Friends: Meeting my mom’s long-ago friend “Jeannie” brightened a bleak Christmas in 2002. Here’s the second part of the two-part story we began last week. Blessings! Bob

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Spirituality Column #944

December 17, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Christmas Present from the Past

By Bob Walters

“Shout for joy to the Lord … his faithfulness continues through all generations,” Psalms 100, Mary Jean Alig’s favorite psalm, read at her funeral by her daughter Ginny Cain.

The story began back in the 1940s, I think, when teenager Mary Jean Milner ventured from her family’s summer enclave in Harbor Springs, Michigan, 30 miles north to visit friends in Mackinaw City.

For geographical orientation, look at the back of your left hand – you’ll note it looks like the state of Michigan.  Detroit is down at the base of your thumb; Harbor Springs is at the top of your ring finger.  Mackinaw City is at the top tip in the middle. My parents are both buried there. And, by the way, the city is on the “mainland,” by the Mackinac Bridge, not on Mackinac Island, eight miles or so out into Lake Huron.

My dad’s family, the Walters, had lived or summered in Mackinaw since 1905. Mom’s family, the McKinney’s from Saginaw, Mich. (near the crux of your thumb and forefinger), built a Mackinaw summer home in the 1920s or 30s.  We never asked for specifics.  Dad grew up in Marion, Indiana, and due to a long list of family happenstance, went to Mackinaw City High School during World War II, class of 1945.

The Milners, Mary Jean’s family, were from Indianapolis where her dad, the Rev. Dr. Jean Milner, was senior pastor at Second Presbyterian Church from 1921-1960, first on 38^th Street at Meridian, then north to 7700 North Meridian where it is still located today.

In the 1920s, Indiana’s allergy season led Rev. Milner to find summer solace in Northern Michigan, where he built a log cabin west of Harbor Springs on Lake Michigan, and a shed on the shore that was his “writing room” where he would construct sermons and teaching plans for the coming year.

My wife Pam and I learned this while visiting Mary Jean and husband Dr. Vincent Alig in 2014, standing on the beachfront below their Harbor Springs home. Vince died the following summer in 2015; we kept in regular touch with Mary Jean until she passed last Friday, Dec. 6, at age 95.

Going back to last week’s column (#943 link) about meeting Vince and Mary Jean in 2002 at the Mustard Seed Bible study Christmas breakfast at Indy’s East 91^st Street Christian Church, that “random” meeting, I believed immediately, was no random thing.  The meeting was a God thing, as I and my family grappled with my mother’s severe health decline. Discovering that day that Mary Jean was “Jeannie” my parents, and especially my mom, had spoken of years before, built a welcome bridge to my mom’s youth.

Jeannie, who went to Tudor Hall, a high school in Indy, had a friend named Fred “Fritz” Leete at Indy’s Park School (now Park-Tudor School), whose family had a multi-home estate (“The Leete Fleet”) down Wawatam Beach from the McKinney place. Mom, dad, and Fritz were friends, and Jeannie stayed with Mom in Mackinaw. Vince, whose family, also from Indy, had a summer home on Walloon Lake (also tip of the ring finger) occasionally visited Mackinaw as well.  Everybody knew everybody along the beach

I learned a lot about my now bed-bound mom I had not known.  Mom, Jeannie said, was the “beach gang” leader-of-the-pack. Her family had a nice Chris-Craft motorboat and Mom led various forays over to Mackinac Island or bombing around the Straits. Jeannie told me she remembers Mom barefoot water skiing – I had no idea – and that Mom would brag about speeding back and forth to Saginaw in her dad’s car (Grandpa Doc was a Saginaw ophthalmologist). I remember a pair of wooden “Cypress Garden” water skis – from Florida – in our Mackinaw cottage garage, supposedly the first skis on the Straits.

