{"id":270,"date":"2012-08-31T11:52:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T16:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/?p=270"},"modified":"2012-08-31T11:52:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T16:52:30","slug":"reflections-on-the-life-of-elizabeth-moody-wagner-1916-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/2012\/08\/31\/reflections-on-the-life-of-elizabeth-moody-wagner-1916-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on the life of Elizabeth Moody Wagner, 1916-2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not sure how many of you have ever heard or sung the song Help Somebody Today.\u00a0 The words were written in 1904 by Carrie Breck, a housewife who wrote over 2000 such ditties.\u00a0 The song was popular during the years that Elizabeth was growing up on the mission field in India.\u00a0 The music is surely one of Charles Gabriel\u2019s worst compositions and can barely be called a true hymn; and the poetry leaves much to be desired.\u00a0 But the sentiment is sublime.<\/p>\n

It was one of Elizabeth\u2019s favorite hymns.\u00a0 Martha Jane Stone, our organist for the past 74 years, would occasionally play it during worship services, and I could see Elizabeth, sitting here below me on the front row, her mouth moving, repeating the words to the song silently as it was played.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelp Somebody Today\u201d was, indeed, her life\u2019s theme song, however old fashioned and childlike the words, and however sappy the tune.\u00a0 Elizabeth, however, was never old fashioned or sappily sentimental, although I do believe she was enormously childlike in her openness to adventure, her enjoyment of life and God\u2019s creation, and her trust in human beings.\u00a0\u00a0 Ann Harris, a long time friend, noted yesterday how Elizabeth may have touched the lives of more people in Woodford and Fayette County than we might ever know.\u00a0\u00a0 Despite all the long list of activities, civic engagements and leadership positions she held, the awards and honors that came to her, Ann says the obituary didn\u2019t capture the Elizabeth she knew, who in so many small ways and in small deeds enriched the lives of those who came in contact with her.\u00a0 She was always willing to teach someone how to do something, or to help them, to share what she had in her garden or kitchen.<\/p>\n

Until last Christmas, even after she had lost most of her sight, not a Christmas came that I didn\u2019t receive from Elizabeth a huge gift bag of goodies from her kitchen, and when Wag was still living, there was always a fifth of Maker\u2019s Mark in that bag as well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As a pastor, even one who doesn\u2019t drink alcoholic beverages very much, I can\u2019t tell you what a joy it is not to be perceived as immune from such Kentucky pleasures.\u00a0 Many of you have mentioned receiving a jar of her famous Stickles; or some other tasty product of her kitchen.\u00a0 Others have commented about how much she taught them about gardening, antiques, needlepoint.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth was truly a remarkable woman:\u00a0 there was little that she couldn\u2019t do, whether it was flying an airplane, big game hunting, golf, tennis, bridge, gardening, needlepoint, cooking, creating a beautiful home.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ewing told me a story yesterday about how her father once took her hunting for a tiger, and when they found one, he handed the rifle to Elizabeth.\u00a0 She took aim, shot\u2014but missed a kill shot, and instead hit the tiger on the rear end, enraging him, so that he came charging toward them.\u00a0 Her father took the gun from her and shot the tiger between the eyes.\u00a0 That tiger skin was among those last possessions in the Adair Road house to be sent to auction when Wag and Elizabeth moved to Richmond Place.\u00a0 Her first husband, Nat Hall, who died in 1956, taught her to fly, and together they volunteered for the Civilian Pilot Training program, with Elizabeth becoming one of the first women in the nation to teach Army and Naval cadets how to fly during World War II.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth was a woman with impeccable taste, and incredibly high standards for herself and others.\u00a0 She wanted the past to survive to inform the future, and so she gave much of her time, and Wag\u2019s, to the preservation of bluegrass history.\u00a0\u00a0 She wanted this little church to survive, and in the last several years, it has turned a corner and will survive at least another generation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She was a woman who knew her own mind, and didn\u2019t mind sharing it.\u00a0\u00a0 Berry and Ewing yesterday remarked that their mother\u2019s greatest strength was her determination; and perhaps her weakness was that she thought she was always right.\u00a0\u00a0 Our strengths and our flaws, our weaknesses, of course, give texture and color to the uniqueness of each individual life.\u00a0\u00a0 And of course, Elizabeth was mostly right.\u00a0 None of us are perfect, thank God.\u00a0 She and Wag, her second husband, with whom she shared nearly 50 years of marriage, were both possessed of sharp tongues.\u00a0 Wag had his own way with language, as those of us who knew him are well aware, but Elizabeth always knew what needed to be done, and if she couldn\u2019t do it, she had just the man for the job.\u00a0 They would snap and bicker with each other, but boy, did they get stuff accomplished.\u00a0 And when they took to the dance floor, as a couple they were grace in motion, and you could see their love for each other.<\/p>\n

