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Mrs. Christine Pinson's greatest
heroes are her mother, her brother, and her husband,
all mentors to Christine who serves selflessly in
many Christian endeavors. |
Christine Flippin Pinson of McKenzie, who was born on
August 10, 1924, is a walking testimony to the goodness of
the wonderful, old-time community of Christmasville.
Her parents were tenant farmers who made ends meet
"chopping cotton, picking cotton, pulling potato slips and
whatever else" they could do to get by.
Christine was two-years-old, her sister, Louise, was five,
her brother, Alton, four and her other sister, Frances,
was on the way when their father chose to leave the family
in an era when there was no government help for hungry
families who had lost their main source of income.
Instead, grandparents, aunts and uncles pitched in to help
her mother, Nina Pearl, raise her children and work the
farm. "They were great to us," Christine says concerning
her extended family.
"We were very poor but we never knew it; we were happy. We
had a wonderful family," she says. "My mother was a
wonderful Christian person; she absolutely had a faith in
God greater than any person I've ever known except my
husband. She always taught us to pray for our dad and love
him; we had a father figure in the home just through her.
"We were raised up in a two-room cabin - one bedroom and a
kitchen - but I never heard my mom say anything against it
in any way, form, or fashion," she says. That there was no
electricity in the home at least reduced the bills there
were to pay.
Clothing was made from the cloth sacks that flour and feed
were packaged in back in those days. Her mother looked at
pictures in Sears-Roebuck catalogs for ideas and cut the
cloth without a pattern. Everyone got new shoes once a
year. "We thought the whole world was like that," says
Christine.
Despite the blessings she enjoyed, she did have a craving
that went unmet for years. "My life's desire when I was a
child was to have a peanut butter and cracker," laughs
Christine, who had seen a girl eating the delicacy at
Christmasville School. Here I was with country ham and
biscuits wanting peanut butter."
Christine went to Concord Church every Sunday and attended
classes at Christmasville for eight years before
transferring to Trezevant for high school, riding the
school bus to get there.
When she was older and realized the burdens her mother
endured, she asked her how she did it. "Every morning I
ask God to help me and at the end of the day I thank Him,"
her mother replied, "I don't ask for tomorrow because I
may not need it."
Nina Pearl dedicated her life to her children until they
were mostly grown, then, at the age of 39, married her
neighbor. Christine was 15.
Alton had recently joined the Navy, his keen sense of
responsibility to the family leading him to sign up near
the end of his 16th year in order to help his mother with
expenses. In two more years, Japan would bomb Pearl
Harbor, bringing America full throttle into the war in
Europe that began overseas in September, 1939.
"He was extra special to us," Christine says of her
extraordinary brother, "He really was our prince or king."
When she finished high school, Christine began working in
the U-Tote-Em Grocery Store's Cash Economy office.
After work one day, she and two other girls went to the
ice cream parlor that was where Dr. Whitehead's office is
today in downtown McKenzie.
"I looked over and there he was," Christine says with
smiling eyes, "and I thought, 'That's the best looking guy
I ever saw in my life!'"
She said as much to one of her friends and must have
caught his eye just right because before he left, Paul
Pinson, the handsome owner of Pinson's Grocery who was 16
years older than Christine, had learned her name from
someone else in the shop. Soon, he called her for a date.
"After our first date, I told my mother, 'I'm going to
marry him someday!' Christine declared with a laugh.
When her prediction came true, her mother was furious. "It
won't last six months!" she warned.
"If it don't, it don't; I'm still going to marry him,"
Christine said stubbornly. "And it lasted 38 and a half
years," she says now, "We had a good life."
The son of a minister, Paul was 35 years old when the
couple married on December 5, 1943. As to how such a
good-looking man could have stayed single for so long,
Christine laughs, "The Lord just had him for me I guess!"
By June the same year they were married, the couple
learned Paul had a serious lung disorder that plagued him
for the rest of his life.
Christine was well-equipped to handle the setback in her
husband's health, drawing on wisdom handed down from her
mother: "She would say, 'When you get to a mountain in
life don't sit on a stool and look up, get to walking,"
Christine said. "I've never faced a mountain that with the
Lord's help I couldn't walk over and I've faced a lot of
them."
Alton had married as well and by this time both he and
Christine were expecting babies. "He had said he would
have a boy and I would have a girl, and he would send me
little girl clothes from overseas," said Christine
smiling.
On his last trip home, Alton had warned Christine, "I may
not be back; we're going into some hard battle."
Christine and other families who had loved ones fighting
in the war, as well as many others in the community,
gathered every Thursday night for prayer service. "The
church would be crammed," she said. But death is
inevitable with war, and on December 2, near midnight,
Alton's ship, the U.S.S. Cooper, along with two other U.S.
Destroyers, became engaged in a horrific battle with
Japanese in Ormoc Bay in the Philippines. The U.S.S.
Cooper was sunk by an enemy torpedo, but not before
delivering fatal blows to at least one Japanese Destroyer.
Alton was among nearly 200 men who went down with the
ship.
Three weeks after learning her husband would not be coming
home, Alton's wife, Ethel, gave birth to his son, John
Edgar. Three weeks later, Christine's daughter, Paula,
came too, the joy of their births mirrored by the despair
of the family's great loss.
Alton and his wife had only six weeks as man and wife
before he shipped out to sea never to return, yet upon her
death some 20 years later, her will specified that she be
cremated and her ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean so
the two might come forward together when the faithful are
gathered unto Christ.
