Oops, I messed up the original address so had to use the "forward" gimmick. Jack << Start of Forwarded message via Prodigy Mail >> From: (JSWV61A) JACK BATES Subject: Circuit rider was four years late? Date: 04/17 Time: 02:53 AM Did you say story to tell? Well, that does put me in mind of a story, Diane. There was this Sweet Young Thing who went to the doctor complaining of a strange feeling in her abdomen. The doc gave her a gown and said to meet him in the examining room. Pretty soon the doc came in and began to examine her and then he rigged up the ultrasound machine and used that to examine her. Then he left the room and sent in his nurse to examine her, also. Then the pair of them whispered back and forth awhile and finally the doctor turned to the young woman with a smug look and said: "Well, you may as well call up your husband or boyfriend and give him the good news that he is going to become a father". The Sweet young thing gasped, sat up suddenly and began to protest: "But--but doctor, that's impossible. I have no husband. I have no boy friend. And I have never, never slept with a man!" The doctor studied her face for a moment then asked her to repeat what she had said. The Sweet Young Thing promptly repeated her denial of having been with a man. Whereupon the doctor walked over to the window, pulled the curtains aside, pulled up the shade and stood staring at the sky. After a few minutes the Sweet Young Thing asked: "Doctor, why are you just standing there and looking out the window?" The doctor turned slowly to face her and said solemly: You tell me you have not been with a man, yet you are definitely with child. The last time this happened nearly 2000years ago, a star rose in the East so I don't want to miss it this time! -------0- ------- Seriously, the discrepancy in dates raises an issue not seen in print too often, but it was a fact of life in the wilderness and on the frontiers of America. That issue is that we tend to view the happenings in the lives of our ancestors of colonial days as if they were our contemporaries. Yes, delayed marriage ceremonies were a part of their lives. The writings of Rev. Charles Woodmason, the Anglican minister of Charleston SC who became a circuit rider of the backcountry of the Carolinas, detail the difficulty in serving so many widespread small groups he organized into congregations. Lorenzo Dow, the Methodist preacher of the Mississippi and Alabama circuits, also left some of his experiences in written form, as did his wife, Peggy Dow. One experience all people of the frontiers and backwoods shared was delay in official and legal affairs. Many folks became squatters on land they had intended to buy, but once they made the trip to the land and inquired as to how and where to file on the land to acquire title, they gave up in disgust. They found that they had to travel long distances fraught with the dangers of the wilderness to the courthouse at the seat of justice. Paying for the land led to an annual, long ,danger-filled trip to pay taxes to keep the land. Squatting on the land was the only practical answer and became the accepted way in many jurisdictions far from centers of government. Waiting for the circuit rider to come by to unite a couple in holy matrimony might be tolerated for a few months, but there were places where a preacher didn't show up for a year or more, or not at all! So common-law marriages were the only way for some. Later as churches sprung up along with civilization, some of those marriages were "officialized" in church. Jack Bates <Internet Distribution List> TO: [email protected] CC: [email protected] << End of Forwarded message >>