Old People's Day: There's Power in Us A-Comin' Together

"Kindly a mixture of a singing convention, a revival meeting, and a family reunion" — that's Old People's Day in Eighty-Eight, Arkansas, according to octogenarian Grace Webber, who ought to know. Webber says, "I've been coming to Old People's Day off and on for — seems to me like — for near about 40 years, and I have enjoyed the day." The event features the picnicking and play that often characterize large family reunions and community celebrations but also involves a full day of preaching, hymn-singing, and testimonials, much like the revival meetings that sweep the South every summer. 

The sparsely populated community that plays host to this event is spread out across several miles of heavily forested hills in the northwestern corner of the state. It takes its unusual name from an old school district number; it boasts no town or marketplace, and years ago it lost its one-room school. But the Lone Elm Free Will Baptist Church has acted as community center since the 1890s. The community, in fact, is identified so closely with the church that most people in the area simply refer to the church itself as Eighty-Eight. 

In most ways Eighty-Eight seems a fairly typical Arkansas hill community — except for its festival of Old People's Day on the fourth Sunday of every June, when Eighty-Eight's emigrants return home and gather at the church to express their love and respect for the elderly. They have been doing so since 1932. 

The festivities begin with socializing on the church grounds, and reunions, gossip, and children's games continue outside all day, even while services are underway inside the church. Services begin with singing. Everyone joins in and anyone is welcome to deliver a solo or organize a trio or quartet. Once the crowd has gathered and warmed up, two or more local preachers deliver sermons. Then comes picnicking, then more preaching, singing, and a testimony service. 

What distinguishes Old People's Day from the "dinner on the ground and singing all around" meetings common to the region is that all activities are dedicated to honoring the elderly. When the old people arrive, the ushers seat them in the front pews, and in the case of some elderly men, even on the stage behind the pulpit. Everyone over 50 receives a commemorative ribbon, and the oldest man and woman present receive gifts. At the picnic the elderly get the best seats, and food is brought to them. They also receive special attention during the preaching and singing that take up much of the day. Singers dedicate songs to them, testifiers tell stories about them, preachers praise them from the pulpit. 

The elderly themselves are encouraged to talk about their long lives, to preach or sing. The "Old People's Day Committee," appointed each year from among the church's deacons and other community members, invites the oldest preachers present to speak and usually asks the oldest layman present to act as master of ceremonies for the day, or at least to lead the testimonial service. 

The first Old People's Day was intended to overcome community dissension and alienation by uniting church and community behind the goal of honoring the elderly. For many years the Reverend Ben Pixley was pastor of Eighty-Eight and leader of the community. In the early 1930s, though, he overextended his influence, and the resulting feud split the community down the middle. 

As Ben Pixley explains it, in the old days the church stood too far north in the community to suit him. Children from the southern end of the district had a long walk to school, since church and one-room school were housed in the same building. Their parents may sometimes have missed church services due to the distance. Attempting to integrate the community more closely, Pixley had the church moved a mile or so south to its present location. He says he ordered the change out of a sense of fairness. However, certain families living on the northern edge of the community took exception, accusing Pixley of highhandedness. Tempers flared and families became angrily divided. 

Pixley cast about for a strategy sufficient to the worsening situation. The solution — "an inspiration from God," he says — came to him in 1932. He organized an "Old Folks' Day" to be held on the new church grounds. Happily, the special event functioned exactly as Pixley had planned. 

Nonagenarian Cordelia Maxwell recounts, "As my ma said, 'Why, we [elderly people] didn't have nothing,' she says, 'until Ben Pixley started Old Folks' Day.'" At that time the community had no facilities designed for the elderly, let alone festivities in their honor, and those were hard times in the hills. Many local people were struggling for economic survival; the Depression had severely aggravated the deprivations that poor farmland had already inflicted on an almost exclusively agricultural community. Often, once a man or woman had grown too old to work, he or she was shuttled back and forth among the grown children, fed and clothed by one child until the expense became too great, then sent to another who would share the economic burden. With its message that the elderly are a blessing, not a burden, Old People's Day offered the first public recognition of the community's indebtedness to its founders. It was an issue on which everyone could agree. 

