Short Stories and Essays
THANK YOU, MRS. J. E. MORRIS
[This short story was written by John E. Enslen as a journal entry on January 3, 2022.]
I watched a couple of Welch-oriented movies on the Classic Turner Movies channel tonight. The second movie was the 1945 production of “The Corn Is Green” starring Betty Davis as a schoolteacher in an 1895 Wales mining town. The movie portrayed the positive impact that one person can have on another person. The plot poignantly reminded me of an important episode in my early life. I shall recount it here for my readers.
My best recollection is that I was 11 years of age, and it was the spring of the year. That would make it early 1958 when I was finishing the 6th grade. Mrs. J. E. Morris was the wife of a staunch Baptist deacon, Mr. J. E. Morris, who was the county agent, an important position in our area. Like the women of her era, she went by her husband’s name or initials preceded by “Mrs.” Her given names were Annie Mae.
Mrs. J. E. Morris was an excellent, somewhat strict, junior high school teacher. She was a faithful and devoted member of the First Baptist Church of Wetumpka where my mother generally dropped me off for Sunday School at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. I didn’t stay for the worship service very often. She also took me to training union on Wednesday nights, and occasionally for a Royal Ambassadors meeting on a school day afternoon. Mrs. J. E. Morris became my Betty Davis of the movie, which I hope you will watch, if for no other reason than for better understanding my analogy.
Mrs. Morris approached me at church one Sunday and suggested to me that I enter the State Junior Bible and Sword Drill Contest sponsored by the Alabama Baptist Convention. She offered to tutor me on the nature of the contest and train me to compete in it. Somehow, she enticed me to give it a try.
This was a formidable undertaking. I clearly recall that, among other things, I had to memorize 50 Bible scriptures word perfect, which over time I did. I still distinctly remember several of those scriptures to this day, one of which was James 1:5, by the way, which has special meaning to Latter-day Saints.
For many days over the course of a couple of months, at the rate of about two hours per day after school, I intensely trained at Mrs. Morris’ house on North Bridge Street. She drilled me over and over, checking my memorization, and requiring me to do that which the contest would require—finding in the standard-issue sword drill Bible each of those scriptures, and any others that might be referenced in the contest, as quickly as I could. Over time, I became proficient in repeating the names of every book of the Old and New Testaments in order, reciting the 50 assigned scriptures including chapter and verse, and looking up Bible verses with rapid speed.
Summer came and it was time for the contest. Two busloads of members from my Baptist church rode to Shocco Springs near Talladega, Alabama, to support me and Mrs. Morris’ daughter Mary, who was in the speaking contest designed for older Baptist youth. Other churches in the convention throughout Alabama had their youth representatives at the event. My Bible Sword Drill Contest was open to both genders, and there was stiff competition.
Ultimately, I won in a very close contest. I may have won only because my closest competitor admitted that he was mistaken about a verse when only he could have known he was mistaken. I will never know for sure if my opponent’s admission made the difference between my winning or finishing second, which he did.
Let me explain that situation further so that you will know how one portion of the contest was conducted. Let’s say the officiator called out Romans 10:12, which was one of our fifty assigned memorization verses. If you believed you knew the verse and could recite it word perfect, you stepped forward one step, clomp-clomp on the wooden stage floor.
Several contestants would know each verse called, or at least believe that they knew it, and would step forward. The officiator would then call upon only one of the several who stepped forward from the group lines, two rows deep, to recite the verse. Rarely did the officiator need to go to a second person who had stepped forward in order to get a perfect recitation, notwithstanding one altered or omitted word would doom you. All who stepped forward received the allotted points whether they were the selected successful reciter or not.
On this one occasion, after the verse was correctly recited by a contestant, the participant to whom I refer, who had also stepped forward, voluntarily told the officiator that he had the wrong verse in mind and should not get the points allotted to those who properly stepped forward. The officiator readily obliged with the point deduction. That took place about mid-way through the one-hour contest.
