School Days and Sunday Sermons: A Journey of Faith and Education
My first seven years of school were in the one room Scotch Bush School. Miss Gladys DeGraff was my only teacher those years. She taught just those seven years at that time, before she married Earl Sheldon and moved away to Frankfort, NY. I kept a diary some of those years, and often referred to my teacher as being cranky, etc. But I did realize that she was beautiful and able. She believed in discipline and used the ruler on me. She had quite a task, teaching all the required subjects thoroughly to around forty pupils from grades one through eight, in a one-room school house, with two little coat and toilet rooms. When I finished high school (or perhaps it was college) I invited her to my graduation, calling her “My Best Teacher.” I believe that she did read the Bible to us and maintained high standards of moral conduct. I recall some of the signs which were fastened on the walls such as, HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY.
I remember the fun times when we would play tag ball and “Kitty I Over” outside the one room school house, also “Ducky on the Rock” in the school yard. In the wintertime we went sledding down the hills, sometimes in the road on Luke’s Hill with a long train of sleds hooked together, occasioning some great spills. Then there was also the walking to and from school every day one and one-half miles one way by road and often going “across-lots,” which involved quite a lot of fences to negotiate by climbing over them or otherwise.
My last year there, seventh grade, Miss DeGraff allowed me to take the state regents eighth grade exam. (I took it at Minaville
School) which I passed, so I entered Amsterdam Junior High School in September 1928, age twelve, 9th grade. I recall that in that Regents exam I wrote an essay about aspirations for the future, that I would like to be a missionary. This aspiration was motivated by a visiting missionary to India a year or two before who had described an incident on a hunting excursion, when they came upon and captured a wild boy whom they took back to their mission station where they nourished,tamed and taught him. I recall no evidence of spiritual understanding but was impressed by the seeming adventurous life.
From earliest childhood, Dad took us to Sunday School and Church at the Minaville Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church. Dad was S.S. Superintendent part of the time. We were very regular church goers – every Sunday a.m. There were different pastors during those years. I recall John A. Lavender, Daniel Hill, Pastor Liberty and Howard Myers. Howard Myers had been Dad’s pastor in a Baptist church many years before and had been a spiritual help to Dad (perhaps instrumental in Dad’s conversion back then.) Dad was an honest faithful man, who maintained righteous standards, prayer at meals and a good example, free from smoking, drinking, swearing, etc. – a good testimony before us five children. I recall sitting and giving careful attention to the Sunday sermons. My concept of a Christian was of one who tried to obey the Christian teaching, and I recall being conscious that I failed. Then I would try to mend my ways, but would soon drift back into misconduct, like mistreating my sister Ruth. At age twelve, I considered it was time that I should be baptized and join the church. My Dad believed in immersion, so Pastor Myers baptized me in the Schoharie Creek by their cottage over toward Schoharie. I went into the water a dry, unsaved sinner and came out a wet, unsaved sinner with no spiritual change.
Pastor Liberty took Dad and me fishing in the wintertime at Sacandaga Reservoir using “tip-ups” that Dad made. We caught a few Northern Pike. Pastor Dan Hill wanted me to go to the Methodist Boarding School (high school) at Cazenovia where he had gone but I didn’t end up going there. And he and his wife Fran gave me a book to read, Trail Blazers of the Middle Border, something about pioneer days in mid USA. Pastor John A. Lavender had a book store in Troy, N.Y. After his few years’ pastorate at Minaville M.E. church, every year at Christmas time, he gave our family a book. The Lord was pleased to use the book he gave us in 1940 toward my conversion. (details in later chapter).
Our car back in those days was a Model T Ford, until about 1923, when we got a Baby Grand Chevrolet open touring car – a larger and more powerful model. Dad drove that a few years until one Sunday,going to church at the blind corner where our Shellstone Road reached the main paved road (now Rt. 30), we had a head-on collision. No one was seriously injured (only Richard’s head bumped against the windshield). So the old Baby Grand was traded for a second hand Chrysler Imperial sedan, which took us all, the very next week after acquiring it, on a great trip to the State Beekeepers Meeting at Ransomville, NY. From there we visited Niagara Falls and on returning back East, we also visited Watkins Glen, a vacation spot on one of the Finger Lakes.
Dad took us on fishing trips to Indian Lake in the Adirondacks more than once, where we camped in our tent in a public camp ground, ate the bullheads we caught and trolled vainly for Northern Pike.
It was during my high school days that the Methodist church in Minaville closed, so we moved our membership to the only other church in the village, the Dutch Reformed Church. We five Rulison children joined in with their young people in Christian Endeavor and other activities.
One summer, we young people of the Church took a trip north and climbed Mt. Marcy via John’s Brook Trail. Mr. Schaufelberg, my friend Earl Shaufelberg’s father, then 54 years of age as I recall, went with us. I never could forget the thrill of standing on Mt. Marcy (5344′ elevation) in mid-August with snow falling, nor of thatcold night, sleeping in the stone shelter on the summit.
Going to high school in Amsterdam involved daily commuting seven miles. There were no school buses in those days, so for most of the time, elder brother John drove our car, picking up other commuters along the way. John became a very skilled driver, able to negotiate country roads even in muddy spring time and also during the most snowy and icy winter weather. What thrills we had charging through those high snow drifts down Shellstone Road, blinded by the flying snow but coming out of the careening dash still on the roadway. And there was that morning when already late, we had to stop for gas at McDuffeys, John pumping the gas pump. In his haste, he forgot to take the gas pump hose out of the car gas tank and after going a quarter mile up Signboard hill, looked back to see the hose with its spiral lining dragging along behind. Well, we got to our first class only a minute late and just in time for Earl Schaufelberg, who was in my class, to be called up to give his oral English presentation. Earl had not prepared, so he ad-libbed on the subject “How I Got to School This Morning.” I hope that he got a good grade. I sat there amazed by his ingenuity.