Pixley saw to it that everyone in the area felt welcome to attend. He sent his children to escort the old people to the church; he commissioned a special delegation to fetch the most vocal dissenter; he walked miles to the nearest towns to invite the local merchants. Pixley's immense energy and skill as an organizer combined with deeply felt needs in the community to ensure the success of the first Old People's Day. Nearly every family in the community turned out in force, and the shouts of joyful participants "getting the Spirit" could be heard all through the hills and hollows. 

Word spread and the second Old People's Day saw an influx of people coming from the nearest towns on horse- and mule-back, in buggies and cars. At lunchtime picnic baskets were spread all across the church grounds and along the sides of the road for quite some distance. As years passed, people began preparing weeks in advance, taking special care to make jellies and jams for the picnic (since everyone sampled everyone else's cooking) and making new clothes to debut at the event. 

In the half-century since, not much has changed except that the crowds have grown smaller. People still begin preparing weeks in advance. Now, as in the 1930s, the Old People's Day Committee publicizes the event, makes sure the dirt road leading to the church is passable, and lays in a sufficient stock of plates and cups. 

Perhaps most important, many of the old people begin talking about the day long in advance, reminiscing about past Old People's Days, and looking forward to the coming event. Some Eighty-Eight natives who have moved away schedule their vacations so they can drive back for Old People's Day. Visitors from Oklahoma and Missouri are common, and people returning from as far as California are not uncommon. They anticipate visits with old friends, lots of food, and spirited preaching and singing. To date, those expectations have never been disappointed. 

Young Eighty-Eight deacon Jerry Gentry claims that "everyone always has a good time. It's the best that there is." The most glowing praise comes from the elderly, though. Septuagenarian Roland Atwell says that he and his peers have had "the greatest times there, greatest shouting times — some of the wonderfullest times you've ever seen in your life." For many of the old people, this is the only time of the year when they can gather with their contemporaries. Perhaps Cordelia Maxwell says it best: "There's power in us a-comin' together." 

The Reverend Johnny Atwell, a native of Eighty-Eight who is well up in his eighties, happened to be the oldest man present at an Old People's Day I attended in 1979. It had been quite some time since he had pastored a church, and his health was so bad that some people were greatly surprised to see him up and about. He had had two close brushes with death, and one of his relatives told me he had not expected to see Johnny again this side of heaven. For several weeks prior to the festival, the Reverend Atwell had been living in Oklahoma with one of his children. He made his son drive him back to Arkansas for one more Old People's Day. 

Most of the people who had come to the event were singing inside the Eighty-Eight Church when Johnny Atwell arrived. He entered the church slowly and cautiously, with the deliberate movement common to the very old and very ill. Once he reached the aisle, however, his painful shuffle metamorphosed into something like a victory processional. Everyone turned to greet him mid-song, and he spent several minutes walking up and down the aisle, shaking hands and waving. After he had settled prominently into the front pew, several people left their own pews to come over and welcome him. Between greetings, he grinned, chortled, and clapped time to the music, well aware of his status as honored guest. 

When it came time for preaching, the master of ceremonies called on Johnny Atwell to preach first. He began his sermon in a small, quavering voice, but as he warmed up he began to shout. One-third of the way through, the Spirit hit him and he began punctuating and intensifying the points of his message with short, sudden, hooting whoops, shrill whistles, clapping, and abrupt laughter. Midway through the sermon, he left the podium and started walking the aisle again, moving among his audience as he preached. They responded with smiles, approving laughter, and frequent shouts of "Amen!" Old People's Day preachers tend to leap and yell, but given his age and bad health, the energy and exuberance of Johnny Atwell's performance had an especially dramatic impact. 

His theme was "preparation," and he switched back and forth between talking about his lifelong preparation for heaven and talking about his preparation for this particular Old People's Day, which he also considered a lifelong process. "I've been coming here [to Eighty-Eight Church] for over 60 years — my Daddy used to bring me," he remarked, then exclaimed that "All of that adds up to making preparations for this day!" 

He related anecdote after anecdote about the deep significance the Eighty-Eight Church and community — and especially Old People's Day — held for him. He emphasized how hard he had tried to be worthy of heaven and ended his sermon by pointing out that "faces are not here that we've been used to seeing here. Some of these times, maybe another year, you won't see me." He did not feel he had "made" heaven quite yet, but concluded with a great shout, "By the help of God, I intend to!" This drew "amens" from all over the audience. 

At the outdoor picnic that divides the morning activities from those of the afternoon, several people asked Johnny Atwell to pose for photographs. Along with the other elderly people present, he was given a seat in the shade, and people saw to it that his plate was full. 

