Invisible Witness

I spent the after-school hours of my early elementary years with my Grandma Helen. I would walk the nearly three blocks from our small town elementary school on Fourth Avenue to Sixth Avenue where my grandparents lived. During those long afternoons, Grandma Helen served up a snack and a healthy portion of her childhood memories. We settled in the small study, a room hemmed in by my grandpa’s desk and my grandma’s overstuffed recliner chair, with built-in bookcases and a television so small it must have intuitively known the real entertainment came from my grandmother’s past.

In those moments wrapped in the warmth of the room, there was one experience that she spoke of often. It was a small memory, but her vivid retelling set it apart from her other youthful adventures. She would describe watching her father count tithing donations on their dinner table every Sunday. One time she told of struggling families bringing calves or chickens to fulfill their faith, another of her eyes peering over the table’s edge to spy the carefully collected and stacked coins that represented the congregants’ devotion. As she grew, her father’s commitment to carefully counting his flock’s donations remained firm even as births, deaths, or wars changed both the donations and those receiving them. He would count the tithes of his congregation for twenty-five years, dutifully sending their solemn sacrifices into the bishop’s storehouse.

I thought of this story recently, not for the memories of Grandma Helen or the rectitude of my great grandfather. Rather, I have felt a connection to my great grandmother, Lucy. She must have been working in the farmhouse kitchen while my great grandfather counted the tithes. She wouldn’t have taken an active role in the counting and her presence by his side would have been so natural, so assumed, that he might not have even registered her work beside him. She would have seen it all splayed out on the table as she readied the meat and potato dinner that would conclude their day of devotion. Perhaps, as she was making dinner, she would think of the tithes and instinctively set aside a portion of the meal in preparation for the knock on the kitchen door from a desperate member in need of nourishment. Earlier in the day at church, she probably sat alone, yet surrounded by children, as my great grandfather conducted the meetings and counseled