for my dad she has been right here with him until her last breath on Thursday. They have a love that will last throughout eternity.
So we have had rags to riches, we have had the hero in the Chevy Truck
But we also have her story as a heroine. Reba was determined not to let her humble beginnings define her. She would use her God given gifts to help other people and her community. She volunteered for the Helen Ross McNabb Mental Health Center, She was president of the Knoxville Medical Auxiliary and started the Garcia Tennis Tournament Benefit, she worked with the Friends of the Knox County Library, she was the chairperson for the Knoxville Dogwood Arts Festival and worked with the Lakemoore Hills Garden Club. She volunteered for mission trips. She volunteered at church. She volunteered to teach kids to read. There were a whole bunch of other volunteer positions over the years. Her volunteer efforts were recognized when she became the Beta Sigma Phi First Lady of Knoxville in 1989.
She is quoted in the Knoxville News Sentinel when she accepted that honor saying,
“People have always been more important than things to me. I guess that’s why I don’t have any interesting and unique collections, why our house will never make the pages of “Southern Living” magazine, the reason I am not an expert on any particular subject.
Reba said, “When there was a job going unfilled because no one else wanted to do it, or a job out there I felt I could handle better than most, I simply volunteered.”
Reba’s story was one of great adventure
She has traveled the world. All those places she read about as a child. She went to see. She and her true love have traveled to Alaska in a truck and all over the US. She and dad have been to over 30 foreign mission trips together to places like Africa, Europe, South America, and Mexico. They have wintered at a fishing village in Florida, been to the Virgin Islands, Hawaii and many other exotic places. This girl’s life was a true adventure.
She always loved her traveling companion (i.e. Carroll) and those friends and family she traveled with.
One of her proudest adventures was one we might call a simple pleasure. My mother never learned to ride a bike as a kid, but she always wanted to. So, at age 40 she bought herself a bike and learned to ride. Once she checked that adventure of the bucket list she was on to the next adventure and never rode it again.
Mom always wanted to learn a sport. So, she took tennis lessons, got a league together and played until she couldn’t play any more. She loved the competition and the company that she played with.
Mom wanted her kids to write their own story of adventure.
Mom always wanted 3 things for us. Reba wanted us to have a good education, have something to do, and she wanted us to connect our lives with Jesus. She would always make sure school work was done and done correctly. The English teacher never fully let go of that role and often corrected our grammar... mid sentence.
She made sure that Angela was in a piano or dance class of some sort. I’m not sure it helped her rhythm, but she still enjoys her Zoomba class. Sounds like a 1970’s show on PBS doesn’t it?
She was always involved in our school activities. We once had a school play that needed fog on stage, so they needed some dry ice to pour some water over. She volunteered to get the dry ice and promptly went home and called the dry ice company in Knoxville. When they asked her how much she needed. She said, “oh I don’t know, a green cooler full?” Well the man thought it was so funny he started telling his co workers and they were all laughing too. The 1970’s fog machine was great and the elementary school play came off without a hitch... if that is possible.
Mom made sure we were active. She got us into swimming, which occupied our summers for several years.
Mom signed me up for football and baseball and church basketball. I know what you are thinking, I must have been a natural. With all this height and athletic ability… Okay not so much. I was always about a foot shorter than all my peers and they outweighed me by 20-30 lbs. But mom was all about character building.
She once got us a job as tomato pickers on a huge farm. “It will give you character,” she said. “It will be a learning experience,” she said. It was also how we discovered that I was red, green colorblind. They asked, “who is picking these green tomatoes?'' and they traced the buckets back to me, so I was the one who had to build character by carrying 5 gallon buckets full of tomatoes from the itinerant workers to the truck.
Mom always made sure we were in church. She made it clear that her family went to church. And almost every time the doors were open, we were there. As they say when we were kids we had a “drug problem”, Mom “drug” us to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night and every revival, every VBS, every teen mission trip… Mom made sure we knew Jesus and went to worship God and learn His Word. One Sunday when I came home from college with a friend, we slept in and didn’t make it to church. She said only one word and I knew I was in trouble. She pointed her finger at me and said “Kid!” and that was all it took.
