CATEGORY: GRASS VALLEY
PHOTO: OLD METHODIST CHURCH IN GRASS VALLEY

Mary told me once, emphatically, that we never went to Sunday School.  She and I do not have the same recollections.  I certainly went to Sunday School at both the Methodist and the Baptist churches in Grass Valley, and Episcopal classes in Shaniko.  I also went to vacation bible school, and later I learned a considerable amount about the bible on my own, just by reading it in various translations–some parts many times, which is why I am not a Christian now.  However, I respect the bible for its history.

Perhaps mother gave us a choice and Mary did not choose to go.  Maybe this is why Mary became so religious in later life; she had never read enough to have doubts.  In the last years before we went to Camp Sherman, mother became a Christian Scientist but, even though she was diligent, she could not make it work for her in the way that she desired.  Still, what this did for me is make me realize that there is more than one way of looking at religion and there are other ways of interpreting the bible.  It gave me a broader outlook, and I have always been thankful that I was not confined by parental influence to traditional religious thinking.