Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1912-06-05

shadowy past, and is not complete,
bnt there is one tangible evidence OF
the missionary spirit in this COM
munity who is present here today,
and that is the preacher Pon of Mrs
Bussey, P. H. Bussey, Jr.
More explicit records exist from
1891, to the present time. The fol
lowing has been written oy Mrs.
Zelpha Thurmond, so long and now
the efficient president of Red Oak
Grove society:
In the year 1891, our pastor,
Rev. G. w. Bussey, calleda meeting
of the ladies together and requested
them to plan for the organization OF
a mission society in our church. He
laid before them the plan and or
ject of mission work and said it
would be a great help to the church
and would be of much benefit to us
as Christians to be doing something
for the Masters cause. He also
said his sister, Mrs. Margaret Nor
gan, had organized society at
Parksville, and they were doing a
good work there, and that she
would be glad to come over and
help.us any time if we wished her
to do so. In May 1891, she came
at our request and helped US organ
ize, drew up constitution for the
society, and we gave it the name of
THE Ladies Aid Society" We
organized that day with a member
ship of ls, and we elected Mrs.
Mamie Bussey (Mrs. P. H. presi-
dent, Miss Matte Zimmerman, now
Mrs. Kenrick, vice president; Mrs.
Eliza Hamilton, secretary and treas
urer. These officers served for sew
eral years.
AT this time there were num-
Der of young people in the commu-
nifty, and most of them belonged to
the society, and we generally had a
very good attendance. We took up
collection of five cents apiece,sand
most of the time had some one to
read something helpful and instruc-
tive. We made garments and
quilts and sold them to raise our
money for the work. Our object
was to help in every good work, but
we had four special fields of labor:
Foreign missions, home missions,
state missions and the home church.
"We made it rule to help any
church member who lost house by
fire, or whose circumstances were
such that they needed help, and
thus we worked for several years,
doing all we could for the cause.
In 1896 we had reelection of Off
GERS, Mrs. E. W. Thurmond, presi-
dent; Miss Matte Zimmerman, vice
president; and Mrs. Fannie Griffis,
secretary and treasurer.
Miss Matte Zimmerman was
married and left our neighborhood,
and for long time we had no vice
president until Miss Eva Wates,
now Mrs. Geo. Bussey. came among
us as our teacher and took this po-
sition. Our officers have always
been prompt in attendance faithful
and efficient in their work. In 1899,
there was general falling off. Our
young people all married and left
us, others died, some dropped out
for lack of interest, so our men,
bership was reduced to nine. Some
of them were not regular in atten-
dance, and we held our meetings
for months at time with only 3
present. 1t was very discouraging,
so much so that one of the members
suggested that we disband, and
give it all up, but after prayertul
consideration, the president decided
not to give it up, and said she
would continue to hold the meetings
as long as any of them would meet
with her, knowing that the promise
was not to the greatest number but
to the faithful few. We continued
our meetings, believing that God
would give us more material TO
work with in His own good time.
We are tod that history re-
peats ITSELF" so after our first asso-
ciational meeting at Red Hill. our
membership began to increase, and
today we have the same number we
started with l9 years ago, and l am
pleased to say that there is more
interest manifested among the
members, all seeming to realize
their Individual responsibility. The
outlook for the future is very prom
ising. We have large number of
BOYS and girls growing up, and