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THE HOUSEHOLD
Household Greeting.
Let me extend a cordial greeting to the readers of
The Golden Age. I make my bow to you with a
fluttering heart. To have charge of a Household
department in such a paper as The Golden Age
is both an honor and a pleasure, but it is also a re
sponsibility which would intimidate me were I not
sure that the department will soon gather many
friends about it who will help me with their sugges
tions,and inspire me with their letters. I count upon
you dear friends, to give life and interest to the
page by expressing through it your thoughts, your
views, and your sentiments. Tell us about your
life and work in your homes, about your children,
your housekeeping, your opinions on current move
ments, the books you have read, or are reading,
the experiences you have had and what you are doing
towards self improvement.
Optimism is the pervading spirit of this paper.
Its editors are given to looking on the silver side
of the cloud. They believe that a brave, cheerful
spirit is the only victorious one in life’s battle.
We, the Househould, will reflect this spirit of hope
fulness. We will seek to infuse it into the hearts
and lives of those who sit under the shadow. Even
in my own short life, I have found that the true
secret of happiness lies in trying to make others
happy. Shall we not carry this into our Household
as its chief aim and motive? Shall we not try
to do or say something that will help others —either
by entertaining, informing, uplifting or simply amus
ing? Often, there is just lots of help in a laugh.
Try it and see. So, we will welcome those who
make us merry as well as those who make us wise.
Looking forward to hearing from each of you
very soon, I am, Faithfully yours,
ADA LOUISE BRYAN,
“EVELYN HOLLMAN.”
'Editorial Welcome.
In launching “The Household” as a department
in The Golden Age the editor confesses to almost
boyish exuberance as he bids every reader and
writer a hearty “welcome-home”!
Exuberance. Yes, but why? Because for years
such a department as we expect this to be. brought
a measure of good cheer and inspiration into his
life such as the unitiated can not possibly under
stand —filtering sunshine through lingering shadows
and creating friendships that have sweetened Time
and will have fruition in Eternity.
Little wonder, then, that I (I feel that I must
change from the third person to the first) planned
to have such a department if I should ever become
editor of a paper.
Remember our “Household” is to be a veritable
playground and fireside for our people who think
and feel and 'who love to share those thoughts and
feelings with others who likewise think and work and
dream!
So, in old-time rural parlance, “Bring your knitting
and stay awhile.” This—to the ladies, of course.
And to the men? Well, as they used to do at the
old-time quiltings, the young men can thread the
needles and make “side remarks” while blushes glow
and glances gleam.
In explanation let it be said that “Earnest Willie’s
Old-Time Letter” which is reproduced in this num
ber from a recent issue of The Sunny South (just
before that treasured old weekly was merged into
Uncle Remus’s Magazine) is published here not for.
its general interest to the public, but simply to let
the stranger catch something of the spirit in which
The Golden Age “Household” is born.
And now, new children of our new Household, I
gladly retire and present to you your new “Mother
Mine” in the person of Miss Ada Bryan who was
“Evelyn Hollman” in The Sunny South, and whose
real face has far more of soul and sunshine in
it than the picture we presented last week. In joy
and confidence I predict that she will guide the good
ship ir. safety and keep our “Household” sailing
t every week amid the “Blessed Isles.”
THE EDITOR.
A Letter to the Household.
Dear Household: That is the way I used to begin
letters to you in the “olden golden days,” and for the
sake of those ‘‘dear dead days beyond recall” let me
A DEPARTMENT FOR THE HOME.
ask you to take me to your hearts again. Now that is
an honest wish honestly expressed. A man can
never get so busy—so much absorbed with the crowd
ing cares of the great big world that he does not
love to be loved by those whom he loves.
There are some things which can never be ex
plained—they can just be felt and understood only
by one’s inner self. For instance, two of the dear
est friends I have in the world —both congenial col
lege chums, are missionaries now —one in China and
the other in South America. I have written them doz
ens of letters in my heart, but not with my busy
hands. I had another friend, honored almost above
women, who spent several years carrying the Light in
far away Japan. Shejeft her reign as queen of this
very Household realm and crossed the seas at Du
ty’s call. I just knew I would write to her every few
weeks, but I never did. Several letters I began with
my own hand, but some imperative interruption
came, and I said “tomorrow'.” And thus, oh House
holders, I have thought a thousand times of you.
Dashing on the train from north to south and from
east to w'est, I formulated a hundred letters to the
Household and have written them in my heart of
hearts. Occasionally I have picked up a copy of the
dear old Sunny South, reading the letters from fa
miliar friends until my soul would kindle with the
old-time fire, and then another letter I would feel
and think —and almost speak. But I have been dur
ing all these silent years in such a whirl of work and
travel, that, although your frequent calls for me
have fallen on my ears and in my heart like music
from the skies or “down from some high angel’s
wing, ’ and although our brilliant, generous Mrs. Bry
an has written such charming things about me, some
times telling of my educational work for Georgia
boys and girls—in face of all these, while my heart
has pleaded to speak, I have said “tomorrow I will
write,” and
“Tomorrow Comes Ever Tomorrow. - ’
I well know that this story is not enough. I am
sure that I should have made one speech less some
where, or taken an hour less of sleep some night
after speaking two or three times that day —I should
have taken this hour, I know, just about once a
month and dedicated it to you. For there was a
time when The Sunny South Household meant more
to my life than any company of people in the wide,
wide world. Some of you remember the story —how.
when 1 lay on bed over in Cobb county—a farmer
boy, cut down on the threshold of hopeful manhood,
and lying for nearly seven years amid the wreckage
and the debris of fallen castles and broken dreams,
beautiful Beatrice Christian (known to Sunny South
readers as Mabelle Carmen) came to my bedside
bringing me copies of The Sunny South, reading to
me Household and Letter Box letters, and, urging
me to join those rollicking, radiant, happy bands.