"He and I were so close," Christine says sadly. "For a
long, long time it seemed like I was waiting for him to
come home. I still miss him a lot after 50-something
years."
Already struggling with cancer, Christine's mom "didn't
fight that much anymore" after Alton died, and she passed
away a year or so later at the age of 44.
Christine persevered through each blow, bolstered by "one
of the most wonderful husbands and fathers that ever
breathed a breath."
"He was the kind of Christian that never doubted in any
way, form, or fashion," she said. The couple operated the
grocery store for twenty more years after they married,
along the way adding three children to their family:
Paula, Darrell, and Randal.
Though Paul was frequently ill, the children were raised
with the knowledge that he was the head of the household.
He taught Sunday School for 45 years and was treasurer of
the church 26 years. "He was one that believed in serving
Lord every day," Christine says.
The last 16 years of his life, Paul was sick "all the
time", and Christine faced another mountain when she lost
her husband in 1981.
"I'm a stronger Christian today because of my husband;
living 38 and a half years with a person like him," she
says.
At the time of Paul's death, Christine was working at West
Tennessee Public Utilities Company where she worked for 20
years. The couple had sold the grocery, after 26 years in
business, around 1963. When she "retired" from the
utilities company, friend Lou Sherwood called and asked if
she would fill in as hostess/cashier at Forestwood
Restaurant. She ended up working at the restaurant for
eight years, until its close.
She thought she would retire until Neal Haywood of the IGA
Supermarket asked if she would be interested in
demonstrating food items at the store. She accepted, and
six years later, when E.W. James bought out the IGA store,
she continued working with the new owners. These days, one
can find Christine every Friday and Saturday at the E.W.
James Supermarket passing out tidbits of yummy foodstuffs
as she greets friends and other customers.
"I really feel like God gave me this job because I get to
witness," she says.
Being a witness for God is Christine's primary life
description. She is a Sunday School teacher at First
Baptist Church, teaching the 60-to-70 age group now,
although she has taught many different groups since
starting with her daughter's primary class 58 years ago.
For six months Christine has been involved in another
Bible-teaching ministry sponsored by the church. At the
suggestion of her grandson-in-law, Associate Pastor
Clayton Owen, she teaches Bible classes for the residents
of Lakeside Retirement Center, people that she says, "have
so much faith." She echoes their sentiments in saying,
"He's got me in his hand, and He's never going to let me
go, because I'm a child of God."
"I enjoy it, I really enjoy it," she says, just back from
one of the classes that apparently was as much a blessing
to her as her teachings were to the residents.
Another First Baptist Church ministry that is near and
dear to Christine's heart is the Jail Ministry that was
born in her college-aged-girls' Sunday School class 23
years ago.
"We decided the church should start this mission," she
says. "Some of the girls were Johnny Bates' daughters,
Cary Neal Bradfield and Elaine Devault - there were about
ten in all. They are the ones that started it; we started
it together. It's been a wonderful thing."
Christine's work is with the female population while male
missionaries visit the men's cells. "I've never had one to
disrespect me, ever," she says about the girls and women
she visits. "Some of them are just so sweet and you learn
to love them; I've met a lot of little girls over there
that I'll always love."
She acknowledges that prison ministry is not for everyone.
No longer are the prisoners brought out for visits;
instead, guests must pass through four sets of locked
doors to meet with accused and/or convicted prisoners in
their cells.
There is one thing she hopes everyone can understand: "All
girls that go to jail are not bad girls. There are some,
it's their choice, and then there is some if they'd been
raised in a Christian home they wouldn't be there," says
Christine. "One thing mother taught us was, 'Don't look
down on anybody and don't judge them; don't judge people
'til you walk in their shoes.'"
Christine's experiences have given her some common ground
with some of the "girls" as she calls all the inmates.
"I've been on the road of a parent who doesn't love a
child," she says, an understanding she can share with
those who just do not understand why their parents failed
them.
"That's why I wish people," she began, then stopped and
regrouped. "Everybody in this world makes mistakes and
when people think they deserve it (punishment under the
law) - well, maybe they do - but what do I deserve? God
died for me."
When some cannot understand how she can visit with
prisoners who have committed incredible crimes, she asks,
"Do you have children? Wouldn't you want your child to
have a chance to accept Christ and a chance to go to
heaven?"
She has seen even those who committed the most heinous of
crimes weep with remorse as they accepted Christ into
their lives, then to create their own "in-house" jail
ministry in prisons far removed from Christine and the
Carroll County Jail.
Never was there a more humble soul than Christine, who
says none of the work she does is on her own but through
the church. "I don't believe in giving glory to myself,"
she says. "I'm just like my husband, I don't do it so
people will pat me on the back."
She says she's had a blessed life, able to raise three
children in a Christian home, who grew up to marry other
Christians. All eight of her grandchildren are Christians
plus one of 12 great grandchildren, the other 11 being
still quite young.
All her grandchildren live within 30 miles of her; another
real blessing. Until recently, her three children were
close at hand as well. Her daughter, Paula Watkins, wife
of Larry Watkins, and her son, Darrell, who is married to
the former Janie Cozart, both live in McKenzie. Her other
son, Randall, however, recently moved to Florida along
with his wife, the former Shelley Stafford. "I miss him,"
she says, "But I'm so proud he's there. He got a good
promotion and he doesn't have to be on the road anymore."
Her sister, Frances Davenport, lives in Paris while sister
Louise Martin resides in McKenzie.
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