One Saint and Seven Sinners
by Ennen Reaves Hall
Rating: ****
Read 6/8/2013
I picked this up at a rummage sale based on the author’s photograph, the jacket flaps and the fact that it was published by T.Y. Crowell, who rarely lets me down. I’m so glad I did, this was a delightful book. Hall’s dad was a preacher, an old school Baptist, and though she says that this is his story it’s much more the story of her indomitable little mother, who was a treat to get to know in these pages. Watching Mrs. Reaves face down the Ladies Aid Society is priceless. If you can find this, by all means, pick it up.
Salamander House
Beads, Books, and Blooms
This was my home town. Preacher Reeves married my mother and father the August before he passed away. The big house he built of solid concrete blocks is still there, still being lived in, unchanged except (I’m sure) for the furniture inside. I’m not sure, though, that he’d be best pleased that there’s a convenience store right next door that sells beer, and a liquor store directly across the street. Until four years ago, I lived only three blocks from the “Preacher Reeves Mansion” as it’s now called, though he and his family (nor anyone else at the time) didn’t consider it a “mansion”.