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The Preacher’s Corner
By Rev. Dr. Milton Winter Men running the sweeper alongside the ladies Recently
I went shopping for a vacuum cleaner. The one I’ve had had begun to
fail, so I went to my favorite discount emporium to see what models
were available. It is hard to imagine there are
so many ways to clean the house, but here I was confronted by an entire
aisle of sweepers, power vacuums, shop vacs, and who knows what else. I
was bewildered. The vacuum we had when I was a
child seemed indestructible, and throughout the experience I mused upon
the fact that I should not be having to get a new machine, for in the
olden days they were made, perhaps, too well — hence the “planned
obsolescence” of our throw-away, plastic society. My
Sunday school teacher, growing up, sold vacuum cleaners. He ran our Ben
Franklin five-and-10 cent store, and after retiring from that business,
sold Electrolux tank vacuums door-to-door. Mr. Ashford was good at
selling and prospered at his part-time, retirement occupation. Our
Sunday school class would hear all sorts of stories he met while
driving the back roads of Bolivar County to call on prospective
customers. Later, I inherited one of these big
machines and used it until the cord gave out and could not be repaired.
This vacuum was so sturdy — it seemed to be made of cast iron. It could
pick up anything. I was sorry to see it go. Finally, after a good deal of shopping and pondering, I selected a model, and am pleased to say that it has proved quite useful. All
this talk about vacuum cleaners reminds me of an incident that is
recorded in the records of our church. It seems that in 1911, the
Martha Davis Foreign Mission Society, a ladies’ organization named in
honor of one of its faithful, local members, obtained for the church a
hand-operated vacuum cleaner from the Vortex Company of Boston,
Massachusetts, which, after trial, proved unsatisfactory. I
cannot imagine sweeping the rugs in that big church building with a
machine that was worked by hand. Apparently, neither could the ladies
of the Martha Davis Foreign Mission Society — which apparently, too,
was concerned with certain matters closer to home. Anyhow,
when an attempt was made to return the sweeper for a refund, the ladies
discovered that the company had gone out of business! Things
rocked along for awhile, and some years later, by unanimous vote on
June 6, 1925, the church elders (all men in those days) directed that
“Miss Helen Fant be granted permission to furnish a vacuum cleaner for
the church and that the electric current be used in the cleaning of the
church.” Each lady had brought nickels to the women’s meetings until enough had been collected to purchase the sweeper, a Bissell. We
are doing quite a bit of cleaning around our church just now, but the
ladies of the present era have not asked the men for permission.
Instead, the men are running the sweeper, right alongside the ladies.
It is a new day, indeed and I, for one, am grateful!
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