Finally, I yielded to her entreaties and wrote my
first letter over the pen name of “Earnest Willie” —
a name she gave me because she said I was in
“earnest” about what I did. Simple as it was, that
first letter, appearing in the issue of January 14.
1888, brought many new friends —pen-made friends,
to talk with me—to smile and work and hope and
dream as they sat, in fancy, by my narrow bed.
“A New World Broke in Upon Me.”
Yes, a new world opened its window's and showered
its glories and its inspirations upon me, and Cheru
bim and Seraphim seemed to hover with stirring
wings of gold beneath the firmament of this great
new' world that beamed its mellow radiance on me.
Letters from unseen friends came from far and
wide, like white-winged messengers of inspiration,
stirring my heart, refreshing my soul and inspiring
my life as no mortal can ever know'. And —I refer
to it, 1 hope, without an “offense to modesty”—for
six years there was hardly an issue of The Sunny
South that did not contain, either in the Letter Box
or the Household, some generous, encouraging word
to “Earnest Willie,” the country boy w'ho, passing
through days and weeks and months and years of
sunlit trial, tried to preach the simple gospel of sun
shine and purpose to The Sunny South readers who
had not been called to “pass under the rod.” I refer
to this to show you how much I ought to love —
how much I do love —The Sunny South Householders.
It was here that my book, “Earnest Willie or Echoes
from a Recluse,” was born —a book not great as
the world counts it, but which has gone into its
tenth edition.
It was here that hundreds—l might say thousands,
The Golden Age for May 23, 1907.
Conducted by
Ada Louise "Bryan
of friends who never wrote for the Household depart
ment, came first to know me, so that wherever I
have lectured over the South, they have often come
for many miles —not as a compliment to me as a
speaker (for they had never heard me) but sim
ply to see the man whose boyhood letters they
read when he lay helpless and imprisoned within
the narrow' confines of his faraway country home.
And it was here —yes, let me confess it, that my
editorial dream was born. I used to lie on that bed
and study the different features of The Sunny South
and think how I should like to emphasize this and
amplify that, and inaugurate features and depart
ments which I believed would be vital to the cause
of honoring God in the uplift of humanity.
I dreamed then of a time when I might be editor
of a paper that should be essentially the inspiration
of youth and the making of home and citizenship—
a great undenominational family w’eekly for the
South, standing for “oldtime religion,” and yet carry
ing enough of the literary and the educational to
serve as a constant intellectual stimulus and a whole
some mental tonic.
And thus it w'as that The Golden Age was
launched, about a year ago, as the garnered fruitage
of my editorial dream. And I dare to do the dear
old paper justice ere The Sunny South shall fall asleep
in the coming May time and w r ake to larger life on
the bosom of “Uncle Remus,” the south’s great, long
looked-for and ideal magazine—I rejoice, I say, to con
fess and declare in the presence of this Household,
whose encouraging generosity w'as so long my inspi
ration that almost everything I have ever accomplish
ed, or may ever accompl sh, with pen or tongue, began
within these friendly columns and was fashioned
and fructified by. the sunshine and the dew that
fell from the “ambient blue” of Household skies.
Then, “can I forget thee, O Jerusalem?” “May my
right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth” if I forget thee, O Sunny
South Householders, and “a’ that thou hast done for
me.” But before the last farewell is spoken, let us
live and dream again—let us live again in the days
when Mattie King and Callie Cochran reigned so
long in love over the Letter Box and Household
band; and then when Lizzie O. Thomas in patient
genius, led us for years through pastures green and
by waters still; when we rejoiced from week to
week in the wisdom of Mary Wilson, the golden
truths of Veritas; the wit of Ellen Starwood; the
humor and philosophy of Eugene Edwards; the
poetic gems of Maggie Richards; the “quips and
quirks” of Cranky Jim; the reigning romance of Bon
nie Sweet Bessie; the matchless mirth of Musa
Dunn; the editorial brightness of Henry Clay Fair
man, and Hope with gleaming gladness; Marion
Durham with her love and lore; Opal with her bril
liant faith, and Angeles, now gone home to God—
and, oh, a hundred others whoso names and letters
are fresh and fragrant and beautiful and blessed! I
cannot name them all, and, perhaps, I should have
named none at all.
This I know —that Colonel J. IT. Seals, his noble
wife, and Mrs. Mary E. Bryan at their side, did a
wonderful work for Southern hearts and homes when
they launched the dear old Sunny South in the
troublous and desolate days when the South so much
needed such a weekly messenger of good cheer and
inspiration. And may I say the time will never come
when such a messenger is not needed?
If other hearts and lives have received a hun
dredth part of the good which I have received from
this department of The Sunny South alone, then
those who sowed, it may be in tears, have reason to
reap in rejoicing as we come in this glad, sad hour
“bringing in the sheaves.” Let me say this before
I close. While I am a very busy man, my heart, I
believe, is doing business at the same old stand, and
I heartily wish that every one of the older readers
of the Household and the new ones well, would
write me an old-time letter. The very thought of
these letters seems to “touch a spring that unlocks
the past” and brings in bright, speaking panorama
before me the days so dear and bright that “the
golden hours on angel wings flew o’er me” and our
Household. And, now, I must stop and catch a train
for Florida. I feel that my letter is not half finished.
I wanted to mention the new names, too, but I can
not e'en begin. Just remember that this is intended
as an old-time Household handshake for every one
wrapped up in a loving “GOD BLESS YOU.”
Let me sign my name as I “used to do” —Yours in
earnest. “EARNEST WILLIE.”
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