Bob Read
docbob@jayco.net

Table of Contents

Many Franklin folks owned an automobile long before paved roads became common. For the first third of the century, the only road connection from Franklin to Jacksonville, the county seat and shopping mecca, was a network of dirt roads. None was a direct route. A rare auto trip via the fifteen-mile route required preparation and patience. It was rare to travel that distance without at least one flat tire. In hot weather, an overheated radiator might add to the excitement. No wonder a train ride on the CB&Q "Peedie-Dink" was a popular alternative.

Thus, it was cause for great excitement when, in the mid 1930s, the construction of a highway slowly crept from Jacksonville and points west toward Franklin. It was to become State Route 104, a concrete road that wandered on to the east to counties I had only heard of. Chuck Seymour, Reggie Green and I carried lunches to our Dads who labored on road construction as 104 passed around Franklin. Half the men in Franklin were so employed for the brief time taken to build around the town. The next town then supplied Labor. It was depression time and available government work was shared.

I made a point to say that 104 went around Franklin. It went through Jacksonville, it went through Waverly, it went through Chapin, it went through Auburn, but it went around Franklin like a modern by-pass. Talk of the time was that the state planned to build right through Franklin. Sober Calhoun, it was said, wanted the highway to pass right down the south side of the CB&Q track between his lumberyard and his grain elevator. Sober was on the village council and had some influence. However, other council members favored a path right down Franklin's meandering Main Street touching the Post Office, grocery, drug store, dry goods, and Blazz (RAY) Jones' Rum Room where both profligate and influential citizens played nickel-a-game rummy and sneaked illegal beer out of the bottom of the pop cooler (Franklin was "dry"). Talk was that the council argued so long without resolution that the state proceeded to build 104 around the edge of Franklin. The decision probably had more to do with avoiding the cemetery than with any of the rumored stories. Anyway, it went right by Emery Mann's house.

Almost before the concrete of new state route 104 dried, Emery Mann erected a Texaco station right where Chicken Row Street eased off the new highway into town. Emery, a widower, lived alone, operated his station, and searched for every possible outlet for his real passion -- hymn-singing. He sang tenor at the Methodist Church when a sparse choir could be assembled, but he wanted to sing constantly. He wanted to sing tenor, he loved the simple harmonies of old hymns and he knew them all. Singing tenor requires help since some one has to make a melody. This is where Chuck and I came in.

Chuck knew he could sing. His blind Grandma Seymour, who played hymns on an old piano, assured Chuck that all Seymours were born to sing. This is surely the reason Emery bribed Chuck and me to sing with him several times each week. Chuck because he could sing, and me because he couldn't get Chuck without me. Emery bribed us with Coca- Cola from his cooler. Sometimes we shared a six-ounce bottle. On really good days we got one each.

On that late-summer day in 1942 the heat waves shimmered on the highway and the gravel drive around the two manual Texaco pumps, regular and ethyl. In the tiny white block station the Emery-Chuck-Bob trio soared into "Nearer My God to Thee, Nearer to Thee". Emery's head back and eyes shut as he serenaded the ceiling, Chuck sang with his chin on his chest as he tried to sound like a mature baritone, and I eyeing the wet bottle in my hand and struggling to keep up. As we moved on to "In The Garden" (Chuck and I could be counted on only for words to the first verse of any hymn) I noticed a dusty ‘37 Chevy with a "C" sticker pull up to the regular pump. A "C" sticker meant the owner probably worked at a war plant someplace and could buy a decent amount of rationed gasoline.

Emery rarely interrupted a treasured singing session for a customer. The singing continued and the dusty black Chevy sat in the hot sun.

As we swung into "Rock of Ages," Emery had not opened his eyes. I noticed the Chevy driver climb out and head for the station. A thin man wearing a suit and tie and a felt hat, he looked hot and seemed to drag himself along. I couldn't help noticing his black, greasy shoes and white socks exposed by trousers cut too short. A war factory worker for sure.

As the would-be customer leaned against the door and fanned himself with his felt hat, our trio broke into a fast paced rendition of "Beulah Land." Emery saw that he had business to attend and indicated with a nod that we would be through soon. We rang down our final note and Chuck and I lifted our Cokes, the customer slapped his leg a mighty whack and gave us a big "God Bless you boys. That's wonderful!

