Ruth M. Jackson

A sweet lady who will be missed by all. Our sincere sympathy to all the family.

A Rose Amidst the Rocks

A
Memorial Tribute
to
Ruth McFee Jackson
composed by
Rev. Dan C. McCurry
at the
Browns View United Methodist Church,
Candler, North Carolina
December 27, 2002

To Ruth’s daughters, Hilda and Ethel and to her grandson Brian:

I was not aware that Browns View invited testimony from mourners during a funeral but I have no doubt that Miss Ruth would be looking down at me with a very questioning smile if I did not speak for her this day. These words came to mind as others were talking during today’s funeral.
——
Many of you who are my friends and relatives know that my ministry today is in the trauma hospitals of Chicago, Illinois. This is my first funeral at Browns View Church for many years.

I was not aware that mourner’s testimony was invited during funerals here. But I do certainly know that Miss Ruth would be looking down at me with a very questioning smile if I did not speak for her this day even if I am unprepared.

I first came to Browns View as a child of 12 in l958 walking the several miles from Muster Ground Hill on Pisgah Highway to attend the Friday night Boy Scout troop meeting held in the basement here. Downstairs in those weekly rituals we boys learned the importance of ‘loyalty’, ‘honesty’, ‘courage’ and ‘a faith in God.’ Upstairs on a Sunday morning Ruth Jackson was teaching those same beliefs in Sunday School to young boys and young girls. And for far more than that half -century she was living out those beliefs day by day.

Those who first met Miss Ruth knew immediately that something special had just happened. Many men and women are introduced and quickly fade into the woodwork of our memories. For most who have lived their lives in Beaverdam, Ruth Jackson was the woodwork of this community; Ruth was the stonework of this church and its activities.

Where Blossoms Belong
The last time Ruth and I spoke was in late October of this year when I was visiting to discuss again a project she was concerned about: the restoration of tombstones and grave markers in the McFee Cemetery/Old Beaverdam Graveyard where her great grandfather and other McFee relatives are buried on the hilltop down close to the Enka Lake Road intersection.

As we said goodbye at her backdoor I noticed that, because of the wet Fall, young flowers were even then blooming near her backporch. My appreciation of those blossoms encouraged Ruth to give me a quick visual tour of the flowering beds and shrubs planted in our view. In Ruth’s mind and on her home ground each plant, each bulb, had its place and its season for blooming just right for catching the morning or afternoon sun. Such knowledge was the essence of this slight unassuming woman. This was her home. Living here was a lifetime’s commitment to the nurture of these mountain slopes and mountain people.

Knowing where living things could best belong came only with an investment of decades of love and attention. That’s why we are gathered here today. We come not to bury her but to pay tribute to all of those living things that would not exist without her care. Hilda and Ethel, Brian and Kelsie, this lady was a ‘grower of life.’ Those bulbs that you will surely replant in the springtime are only a symbol of the many lives like your own that Ruth nurtured.

Each time I came into her home, Hilda and Ethel’?each time I came into your family home, Ruth always showed me something different of your own times there. She had preserved so much of your lives together. The same was true of Brian and Kelsie. Your lives were also part of her life even if you were not together each day. Never forget that!

In Advent and Sorrow
For we who mourn her passing Christmas and the season of Advent is a difficult time to be in the midst of a death and a funeral. But for Ruth and others who have died during these days can you imagine a finer time to be entering the Kingdom of our Saviour than during the time when we, God’s children, are celebrating with God the birth of His son?

Next year at this time when sadness at the loss of your mother, grandmother and great-grandmother threatens to dampen your celebration of Christ’s birth, think for a moment about that admonition that ‘there’s a time to be born and a time to die.’ In these days, the friends of Ruth McFee Jackson are invited to celebrate both times to their fullest. Even in our mourning Ruth has given us this unique gift. We are doubly blessed!

New Music
Mary Netherton, Ken Israel and others have talked about their ‘love’ for Ruth Jackson. I am envious of those who had those years with her. I did not. Our acquaintance ship was relatively new. But I can surely testify to that even greater circle of ‘respect’ for Ruth that has been formed around the country.

Since yesterday when Mrs. Alva Netherton told me of Ruth’s passing, I have sent that sad news on to other McFee relatives. This Sunday in Jacksonville Alabama’s First United Methodist Church a major contribution to that church’s organ fund will be made in the name of Ruth Jackson. Oh my wouldn’t she have thought that an appropriate gift?’? and she might even have shown a little honest pride in the knowledge that other beautiful music would be sustained in her name.

In Birmingham, Alabama’s Trinity UMC, another contribution will be made in Ruth’s name to that block-long building which was built by a McFee minister whose Beaverdam roots ran deeply and who regularly returned to Ruth’s porch and dinner table to be renewed. In Texas, Illinois and even in Canada tears were shed this day, along with us, in sadness for Ruth’s passing. While husband was known hereabouts as the woodworker, Ruth also built family and community bridges that stayed built over long decades of time.

When I return to Chicago I’ll plant an oak sapling in the great lakeside park near my home in honor of Ruth. This tree will not reach its full growth until many decades after I am dead. Who knows the many nationalities, ages and religions that will seek the shade of that tree? Ruth’s generosity of spirit welcomed workers of any stripe into her community. We often discussed this. And that’s how she would want to be remembered.

Her lessons were the lessons of the best of these mountains. Her lessons were of a rare honesty indeed.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do’?
I recall telephoning Ruth to set up a time for this October meeting. She was hard to reach and when we finally made contact, Ruth explained that she had been up the mountain that morning as some cattle had broken through one of her fences and she had to direct a neighbor in fence repair and cattle corralling.

‘ But Ruth, ‘ I protested,’ That mountain is steep for you.’ Then came one of the ‘Ruth silences’ which spoke far more loudly than any words. ‘How then, ‘ she replied so precisely, ‘ do you imagine that those cattle would be brought in?’

Ruth was a worker, sunrise to sunset, youth to old age. While she surely slowed down a bit, the requirements of living, raising, preserving and serving her own food were the life -task she readily assumed with each month of the calendar. No Chicago preacher should dare suggest otherwise!

After Ruth and I first started talking together of our common family histories, she quickly sent word through relatives that ‘the McCurry boy is too clever by half.’ She meant that I talked too much and listened too little. Silent learning was a lesson that Ruth lived out each day.

Roses in Endless Praise
Ruth would appreciate the notion that at her funeral somehow I am having the ‘last word’ in our discussions. But she would also know, as I do, that our words today are not at all the ‘last words’about Ruth McFee Jackson. Those porchside flowers, that Alabama organ, my oak tree sapling in Chicago or the rock tombstones we carve or unearth hereabouts will never be the final statement of pioneers such as Ruth. Their days ‘live on in endless praise’ as the examples which we are to follow and to pass on, season by season, blossom by blossom, to each succeeding generation.

We gather today within these walls to honor the life of Ruth Jackson. We do so before this oil painting of our Lord in a garden of blossoms. At Ruth’s place in the choir is that red rose. Like her voice through the years that rose will soon fade.

There’s an old shape note funeral hymn which calls out ‘give me roses while I’m here.’ Ruth McFee Jackson and this community shared roses throughout her days. Because she lived out the example of our Lord, her life’s memory will also be a flowering of blossoms and of new births season by season.

Ruth, other generations past our knowing will also sit before this painting, hear these songs and be nourished from the sweet communion of this community and this congregation which you helped to prepare and in whose harmonies you so happily dwelled amongst us. Generations will rise up and call you ‘blessed.’

Amen