Itinate Preacher

[Edwin]

There was a young man many years ago who came riding a horse and preaching across this Indian Reservation. My grandparents put him up, gave him housing and food while he was doing his preaching. Later he got to be an important figure in our denomination, a District Superintendent over all the churches in Washington, Idaho, and Northern Oregon. I was visiting him once, and he told me about one of our neighbors who hired him to run the horses away from the water so that cows would have a chance to drink. He told me how he would have to run, get tired, and out of breath doing that job! He came to a church that I attended as a teen ager. We had a lady attending that church that we loved, but most everyone thought a little less of her because she had more than one marriage in her life, so they wouldn't let her teach Sunday School class or do anything important in the church. One Sunday morning this traveling preacher came to this church that I was attending as a teenager, and he asked her to get up and play the piano. I and many of us in that church had no idea that she could play the piano. He wanted her to play for old time's sake as she used to play the piano for him when he was a young guy traveling through and preaching. It was amazing the way this woman could play the piano. I was astounded at her playing skill and I and most of the other people had no idea she could play the piano. The interesting thing is that this iterate preacher was also a very accomplished pianist. The last service he was in at a District Council Meeting, he got up and played a song that was something like, "I Am Going Home." Anyway it was a song about going to heaven, and he died right there at the piano after playing that song!