Later in the day he was asked to testify. Again he held the audience's attention for several minutes with spirited stories about his struggles and ideals: "Isaiah had to make preparations before he was fixed up to go out and carry the gospel, and so did I! I waited a long time for the Lord. But you know that the Lord spared me and blessed me with 11 children. They're all living. Wife and me had sixty-two-and-a-half years of marriage life. The Lord saw fit to call her home. Now it's time for me to make preparations to meet her. . . . I thank the Lord about that great reunion day." 

The "great reunion day" in heaven apparently brought the reunion of Old People's Day back to mind, and he related how he had recounted the history of Old People's Day to relatives in Oklahoma: "We's talking about this very day — and I explained it the best I could. And I said back when it first started, we had a number of elderly people. Brother Ben wanted to do something for them. He organized this day. And if you remember right, you that have followed it on down through the ages, 'way back yonder the first time of the service in the forenoon [it] was dedicated to the old people, and without a word he just turned it over to them to carry on like they saw fit." 

Later on, a singing group dedicated its performance to Johnny Atwell: "We have a song here we want to dedicate to Uncle Johnny. I was just real thrilled today when I walked out and saw Uncle Johnny there, and I hear he even preached this morning. I tell you what — that's something! There's been two or three different times the news came to me and said, 'Well, Uncle Johnny's just about gone' . . . and here we find him over here today a-preaching around like a young man! And so we want to sing this song. The title of it is 'I'm Too Near Home.' Uncle Johnny, you're too close to think about turning back now. You've just about got it made! Praise the Lord!" 

Shortly before day's end, Atwell was awarded a rocking chair for being the oldest man present. A second rocking chair was presented to Cordelia Maxwell, at 92 the oldest woman present. A deacon set the chairs in the aisle at the front of the church so everyone could watch them rock and enjoy the day's last sermon. 

After the presentation of these gifts, the Reverend Alfred LaRue got up to preach. He began with a tribute to the prize winners and continued praising them throughout the sermon: "I rejoice in my heart to be in this service — especially with Uncle Johnny and Aunt Cord Maxwell. And when I was a kid, a very small kid, Aunt Cord Maxwell lived 'way back around over here, across the hollow over here. And I can remember when she walked through the rattlesnakes and the copperheads with a little old dim lantern, and walked back and forth over here to church. It makes my heart rejoice to stand here before people like Uncle Johnny and Aunt Cord Maxwell, people that have blazed the trail for this younger generation." 

LaRue is a large, powerfully built man; under the Spirit's guidance, he puts on a powerful, frenetic performance. He quoted verse after verse of Scripture from memory, striding back and forth across the stage as he spoke. Each time his stride carried him to the end of the stage, he would stop and assume a half-crouching posture, legs apart, his whole body tense, his hand stretched out over the audience like the staff of Moses over the Red Sea. 

"We're living in a time of a falling away from the old paths," he warned the congregation, "and Uncle Johnny, we read in the Book of Deuteronomy where the Bible said, 'Remove not the old, ancient landmarks which thy forefathers have made.'" 

As LaRue began to work his biblical text, he received the anointing of the Spirit; he began to chant, his voice breaking or gasping at the end of each line. He modulated his resonant baritone from a thunderous booming to a sob, and back again. LaRue's Scripture emphasized the importance of "old landmarks" — metaphorically represented by Cord Maxwell and Johnny Atwell — and the "old paths," the way of life they knew. Calling to mind the sufferings and trials of the elderly, LaRue asked, "How is it possible that they have lived so long?" His answer was that these elderly people had led admirable, righteous lives: 

As I set back there in the building a few moments ago, 

My mind went back to Uncle Johnny 

And to Aunt Cord Maxwell that sits among us today, 

And I begin to think back 

And I could think back 

And I could think of some hardships 

That they have gone through. 

Uncle Johnny is a man that has seen a lot of sorrow 

And a lot of grief, 

And he's had a lot of problems 

And troubles in his day! 

And I began to think, "God, 

How is it possible that these people 

Have suffered the toils of life 

And the storms of life 

All these years?" 

The answer came to me in the Book of Proverbs 

Chapter three and beginning with verse one 

Where the Scripture said, "My son, Forget not my law, 

But let thine heart keep my commandments 

For length of days 

And long life and peace shall they add unto thee!"

