In addition to teaching the Ladies Bible Class for many years at Thorp Spring Church of Christ, Anne organized and led the Vacation Bible School. I first attended in 1994 with my first of six grandchildren. As each of the others reached the toddler stage, they also attended. Our "crew" who attended expanded to include cousins; our group of ten had to be transported from Weatherford to Thorp Spring in two vehicles. We treasure many fun memories of those years with Anne in VBS and other activities. Anne, also, was a large factor in our deciding to move from Weatherford to Granbury. Anne was a dear friend, an inspiration and an encouragement to me. . I also have fond memories of Anne's parents, the Gibsons. They were faithful members at Thorp Spring Church of Christ, and she continued to uphold that legacy.
A PARABLE OF IMMORTALITY
By Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, “There she goes!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight--that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my sight says, “There she goes!”, there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
When I returned to Anne's from Europe in mid-September 2010, after having been to Oberammergau, Germany, for the Passion Play, I brought this prayer and Anne and I have prayed this poem for two years...sometimes several times in one day.
O Lord
I am just waiting
Waiting for the moving of the waters--
Waiting for your hand to move and point
In the direction you want me to go.
Lord I have tried -- tried so hard
And somewhere inside me Lord I'm still trying.
And yet Lord my life is as clay in the hands of the potter.
I cannot make myself, I cannot use myself,
I can but wait and if you want -- go on waiting
Knowing that --
You can take even this deeply marred vessel and use it.
Fashioning it continually for the purpose you have for it.
O Lord give me patience, and humility, and vitality.
Help me to be content, dear Lord
to wait and rest on you
For this speck of time is eternity.
I have known and loved Anne since I was a little kid and always considered her to be sort of my God Mother. I have so many great memories of growing up around Anne. I remember Anne, my father Jim Mayfield and me and my brother Mike seining for minnows in Pease Park back in the mid 60's. I remember my family living with Anne for a short time at her home on Windsor Rd. in the late 60's. That was a crazy time in many ways. I remember that it was Anne that drove me and Mark Ceasar to the Southwood theatre, this was my first "date". I must have been all of ten or eleven, if that. Then we all lived together again in the late 70's sharing a duplex on Paramount Street. My mother Carmen (Anne called her Cita) and Anne have been close friends for as long as I can remember. I've been attending the Good Ol Girls annual get together almost from the begining.First as one of the kids that gets brought and now, as I like to think, a full fledged member. Anne put together several photo albums with wonderful pictures from those celebrations. I will try to get some of them posted here, perhaps after the upcoming funeral. The picture I have posted was of happier times at my 30th Birthday party. It was a costume party and we all dressed as our favorite gypsy, tramp or thief. This was twenty two years ago and I'm afraid Mom and I are the only ones left from that photo. We lost Betty six or seven years ago. I will always remember Anne as a fun, loving, friend and member of my family.
