Miss Sarah
by
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The train came into Madison with a blow of the whistle and a puff of white steam. The passenger car stopped right where the crowd had gathered. Sarah saw the mail bag being placed in the baggage car. Then see looked back as the conductor stood at the door of the train and waited for the passengers. There were only two--Pearlie Mae and her mother. Then to her surprise she saw a white man scoop up Pearlie Mae and carry her aboard the train followed by her mother. Sarah thought it looked like Ollie Norton, but she was too far away to tell. The train whistled again, and Sarah wondered why the man didn’t get off. As the train began to pull away from the station, she saw Ollie Norton, chairman of the deacons at Madison Baptist Church, jump off the train at the last possible minute.
The crowd began to slip away, and Ollie looked up and saw Sarah, and came over to where she was standing. She thought she saw a tear in his eye. Ollie tried to speak but was obviously chocked up. Finally, he swallowed hard and spoke.
“Sarah, I was not prepared for that,” said Ollie.
“Prepared for what?” asked Sarah.
“Well, I carried Pearlie Mae onto the train and got her settled beside her mother --she’s such a small child and has such a beautiful face--she looked up at me and said, ‘thank you.’ I said ‘you’re welcome.’ Then I was not prepared for what followed.” Ollie Norton looked away for a moment, and then he swallowed hard and turned back to Miss Sarah. “She looked me in the eyes and asked, ‘Are you Jesus?’”
As Ollie Norton walked away, Sarah saw him reach for his handkerchief, and very softly, as if to no one, said, “Ollie Norton, at that moment, you were!”
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About the Book
Born and reared in China by missionary parents, Sarah Sullivan spent little time in the States. After her schooling, she remained in China, helping her father, Dr. Frederick Sullivan, an obstetrician at the Stout Memorial Hospital in Wuchow. When the Japanese invaded China prior to World War II, life became uncertain for the missionaries, and the mission board suggested they leave. Dr. Bill Wallace insisted those with families leave first. Sarah’s family was forced to leave late one night. Only she and her father made it out of China alive.
When we meet Miss Sarah, she is living alone on a farm in the South. Her attempt to hire a young black man to help her was her first encounter with racial discrimination. However, she was not prepared for the prejudice she found, even in the life of her pastor of the local Baptist church.
During the time of segregation and “separate but equal” there were people both black and white who reached across those lines. I know. I was one of them, as were my parents and the wonderful people of the Baptist church where my dad served as pastor. Miss Sarah is a fictitious story, but it is an outgrowth of my experiences as a young high school boy, teaching piano at a colored one-room school during the 1950s, the example of my parents, their church, and the incredible story of Dr. Bill Wallace, medical missionary in China.
About the Author
I was born and reared in Northeastern Oklahoma. Before retirement, I had the “usual” three professions, all related to music. Between college and graduate school there was a two year stint as a teacher of choral music in the public school at Grove, Oklahoma. After graduate school, I worked almost one-half of my career as a full-time church musician and the other half as a music store owner in South Carolina, dealing mostly with churches and schools. I enjoy spending time with my family—my wife, three daughters and their families including five grandchildren. Hobbies include traveling, photography, and writing. My first novel, Walnut Grove, was published in 2007. It is historical fiction set in Oklahoma between 1895 and 1947 with a flash back to the Trail of Tears. The Church that Love Built is an auto biography and is yet unpublished. Miss Sarah, published in 2012 is fiction. The characters became abundantly real, and I heard their voices as they told the story. I simply wrote it down. I do not claim to be a writer, but simply a teller of stories. Many events in my life helped shape the story of Miss Sarah.