The Looney Bin
Bowels of Mercy
Grandma Fern was one of the liveliest women I have ever known. She was sassy, bright and very talented, and wasn’t a bit shy to share her accomplishments (in Jesus name :)). She traveled all over Kansas when she was a teenager as part of a ladies trio. They were featured on local radio stations, and as the story goes, were quite good in their day. She stayed devoted to music throughout her lifetime and one of my fondest memories of her is seeing her perched at her Hammond organ, beating out a lively rendition of “The Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy”. She was a fun-loving person who adored her friends and never minded tooting her own horn (which sometimes made us laugh, and sometimes drove us crazy).
As she grew older, she became frustrated when she lost the ability to sing like in the old days and eventually, arthritis became such a problem that she could no longer play her beloved organ. Our church family at the time, Redwood MBC, asked her at the ripe old age of 83, to be the director of the ladies’ singing group. I thought the buttons would pop off her turquoise, sequined dress suit…she was so proud.
I may as well pause here to state an interesting fact about Redwood’s ladies’ singing group. Basically this group consisted of every female in the church. About 20 of us would get up and sing a song that we all liked, while the men stared back at us with glazed over eyeballs. It’s kind of funny to call people up for a special, when you have 20 females singing to 12 men, but whatever. It’s all for the honor and glory of God, right?