Well, right away Emory offered to continue the concert for such an appreciative audience. The customer allowed that he really had to be on his way for he had to get some supper and then drive down to Hart's Prairie where he personally was conducting a week-long evangelical tent meeting.

While Emory carefully metered five gallons of regular into the Chevy, the customer, who had introduced himself as the reverend Jack, took to musing and brightened up with an idea. "Tell you what," he said, " How would you men like to sing at my tent meeting tonight? I'd sure be willing to share a few coins out of the collection. It won't be much, but I'd share if you'd come and liven up the evening."

When you call a fourteen-year-old a man, you can get him to do anything. Chuck and I were ready, and the prospect of a few cents in the pocket added to our eagerness. Emory would have paid the preacher for the chance to sing. So, after we raced home for permission, Chuck and I climbed in Emery's Plymouth and headed for Harts' Prairie, in the early evening sun. We three piled in the front and I got the window seat. I rode all the way with my head out of the open window, squinting dust from my eyes when we passed an occasional car, enjoying the feel of warm wind. We soon passed the Harts Prairie one room school and found a canvas tent in a grassy field. A few old cars, two buggies, and two box wagons with hot, head-down teams still hitched stood near the tent. Families, field burned and with dusty shoes, but with faces and hands fresh washed, chatted outside waiting for the evening breeze to cool the tent.

Our trio found Reverend Jack in the tent lighting kerosene lamps against the fading light. The pews were wood planks laid on upright field tile. Up front a wood platform with a chair in its center would serve as the Reverend Jack's pulpit.

"These are hard working, God fearing farm hands," said Jack (He asked us to call him Jack because, as he pointed out, he wasn't a real licensed preacher). "There's been as many as forty-five some nights, not counting kids. They've given me more than $10 in the plate in the last four nights. God bless 'em, I know they can't afford it. I do my best to give them back the Lord's blessing. I know you men will be a big help. We haven't had music. You just can't rightly praise the Lord without music."

Soon the sun sank into some trees and the mellow light of the lamps drew folks into the tent. Without preamble, the Reverend Jack mounted his platform and with bible open in his left hand and an index finger extended from his right, he got right into the Ten Commandments. Jack sweated a stream down his white shirt. The farm hands shuffled and mumbled their guilty confessions to the Lord. Kids were quiet.

When Jack seemed to sag and the congregation's attention began to drift, Jack raised both arms and declared that, "Praise the Lord we are blessed tonight with special music from Franklin". We were on. We paraded to the front of the platform, no instrument to tune us, just Emory.

The lamps threw dancing shadows on the tent walls. Sun-browned farm wives hummed and swayed with us, and we sang our hearts out. Everything we knew, starting with "The Old Rugged Cross", we closed with "Work for the Night is Coming". We filed back to our front row pew. It was so very quiet a mother hushed a sniffing youngster who had a leaky nose. As we settled on our planks, we discovered a reason for the unusual stillness. The Reverend Jack, sound asleep in his chair. Head back until it seemed to break his neck, he snored in great rasping gasps.

Poor Jack had been preaching every night, answering his personal call, and working full shifts every day. We realized at once that he needed the break as much as he needed the music. Embarrassed folks smiled at each other, but no one awakened the preacher. Kids giggled and parents tried to quiet them. The exchange of glances around the tent suggested that some might quietly start for home. The REA had not reached Harts' Prairie, so the dark was complete. Now a family in the last row of planks started to rise, Reverend Jack's head snapped up with a snort and he looked wildly around the tent. Disoriented and dead tired, but his eyes quickly found Emory, Chuck, and me on the front row.

"God Bless you, men, sing another," says he. And we did.

We sang and the folks there sang with us. A kindly farmer passed around a mixing bowl that served for a collection plate. Jack napped. Most sang as they gathered up families, put their tired bodies in motion and ducked out of the tent into the dark. We watched lanterns bobbing down the road as Jack and we thanked each other. He fished a quarter for each of us from the bowl. With almost no words we ended the evening with the dusty drive to Franklin in Emery’s old Plymouth.

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