Heritage Column for November 17, 2005
By Fred Anderson
They stand there all lined up at the front of Fieldale Baptist Church. Well-scrubbed faces and neat dress. Smiles on their faces. Maybe the cameraman said something to get them to smile. Maybe they just naturally wore smiles. They are after all the very picture of the bright hope and great expectancy of youth.
In 1951 the Fieldale Church had 10 of its young people enrolled in schools where they were “preparing themselves for Christian service.” The only words left out of that statement are the usual “full-time Christian service.” The Fieldale Church under the pastoral leadership of Ryburn T. Stancil were calling out the called, encouraging members to examine their hearts for God’s purpose for their lives.
Three young people in the Mehaffey family responded and they are shown at the far right in a vintage photograph which graced the cover of the Religious Herald on Dec. 13, 1951. The man at the extreme left is Jerry Warren Mehaffey who at the time was a ministry-bound student at the University of Richmond. In front of him is his sister, Esther Mehaffey (Hodges) who was a music major at Bluefield College.
Beside her is their sister, Annette Mehaffey Flick. Directly behind Annette and wearing a tie for the occasion is Annette’s husband, Carl. The Flicks were studying at Lynchburg College. Annette was preparing in the area of religious education and Carl was intending to enter the gospel ministry. The Flicks would go on to Southwestern Seminary where Annette was “top in her class.” The man pictured at the far right is Carl’s twin brother, Carlos Flick, who was studying at Wake Forest College.
The others in the old photograph included Henry Martin, Southwestern; Margaret Ann Stegall, Bluefield; Edith Hall, Southwestern; Audrey Mullins, Westminster Choir College; and Jane Campbell, Meredith College. They all believed that God had tapped them on the shoulder and led them down paths of service. Maybe it was Pastor Stancil who actually tapped them on the shoulder or maybe it was Mama and Daddy who hugged them into the Kingdom. Maybe it was some influential Sunday school teacher or youth missions leader. But whoever God used, he had done the calling; and they were responding.
It is not an unusual story. It occurred and, thank the Lord, yet occurs in many, if not most, of our churches. Yet every time someone feels led of the Lord to surrender their lives to some form of Christian ministry it is a very special occasion.
What became of the Fieldale Ten? Jerry Mehaffey completed his studies at UR and attended Southeastern Seminary. He served several churches in Northern Virginia and Maryland and retired as a chaplain with the Veterans Administration. Esther married and became a homemaker. Her sister, Harriet Mehaffey Worsham, remembers that she was “a smart girl and could make a penny go a long way.”
Annette and Carl Flick devoted themselves to the Christian ministry. He served churches in Virginia and became a Navy chaplain. Annette supported her husband in his work; and sister Harriet shares that Annette, “as a minister’s wife in small churches, did everything!” Carl’s twin taught at Mercer University, the Georgia Baptist school.
Except for Carl who lives in retirement at Wake Forest, North Carolina, the Mehaffey family’s young people from the ‘50s who are smiling in the group photograph have completed their Christian service in this life. Harriet was the younger sister who looked up to her siblings. Yet another brother, George, had a son, David, who became a Christian missionary in the Ukraine. Harriet has been justly proud of the way her family members responded to God’s calling in their lives.
There were other persons in the Mehaffey story who answered God’s calling. The young people’s grandmother, Lee Mehaffey, was a charter member of the Fieldale Church in 1919 and she made certain that her son, the Mehaffey children’s father, was brought up in the church. Surely the grandmother had answered God’s calling. The father died when Harriet was eight years old and her mother became the greatest influence in her life and that of the other children. Lucy Thomas Mehaffey worked in the Fieldale mill to support her family and saw to it that her children came to know the Lord and that with hard work and self determination they got a good education. Can there be any greater calling than that of the widowed mother?
The young people captured on that Herald cover had answered the call. Maybe some of them did not follow the path to “full-time Christian service” in its traditional meaning; but it is important that they felt called and that they responded. And forever after, at least in the old newspaper, they wear smiles of joy.