For 50 consecutive years, Dorothy Hall has made a mid-summer trek up the mountain to spend a week at Eagle Eyrie. She first came in 1959 to attend Training Union week. “My mother-in-law, Grandma Hall, came to cook for Mr. Burkett,” she recalls, “and I came along with her.”
Hall enjoyed the Training Union weeks she attended, but soon after Robert Carlton came to High Hills Baptist Church in Jarratt in 1960, he took a group from the church to missions' week and she was hooked. “I have the book from the first missions conference I attended way back then in the early 1960s,” she recalls.
Photo by Jim White
Dorothy Hall, center, is surrounded by her family at Eagle Eyrie Conference Center for MC2. First row, l. to r. granddaughter Allie Cumbey and great grandson Zaire Carter. Seated, granddaughter Karabeth Poole, daughter Cathy Lewis, Hall, daughter Connie Grissom, grandson Seth Kindred. Back row, granddaughters Amy Cumbey and Jaime Poole.
The stories of the missionaries captivated her and caused the trip to Lynchburg to become an annual event. “I figured up once how many missionaries I met here, but it was so many I couldn't keep track,” says the missions' conference regular.
Hall is most pleased that her family continues the tradition of making the missions conference, now called MC2, a part of their summers. Accompanying Hall this year were two daughters, three granddaughters, three grandsons, four great-granddaughters and one great grandson.
“Because of this experience that we all share, all my children and grandchildren are in church,” she beams.
The missions experience may have begun with listening to missionary stories, but it soon became hands-on. Hall started knitting afghans and blankets and soon others joined her in her church and even at the Eagle Eyrie conference.
After Vicky Allen-Pearce, a fellow church member died of cancer in her mid-40s, Hall and the other ladies decided to dedicate their work in her memory. “It was Lois Grizzard's idea,” Hall says modestly of another High Hills church member.
“It's called ‘Hands of Love Ministry' and they make chemo-caps for children who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments,” Hall's granddaughter, Amy Cumbey, adds with obvious pride. Another granddaughter, Jaime Poole, is the youth minister at High Hills. She picks up the theme: “The ladies also make blankets for babies.”
Hall continues the thought “We make isolette blankets for little ones so tiny they can fit into the palm of your hand.”
For a time Hall was fearful that she would not be able to celebrate her 50th consecutive year at Eagle Eyrie. “My husband and I were married 49 years when he died,” she remembers. “So I was a little worried about whether I would make 50.”
“But she did!” injects Cumbey.