The most legendary “Jeannie” story was when the gang climbed one of the 100-foot steel fire towers dotted around heavily forested northern Michigan.  Jeannie got about half way up, just above the tree line, said “that’s enough,” and the guys in the group helped her back down. The towers were still there in the 1970s, 30 years ricketier, and I can vouch that climbing them was a scary if thrilling enterprise.

As Mom lay in an Alpena, Mich., nursing home in late 2002, her broken hip well-healing but cranial vascular leakage causing progressive dementia, Mom immediately smiled when I told her about meeting Mary Jean.  “Oh, that was Jeannie,” Mom said, with a smile that grew larger when I showed her the color photo Mary Jean gave me of the “Sag-a-Mac,” the 1940s McKinney Chris-Craft of Mom’s youth.

This was all such a Christmas blessing.  Mom would pass in March 2003, but my friendship with Vince and Mary Jean grew with visits and Bible studies together. She added a dimension to knowing my own mother I and my siblings had never known. She and Vince encouraged my weekly writings, and I’ll always remember this about Mary Jean: when she prayed, you knew Jesus was in the room. Well done.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) compliments Mary Jean’s wonderful family.  Here is her Obituary.

 

Friends: It was a tough Christmas season in 2002, but an angel named Mary Jean Alig rekindled past, joyful memories of my mother. This will be a two-parter. May your holidays be joyful!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #943

December 10, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Who Are You Guys?

By Bob Walters

Twenty-two Decembers ago, in 2002, my mother Ruth McKinney Walters was in a northern Michigan nursing home with a broken hip that healed and general vascular failure that didn’t.  She would pass away in March 2003.

My dad, John Walters, had died from post-surgical complications in September 1991, and both are buried in Mackinaw City, Michigan, where we have had family roots since the early 1900s.  Mom and Dad met in Mackinaw in the 1940s, and our family grew up vacationing there at our cottage on the Straits of Mackinac’s south shore. The cottage is long gone, but Mackinaw City remains a family cornerstone. We visit there yearly and it is an area that “speaks to me” as a beloved lifelong home.

Growing up I heard countless stories, especially on vacation at our cottage – the longtime McKinney summer vacation venue – about Mom’s and Dad’s friends and adventures in their teens and beyond at Mackinaw. They had a fully-functioning “beach gang” several of whom were around in the 1950s and 1960s with kids my age. Mom’s and Dad’s Mackinaw friends, stories, and adventures were legends of my upbringing.

Anyway, in October 2002 Mom had fallen at home and broken her hip.  She lived alone in Alpena in the house where, in 1980, she and Dad had moved from Kokomo, Indiana, where I grew up. Her injury was an awful ordeal; Mom was alone for two days until a waitress at the coffee shop she frequented daily came by to check on her. 

In the intervening months I was back and forth to Alpena often, but mom wasn’t getting better. My brother and sisters and I felt guilty we hadn’t been there, and Mom’s illness intensified my memories of all those old stories of the great times in Mackinaw.

That said … that same December of 2002 I was here in Indianapolis (we lived in Carmel) at a Thursday morning Christmas carry-in breakfast for the “Mustard Seed” Bible study I attended which was taught by beloved retired minister Russ Blowers. The class in those days met Thursday mornings at the Castleton MCL cafeteria, but the breakfast was at our East 91^st Street Christian Church less than a mile away.

Standing in the E91 Friendship Room breakfast line behind an “elderly” couple obviously of my parents’ vintage – roughly the same age I am now – we introduced ourselves.  They were Vincent and Mary Jean Alig.  I said my name was Bob Walters.

“Hmmm,” Mary Jean queried. “Are you related to …,” and I cut her off. “Naw …,” I said.  “I’m not related to anyone named Walters except my immediate family.  My dad was an only child and his dad was an only child and neither was from here.”

As if Jesus had sent a gracious angel, Mary Jean, who appeared to be about my mom’s age (mid-70s), said wistfully, looking at Vincent, “The only Walters we knew was several years ago; Johnny Walters in Mackinaw City, Michigan.”

