The Big Apple

We were serving our 4th year in Charlottesville when David received word that he had been awarded a Maseland Scholarship. Mr. Maseland, owner of Maseland rugs, had walked into Union Seminary in New York and offered a scholarship to a selected minister who had been serving in a church for 10 years or more and wanted some refresher courses. David had been chosen as the first recipient. He could set his own salary and take any courses he wanted at Union Seminary in New York City for one year.

We quickly accepted, unaware of the many changes in our lives that this one year would bring. When our District Superintendent and Bishop heard about it they tried to dissuade David from accepting. If we got out of the rotation of pastors, there would be no place for us at our salary level the next year, when we returned to the Virginia Conference. But that was Next year and this seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In June, as is the Methodist custom, a new pastor was assigned to Charlottesville. David’s scholarship did not begin until September. He got a job directing Head Start for the Summer and the children and I drifted between my parents in Tennessee and David’s Mother in Christiansburg.

At last it was time for the family to reunite and head to New York City. We loaded all we owned into our Station Wagon along with Sally, age 7, and Neel, age 9, and Sweetpea, Sally’s cat.

We had housing provided for us on the 5th floor of an apartment house on the corner of Broadway and 125th St. As we approached we noticed first, that there was no place for our car. Then the children noticed that there were bars on all the windows of our Apartment. Pulling up illegally in front of our new home, the children and I hopped out, to be met by a doorman who unlocked several doors to let us in and showed us to the elevator. David finally located a parking place and we realized having a car in New York City was our first mistake. The on-street parking was sch that every few hours the car had to be moved to the other side of the street. Before too many days David had met a student at Union who agreed to drive our car back to Virginia. From then on it was the subway or on foot for us.

I enrolled the children in PS125 in Harlem where they walked two long blocks every morning, home for lunch (because there was no lunch room at the school), and then back to school in the afternoon. Sometimes David or I accompanied them but there were other children in the Apartment House so they were not alone. It seems arduous thinking back on it but at the time it was just fun—a great adventure.

I got a job at Riverside Church as a paid Sunday School teacher. I have advocated this at churches we have served since but no one has taken me up on it. I loved that job. My co-teacher was a gifted African American artist and we spent the year working with Junior High children on an art display on the History of the Bible, done in paper sculpture. It was later displayed at Riverside church.

I also went back to school that year. At that time Julliard School of Music was located beside Union Seminary. I had a degree in music from Peabody College in, of all dumb things,–Concert Organ. Now 10 years later I took classes in How to Teach Piano. The irony was Peabody was a great Teacher’s college where I studied for the Concert stage and Julliard is a great Concert school where I studied pedagogy (how to teach)