 

Moments later, LaRue suddenly stepped down from the stage, walked over to Cord Maxwell, seated in her chair of honor, and took both her hands in his. He began to cry as he recited a biblical passage that personifies wisdom as a woman and sings her praises: 

 

She is more precious than rubies 

And all things that thou canst desire 

Are not to be compared to her. 

Length of days is in her right hand 

And in her left hand riches and honor. 

Her ways are ways of pleasantness 

And all her paths 

Are peace. 

She is the tree of life to them that lay hold upon her 

And happy is he that retaineth her. 

 

LaRue concluded his sermon with a tribute to both Atwell and Maxwell, and by extension to all the other old people gathered that day: 

 

I know we must put our trust in — 

It's better to put our trust in God than man, 

But the Bible said, 

"Give honor to whom honor is due, 

And credit to whom credit is due." 

And I'd just like to say this morning 

That we love and appreciate these two people, 

This morning, that's stood through the storms of life. 

They, they, they've fought the battles of life. 

But they stood here this morning and had a testimony 

That was far beyond 

Any that we could give this morning, 

Because it was backed up with years of fruit, 

It was backed up with years of good life, 

It was backed up with prayer lives, 

My friends, that went back years and years ago. 

 

He held them up as models to the community, living proof that goodness and perseverance are rewarded. His chanted, Bible-sanctioned tribute was rendered more impressive by the intensity of his performance and was seconded by the loud, approving "amens" of the assembly. 

On Old People's Day, the testimonials and Spirit-led sermons are always composed largely of narratives — stories about Eighty-Eight's elderly alongside stories from the Bible. But the old people are not expected to listen passively. Old People's Day offers them a forum in which to testify about their lives, the history of their families and communities, to sing and preach and holler, with the full and loving attention of their descendants and remaining peers. 

A supportive atmosphere in which to speak is one of the warmest comforts Old People's Day gives the elderly. For many of them, it's no longer possible to define their identities through the roles they once played as workers and child-rearers. Those who are ill or confined to rest homes, in particular, have little opportunity to express and affirm their senses of identity, and they receive too little recognition. But on Old People's Day the elderly testifier, singer, or preacher never has to search for listeners who care about his or her memories and hopes. 

A few days after Johnny Atwell preached on Old People's Day, I asked him what had been the day's high point. He allowed that "it sure was a good dinner," and "of course, the singing and so on was wonderful." But he admitted, grinning, "My part of it [the chance to preach and testify], actually, was the most enjoyable." He loved getting to preach once more in front of family and friends. It was a joy, he said, that he would "feast on for weeks to come." 

Other elderly participants express similar sentiments. Every year, Cordelia Maxwell would get the Spirit and testify, speaking in tongues, dancing up and down the aisles, shouting about the day she was saved — "It was here, right in this house!" — and proclaiming the Word: "Ah, we want to go to that home where Jesus lives! Where there ain't no burdens to bear, no pain! Aah, Hallelujah!" Her daughter-in-law attributes Maxwell's continuing good health partially to the pleasure Aunt Cord derived from her ecstatic testimonials: "She loves that and she believes that. It gets her out and going, bless her heart. And when she gets happy, it's good exercise." 

The younger participants also enjoy hearing their elders speak and perform. The Reverend Rupert Pixley, Ben's son, says that for him the highlight has always been "to see that inward person being renewed — some of them on crutches, canes, and in wheelchairs — but inside, though the body was tiring and growing old, you could see that inward person being lifted up. That's what really boils my soul inside, you know, and gets the joy of the Lord." 

Old People's Day continues to lift up the spirits of the elderly each year. The Reverend Doug Peters, a local preacher himself in his sixties, comments: "People look forward to that. Some folks live from one year to the next for Old People's Day. It's one of the chief joys and hopes of some people, and that helps them to live." 

The day's very existence dramatizes the community's concern for its elderly. Community members turning out en masse for this celebration of aging makes the ideal of close fellowship among young and old seem as real as the dozens of bodies crowding around picnic tables in the shade. This one day's festivities can never obliterate the sorrows of loneliness, of course, any more than it can save the old people from the misery of disease or from death's approach. Day-to-day life may still be achingly harsh. But once a year, Old People's Day proves that the elderly of Eighty-Eight are by no means forgotten, nor are their contributions to family, church, and community unvalued. Concludes Modor Lamb, "It's a Godsent day, the most wonderfullest day they is."