Mom was always our best cheerleader and biggest fan… although, we did drive her crazy sometimes. Her favorite expression was “You two could give an aspirin a headache.” Angela loves to tell the story of the time Mom was disciplining us and said, “I better not hear another peep out of you” and my sister, thought she would test Reba and respond with “peep”, she quickly learned that mom was very serious about discipline.
Mom always told us we could do anything and she did everything she could to let us try. She even signed us up for sailing lessons on the Tennessee river. She loved us well. She always had a warm and welcoming home with good nourishing food... A hot meal every night and breakfast everyday before school. She even fixed my dad a warm lunch every day when he came home from work for food and a short siesta before returning to the office to see several more patients.
My mom also wanted to be a part of the story for her extended family and friends too. We often had house guests, farm guests, houseboat guests, RV guests. Basically anywhere Mom was, she was a hostess. This was even true when she was in Williamsburg Alzheimer’s facility. She would help the kitchen staff set the tables and make sure everything was in the right place. Mom always made sure you had plenty to eat and a comfortable place to sit, sleep or have conversation.
Now my mother loved to talk. As a matter of fact as a child, she was known as “that little blonde haired Price girl who loved to talk.” As a young girl she would sometimes jump up on a stump and start preaching to anyone who would listen, squirrels, rabbits, siblings, or no one in particular. She was never at a loss for words. Conversation was important to her because she loved people and loved to tell or hear a good story.
I remember going with Mom often to a nursing home to encourage a friend or family member. She helped take care of those who were homebound. She took food to those who needed it. She always took care of “the least of these.”
She was also a heroine to her church. We don’t really call people heroine’s in the church, we call them deacons and Sunday School teachers and servants of all kinds. Those who live out their faith inside and outside the church. It was her love for conversation and her love for reading and learning and her love for Jesus that led her to teach. She taught about every age group at church from children to teens to adults. She also served on several committees and teams. She was among the first women deacons elected to serve at Central Baptist Church of Bearden.
Mom’s story is now a classic story of Revenge, but there is a spiritual twist. God said, don’t take your own revenge because He says, “vengeance is mine.”
The first thing I want to say is… Where oh Alzheimer's is your victory? Where oh Alzheimer's is your sting? My mother is free from you and in the arms of her Jesus, who has saved her and rescued her from your grip. She will be in heaven for an eternity. These 17 years you held her and all of us captive on this earth is nothing. You could not separate her from the great love of Jesus Christ, because it is wide and long and high and deep and overcomes all evil. Reba Price McGinnis has been restored, she has finished the race, she has fought the good fight. She has won the victory in Jesus. She is more than a conqueror in her savior Jesus Christ.
And Finally the best story of all! The Story of God’s Amazing Grace.
Revelation 3:20 (NASB) 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”
What a Savior! Perfect for this woman who loves to host people. This woman with the gift of hospitality is now with the One who welcomes anyone who believes in Him into heaven. One day at the age of 13 she answered the door and invited Jesus into her own life. In Reba’s own writing on a small diary you can read, “ I was converted Wednesday, April 30, 1947 at 10:25 a.m. I gave up everything and turned my life over God. Love Reba”
Today’s story is a celebration because Reba is in heaven with Jesus now. This story is an adventure, it is a victory. It is no tragedy.
Jesus changed Reba's story from a tragedy to one of victory. Jesus saved her from sin and death and she now has eternal life.
Reba loved her Jesus
From age 13 until she could no longer communicate my mother loved to be a witness for Jesus. Even, strangely, once after she hadn’t spoken for a couple of years, she said to my father and her caregiver, “what are we supposed to be doing until Jesus comes back?” She lived her faith, she taught her faith, and now she is living with the One who is always faithful. He is more concerned about people too. Jesus is about relationships. He loves people.
My Mother always urged people on, moved them further, desired for them to grow. She was a disciple and a discipler.
I believe she would be asking all of us today about our story. “What is your story?”
She would want to make sure your story includes the most epic story of all time, God's Gift of a changed life through Jesus Christ.
She loved to sing, “Blessed Assurance” with the refrain, “This is My Story.”
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine;
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
What's Your Story?
