[or-roots] Re: Camp Meeting Yamhill River

[Connie Guardino]

Walt, can I quote this? A section of my website(s) is devoted to

itinerate preachers and camp meetings. What year was this? Connie

Guardino



DAVIESW739 at aol.com wrote:



>  I remember attending a Meeting held on the banks of the Yamhill

> river. Off to one side of the grounds was a half dozen camps, they

> were quite apart from the rest and nobody went there. We children were

> told not to go near that part of the camp grounds. We were not told

> why, but we saw the older ones glance that way furtively and heads

> were shaken and mouths drawn down. Even the names of the family camped

> there was spoken with lowered voices. There was something terrible at

> that place, we children were all sure of that. We feared that it might

> be catching and we talked about it among ourselves and wondered and

> peeked whenever we had the chance.   One night just as preaching had

> begun we heard a big commotion in the Clark's camp. "Glory to god." we

> heard, Then "Jesus is with us tonight, halleluiah." (Only they called

> it Hulli-u-jay).Little heads all along our row were picked up. We

> forgot that we were ladies and opened our mouths and stared. The

> "shouting" old ladies jumped up from the congregation and started

> toward the Clark's camp. "Mothers in Israel" they were called. some of

> them, I remember were very fat and each one seemed trying to reach the

> Clark's camp first. They were all excited and were hollering "Glory to

> god" and pounding each other. Someone had "gotten religion." a poor

> unfortunate, who had been shunned by everyone that was there and

> despised, had found her way to God, apparently without guidance. Good

> people can be so cruel sometimes. My Mother was deeply religious, but

> her religion was of a different kind. She was very dignified and quiet

> and she was always easy for anyone in trouble to go to.   Joab Powell

> was at that Camp Meeting. He thought himself quite a singer, maybe he

> was. I thought so anyway. He had a big, big voice that fairly made the

> woods echo. One of his favorite songs was "I yield, I yield, I can

> hold out no more to the pleadings of Mercy etc." He sang through his

> nose and I thought he said: "ienal, ienal," etc. and I could not find

> out what it meant. He sang another that went something like this:

> "Escape for life, with horror then my vitals froze." I thought he

> said: "Scrape for life, with horror then my victuap forze." I sang it

> with him as loudly as I could till Mother heard me and made me stop.I

> remember going to one Camp Meeting. Uncle Abram Garrison was the

> preacher. In those days, preachers were nearly always very poor, few

> of them had even a home, though land was to be had for the staking of

> it, and material for a cabin grew on the land, itself. Everybody was

> willing and glad to come to a "house raising" and there would be a

> home quite as good as anyone else had. But most of the preachers

> traveled about from settlement to settlement and stayed wherever night

> overtook them. That was not true of Uncle Abram, he was a farmer and

> an unusually thrifty one.   When he presided at the Camp Meeting,

> everybody knew that there would be plenty to eat, plenty for everyone

> and to spare. Aunt Peggy was a famous cook and could make the most of

> everything that she had. Like everyone else, they had nothing except

> what they grew themselves, but before Camp Meeting they would kill a

> beef and cook it in a big pit. Aunt Peggy would have head cheese and

> baked hams, and homemade cheese round and plump and yellow. They would

> spread the dinner out under the trees and Uncle Abram would hop upon a

> stump and call: "come, come, everyone and fill up the table." The

> Meeting would sometimes last for a week and Uncle Abram and Aunt Peggy

> saw to it that everyone had all that he could eat. Of course, those

> who had plenty, took their own, but nobody stayed away from Camp

> Meeting because their cupboards were bare. In fact, I would not be at

> all surprised, if that was not the reason that Uncle Abram's Camp

> Meetings were always so well attended. There were many bare cupboards

> in Oregon then. Walt Davies

> Cooper Hollow Farm

> Monmouth, OR 97361

> 503 623-0460

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