Going To Church In Wagons

My mother is the youngest of eight children. Before she was born, the family lived on a farm. On Sundays, they would load up in the farm wagon and go to church.

When my mother was telling this recently to a fellow church member who had come to visit her in the hospital, he told a story of his own. He had grown up near Blakely in South Georgia. He said they used to make what was called a bush arbor. It was just a bunch of branches that were cut and woven together to make a shelter. Families would come in their wagons and have a revival in the bush arbor. He said the children were sometimes turned loose and the tiny babies were left sleeping in baskets in the wagons. One night some “bad boys” (that he claimed he was not a part of!) switched the babies out of their baskets as a prank. In the dark, the parents did not notice until the baby cried, some ways down the road toward home. He said you could hear those wagons running up and down the road all night trying to get those babies back in the right wagons!