Oh! Baby!

Verdi, Church of Christ

photo by Terry Jeanson march, 2009

Recently I was standing in the foyer of the church building during the Sunday services just previous to the Centennial celebration. Joe Wayne Vickers and I were manning the doors for the men serving communion, and as Joe is apt to do he shared with me a funny story about the early beginnings of the church. Joe's family the Vickers and the Brite's were one of the early founding families of the Church in Pleasanton. The church in Pleasanton was actually an outgrowth from the little community Church of Christ in Verdi. Here is the story he related to me in his own words.

  

  I'm not sure of the exact time this happened, but I would say around 1900.  My grandfather was one of 15 siblings who were raised near Verdi.  If I remember correctly, 9 of the 15 were boys, and of course Verdi, Texas around 1900 was probably not a hotspot of entertainment.  Some of the younger brothers were notorious as pranksters, and one particular Sunday morning they seized upon a golden opportunity.  Most families drove to Sunday services in horse-drawn wagons, and the Church building was a simple one-room structure.  It was apparently the custom of the day that those families with babies would leave their sleeping infants covered up in the wagons parked just ouside the Church building, and the mothers would go outside to tend to them if necessary.  During that Sunday's worship service, while the congregation was singing and drowning out the sound of any activity outside, the brothers sneaked around the building and switched the babies from one wagon to another.  By the time it was discovered, several families had driven off for home with the wrong babies.  In the days before cars and even telephones in this rural area, it must have taken some time to get it all sorted out.

    No one is sure what kind of punishment the boys received, but whatever it was, it did not deter them. Not long after, they disrupted a Sunday service by entering the church after services had started, parading down the aisle and parking themselves on the front row--all dressed from head to toe in women's clothing.  They did get in trouble for that one, and they either saw the light or felt the heat, because the pranks (at least those involving the Church) came to a stop after that.

    Years later, after all 15 of his children had grown up into respectable adults, my great-grandfather remarked that he was very proud that none of his children ever went to jail or got elected to the Legislature.  One of those teenage mischief-makers, incidentally, was Jim Brite, who lived to his late 80's, and as far as I know, never missed a Sunday Church service in his adult life.

Joe V.