I grew up in Keezletown, Virginia, in the heart of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. We moved there from the place of my birth, Cincinnati, Ohio, when I was nearly three years old.
I had two special-needs siblings. My brother Paul had been born with cerebral palsey and he was being seen regularly by doctors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and my sister Merle, four years older than Paul, had been born with a hole in her heart and was being treated by doctors at the Medical College of Virginia Hospital in Richmond. As a result, my parents were making lots of trip from Ohio to the east. They would usually come through the Shenandoah Valley, or “the Valley” as we refer to it, on U.S. 33 and they always admired its beauty. Finally, Dad came by himself one time to find a home they could purchase so they would be closer to the hospitals. They also wanted to be out of the city.
My parents were concerned about my oldest brother Hugh, that he might be starting to hang with the wrong crowd, and the direction his life was taking him. He was 14 when we moved, and it was really hard for him. It wasn’t too hard for me, I loved the big yard, the apple orchard, and the various out buildings that made up our little farmette of three and a half acres.
It was also hard on my mom. She had always been a city girl. Now she lived in a small town with one small grocery store/gas station. It was especially hard because the good folk of Keezletown eyed our family with great suspicion. They couldn’t imagine why these city folks would want to live in their little community. Even at the little Methodist church people were very slow to warm up to my family, and they didn’t let them get involved in things at first. This added to the isolation Mom felt, and as a result, she became very homesick.
I was oblivious to all of this, of course, until something that happened in the third grade.
People from Ohio are “Yankees”
I adored my third grade teacher, and so I choose to believe that she didn’t know how her actions of that fateful day would affect my life. I was reading something aloud in class and she stopped me and said, “Jimmy, you pronounce your ‘th’ words like someone from Ohio.” “Oh,” I innocently replied, “that’s because I am from Ohio. I was born there.”
A shudder of realization swept the room, and my fellow student eyed me suspiciously. I seem to remember some of them even backing their desks slightly away from mine. At recess that day I learned that I was a “Yankee” and they were “Rebels” and Yankees and Rebels were sworn enemies for all time.
We often would play Civil War on the school playground, with us school kids, the “Southerners,” always winning against the unseen and invisible Northern Enemy. But from that fateful day onward they had a visible Yankee, and the North routinely lost the Civil War on the school playground. How could I help but lose, being so greatly out-numbered?
It was a bit confusing to me, however, because they were all crazy about baseball, and their favorite team was the New York Yankees. It was bad for me to actually be a Yankee, but they had no hesitation to root for “the Yankees” during the baseball season. The only baseball team I ever heard about at home was the wonderful Reds of Cincinnati, and so I stupidly suggested to my schoolmates that the Reds were as good as the Yankees, which did not endear me to them either.
People often say, “Oh kids will be kids, I’m sure they got over it and forgot you were a Yankee.” You would like to think so, but the following year the Fourth Grade Class took a trip to Williamsburg and Jamestown, and I bought a Rebel hat at the gift shop in Jamestown, hoping desperately to fit in better. I tried to wear it home on the bus, but my classmates became so enraged that I, a Yankee, would try to disguise myself as a Rebel that they took my hat from me, and I never saw it again!
My Adopted Hometown Finally Adopted Me
Of course, over time my family gradually gained acceptance. My mother became a Sunday school teacher, and my Dad was on the church board, and took turns holding various offices in the church. However, when my parents opened a boarding and day school for the severely physically handicapped adults of the area rumors began circulating that this non-profit organization was a sham, and that we were raising funds to build a bigger house for ourselves.
My parents never would talk much about how hurtful that was. Instead, they set out to win the hearts of the people in Keezletown. First of all they named it Community of Hope, and then they recruited people of the town to work there. It was the best thing they could have done, because the people who worked there became eyewitnesses to the good that was being done, and could see how the monies were being spent. Over time the rumors died out, and Keezletonians came to accept Community of Hope as a part of the town.
I persevered as well, and to this day I am close friends with many of my old elementary school friends. I came to love that little town, as did my Mom. The folks there came to love us as well, though they never forgot that we were Yankees. Or so I thought.
In 2004 when I was about to retire from full-time pastoral ministry the Keezletown Postmaster attended my retirement worship service at Fishersville Church. She was in her early 80’s and had been the Postmaster there for more than 40 years, and in fact, the Post Office was located in the front room of her house! When testimonials were called for she stood and said that she was proud of me and my success as a pastor, especially since I was the only one in my family who had been born in Keezletown.
Wow! Now that’s acceptance, when they think you were born there and that you are one of them!
I bear no ill will or bad memories of those childhood days. I learned many things through living that out, things that I have used throughout my life. Seeing how my parents handled the rejection and suspicion was a great lesson as well. They simply chose to return not in-kind, but rather to love the people until at last they loved them back.
Now, for me, Keezletown is my home town, not Cincinnati. And I thank God that I grew up there.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. ~ Psalm 139:15-16
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