I ended up with the most points and, as I previously reported, won. There were articles in the newspapers about my victory. In fact, those articles could possibly provide a more accurate time frame for the event. But the fact of my winning is not the reason I am recounting this story. I am chronicling this event because of Mrs. Morris’ personal sacrifices that had an important positive impact on the remainder of my life.
In my youth, there was never any scripture reading in my home with either of my parents at any time. There was rarely a blessing on a meal, mostly only when we had company. In my earlier years, my parents taught me to say “God is great; God is good; let us thank him for this food. Amen.” That was it, a vain repetition of a prayer quickly recited from rote memory so that we could dig in, certainly better than nothing, but probably barely.
Further, at no time did we have family prayers together at night. In that sense, my father did not know how to properly lead a family spiritually. I am sure his father lacked the same fathering skills. I never saw my father or my mother kneel in prayer in my home. In my earlier pre-school years, my mother taught me a little prayer to say at night before I crawled into the bed: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.” I had other friends who knew the same prayer, so perhaps my situation was not so uncommon.
I did occasionally see one or the other of my parents reading in the Bible, and they could be heard to sing or whistle an old gospel song from time to time. They sporadically, in spurts, attended Sunday church worship services, usually the important Christian holidays, especially during election years. There were six of those for my father. They at least made sure that my sister Emily and I had a Holy Bible of our own, and they never discouraged or hindered us from church involvement.
Thus, my intense crash course in Bible study, memorization, and scripture location directed by Mrs. Morris filled a gospel vacuum in my life and instilled in me a greater love for and understanding of the scriptures. My yearning to learn and know more was stimulated significantly. The experience she orchestrated gave me an increased appreciation for ensuing Sunday school lessons by dedicated gospel teachers at the First Baptist Church, like my across-the-street neighbor Ethel Knight and bakery-owner Franklin Wingett. Other good teachers included Judge Edwin Sanford, Barney Thames, Sr., and in my early young married days, Freddie Slaughter.
I admit that for a time, this scripture-exposure experience even made me think that perhaps I had been called to become a preacher or minister of the gospel. Although not long thereafter, that feeling was supplanted by a desire to become a medical doctor because they seemed to be very respected and had plenty of money. That soft goal was replaced in time, even before finishing high school, by a stronger desire to become an attorney. I seemed to have a knack for writing and public speaking, and at that time some interest in politics.
My new wife Dianne became good friends with Mrs. Morris after Dianne and I moved to Wetumpka following law school and military service. We all attended the same church, and Wetumpka was a small town. In the spring of 1973, 24-year-old Dianne felt she needed to tell Mrs. Morris that we were being taught by Mormon missionaries, and Dianne did. Mrs. Morris’ response was typical of her unwavering devotion to her Baptist upbringing: “I hope you are converting them to be Baptist.” That’s not exactly the way it turned out.
Mrs. Morris’ oldest daughter Jean, who married college football star Dan Law, went on to become the head of the Baptist women’s auxiliary nationally. She traveled the world over on behalf of Baptist women and was a wonderful person. A few years ago, I was selected by her and her brother, a medical doctor, to read their mother’s last will and testament following her death. Mrs. Morris had been a widow a long time. I read her last will and testament in her house to her three children and their spouses, and I handled the legal administration of her estate.
Where would I be today without Mrs. J. E. Morris’ influence in my life? I shudder to think. Her impact on me was life changing, especially spiritually. Further, it is not a stretch to say that the self-confidence that I developed to quarterback two consecutive undefeated football teams in high school had its foundation in the sword drill contest.
I look forward to seeing Mrs. J. E. Morris in the next world. I have never appropriately thanked her for the positive influence she had on my life. I am sure she prayed for me and Dianne to see the light while we were being taught by the young Latter-day Saint missionaries. I am equally sure her prayers, for which I am also grateful, were answered, although maybe not the way she expected them to be answered.