In September 1983, near their 25th<\/sup> anniversary, the Woodford County Garden Club put together a little silly poem saluting them both:\u00a0 Let me share a few of the couplets:<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight\u2019s the night we honor our Elizabeth and her Wag<\/em><\/p>\n

(Our tribute\u2019s in the form of verse\u2014we hope it doesn\u2019t lag!)<\/em><\/p>\n

The female part we first salute was born Elizabeth Moody<\/em><\/p>\n

And Wag came here from Yankee land and married this fair beauty.<\/em><\/p>\n

She learned to hunt and kill big game upon the Indian Stage<\/em><\/p>\n

In a Christian missionary home where she lived till college age.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026[skipping down a few lines]<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile at Cotillion Dance Wag asked to take her home<\/em><\/p>\n

Her first refusal came to naught\u2014she did not go alone<\/em><\/p>\n

Ham and eggs and a big full moon shining on garden fair<\/em><\/p>\n

She hooked him quick when he inquired, \u201cfor flowers do you care?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, dear Wag, I love to cook, I love to garden, too.<\/em><\/p>\n

He then decided on the spot, \u201cHoney, I\u2019m for you!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

25 years have come and gone, 4 kids they raised together<\/em><\/p>\n

Grandchildren now they number 6, the Wagners nest to feather.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Elizabeth moves right on with energy galore,<\/em><\/p>\n

Tennis, bridge, 3 garden clubs\u2014would you believe there\u2019s more?<\/em><\/p>\n

Again, not great poetry, but an expression of love from good friends who remained so through the years.<\/p>\n

All of us are complex and complicated people.\u00a0 Who knows what drove Elizabeth with such passion for her involvement in her community?\u00a0 Certainly, it was a faith she received from her parents, and that she kept for all her days.\u00a0\u00a0 She knew that faith without works is dead, as the writer of the letter known as James said.\u00a0\u00a0 Psychologically, perhaps it was coming to the United States as a lonely, shy 17 year old, unsure of her place in this culture that was so different from what she knew.\u00a0 As an aside, she wasn\u2019t tame when she was living in India either.\u00a0 Her parents sent her to a boarding school for children of Americans living in India, and she told me once that she ran away from the place as a teenager, but that her father came and found her and took her back.\u00a0 With an eye for style, for beauty, for what made people advance in life to positions of respect, and an appreciation of history and the past, she threw herself into her life-long theme:\u00a0 help somebody today.\u00a0 What a witness to each of us.<\/p>\n

My friends, it doesn\u2019t matter what motivates us, what psychological genesis creates the person we become, what matters is the kind of life we live, the people whose lives we touch, the ways we make the world a better place for others because we have lived.\u00a0\u00a0 As one of the Transylvania University staff members who knew her wrote to me in apt words echoing her service in the Civilian Pilot Training program during WWII, \u201cher legacy will never fly away.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The world, and we, have been blessed by the long, fascinating, helping, generative and restorative life of Elizabeth Moody Hall Wagner.\u00a0 Thanks be to God for this amazing woman.\u00a0 We send her forth today to her life with God with triumphant trumpet sounds.\u00a0\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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I\u2019m not sure how many of you have ever heard or sung the song Help Somebody Today.\u00a0 The words were written in 1904 by Carrie Breck, a housewife who wrote over 2000 such ditties.\u00a0 The song was popular during the<\/p>\n

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