KILGOROUND
LINDA BALLARD

"She may be 102, but, church is still her favorite place to be," said Charla Lewis while speaking fondly about her mother. "And she still remembers every word to her favorite hymn, 'When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I'll Be There.' Today, she battles with dementia, but that song she can repeat from the heart."

"Let us labor for the Master from the dawn 'til setting sun" and so it was that Gloria Benson was raised to work and work hard from sunup to sundown. Gloria was born on an Indian reservation in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. She was the oldest of nine children and it was her position to take care of the younger ones while both her father and her mother worked the fields.

Everything they ate was raised and everything they wore was made. Her parents went to the grocery store once a year where they purchased necessary supplies to carry them through until the next year. Oranges were

brought back as a treat for the children and to them it was far better than any piece of candy.

When Gloria married, they settled in central Texas where they raised two daughters and a son. She was a homemaker and doing what she knew best by making sure the garden supplied them with plenty to eat and making clothes for her children. "My mother was married for thirteen years before I was born," said Charla. "I was born in Hillsboro and she was almost 41 years old at the time.

"My father was a farmer and a government trapper," said Charla. "The government paid him to catch or kill animals - especially coyotes. As a small child, I can remember watching him put together traps. Those traps have since been handed down to my son, who is also quite an outdoorsman.

Charla's husband was killed in an automobile accident when her youngest baby was 18 months old and her son was five years of age. "Mother stepped in and took over helping me with my home and the raising of my children. I went to school to earn my teaching degree during the day and I worked at Wal-Mart at night. I couldn't have made it without her and we became very close.

"When I married again, it was to a pastor and his work brought us to East Texas. When mother's health began to get bad, we moved her in with us. We would have it no other way. When my back was against the wall, she was there for me. That was 16 years ago. We love East Texas and would live no other place," she said.

Several years ago, Charla retired from teaching school at Chandler Elementary School in Kilgore. Her husband, too, is semi-retired from the New Life Tabernacle in Carlisle where they still attend church.

"I had to make the heartwrenching choice of placing mother in a nursing home for better care," said Charla. "She is at The Willows and I travel once and sometimes twice a day to be with her. That is the least I can do," she said. The family is looking for a place in the Leverett's Chapel/Overton area to be closer to her.

Gloria celebrated her 102 birthday at the Willows on January 4. She has seen the first of many things including the first car, train, plane, victrola, radio, telephone and television. Yes, her memory is fading, and yet, on some days when Charla visits, she thinks she has measured material to make her daughter a new dress.

It took Gloria Benson a while to get to us in Kilgore, but what a blessing it is to know one who has based their life on a song worth remembering - "Then when all of life is over and our work on earth is done, And the roll is called upon yonder I"ll be there. When the roll is called up yonder…When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there."

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Blowing out the candles today are Cara Jo Wilson, Bart Barthelemess, Tim Woolridge, Becky Florence, Loretta Quintero, Shirley Ann Benson, Kalene and Karla Eason, Mikki Lyn Ellis, John Ott, Gary Bennett, David Reed, Keith Norris, Mrs. James Crouch, Elizabeth Copeland, Diane Richardson, Debra Lynn Brown, Twins Alex and Alyssa Phillips, Signe Reeves.

Celebrating another year together today areJohn and Kim Spencer, Crickett and Bridgette Young, Dorothy and Roy Reiland.