Stunned … and I mean, truly stunned … I said, “Who are you guys? My dad was John Walters in Mackinaw City, Michigan.” Many years ago.

Turns out, she was Mary Jean Milner, aka, “Jeannie,” whom I’d heard my folks talk about as one of their summertime Mackinaw friends, and also the daughter of long time Indy Second Presbyterian Church minister, Dr. Jean Milner. More next week.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) became fast friends with the Aligs and learned much about his mom’s younger days from Mary Jean, 95, who died Friday, Dec. 6, in Carmel. Her funeral is 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, at Legacy Bible Church, Fishers, IN.

 

Friends: 'Talk about Good News … well, here’s some. Blessings, Bob

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Labels: 2 Timothy 3:16, Bible sales, Circana BookScan Jeffrey Trachtenberg, Pew Research, Wall Street Journal

Spirituality Column #942

December 3, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Booming Bible Sales   

By Bob Walters

“All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” – 2 Timothy 3:16

Speaking of profitable, here is an unexpected headline – and maybe a Christmas gift idea – from the Wall Street Journal this past weekend:

“Sales of Bibles are Booming, Fueled by First-Time Buyers and New Versions.”

For all the non-God cultural lunacy of the past decade or so, not to mention the seemingly monthly negative church polls – thank you, Pew Research – about dwindling attendance, the “Nones,” and diminishing faith of the general population, there is a solid, American uptick in publishing and sales of Christian scripture. I think that is fabulous.

The article by New York City-based WSJ reporter Jeffrey Trachtenberg, whose specialized beat is the print media industry – i.e. books and magazines – displays this sub-head: “Publishers attribute a 22 percent jump in Bible sales this year to rising anxiety, a search for hope, or highly focused marketing and designs.”

Trachtenberg cites a Circana BookScan statistic, showing the 22 percent Bible market gain.  By comparison, total U.S. print book sales were up less than 1 percent in that period. Here is a link to the article: Sales of Bibles Are Booming - WSJ.

In case you can’t get through the Journal’s subscription paywall, let me share some of the story’s quotes and findings, and a few of my own opinions.

For an explanation of the rise in sales, Trachtenberg quotes Jeff Crosby, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, “People are experiencing anxiety themselves, or they’re worried for their children and grandchildren.  It’s related to artificial intelligence, election cycles, and all of that feeds a desire for assurance that we’re going to be OK.” Bible sales can signal aggregate hope, too, not only despair.

“Faith & Life” Christian bookstore owner Bethany Martin in Newton, Kan., is quoted that she is selling lots of Bibles to first-time Bible buyers. “They’re looking for hope in the world the way it is, and the Bible is what they’re reaching for.” The store’s website offers more than 270 Bibles, he reports, noting a veritable explosion in color options and custom versions “intended specifically for men and teens and early readers” along with study Bibles and women’s versions. And, “There is a goatskin version priced at $832.50.”  All well and good, but we know the Bible’s value is its truth, not its price.

Without doing a deep-dive into Trachtenberg’s faith life, what I can discern about his reporting is that he is a serious, veteran journalist reporting the facts without editorializing.  He neither trashes nor promotes faith along the way; he writes it straight. 

And that’s fine; it is a rare and laudable, and classical, journalism characteristic.

Without bias or comment, Trachtenberg reports that President-elect Donald Trump, back in March, “endorsed the ‘God Bless the USA Bible,’ which sells online for $59.99 and isn’t included in Circana BookScan figures. Oklahoma’s education department recently purchased more than 500 of those Bibles for local schools, the Tulsa World (newspaper) reported, referencing copies of purchase orders.” No snark.

Trachtenberg cites recent Pew Research data revealing “28 percent of adults in the U.S. consider themselves ‘religiously unaffiliated.’ Yet Bible sales were 9.7 million in 2019, rose to 14.2 million in 2023, and were 13.7 million the first 10 months this year.”

I often say God doesn’t need polls, but strong Bible sales are surely Good News.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) gives the news a “Wow!” With surprise, and hope.