The Emily Story

On June 3, 1978, Dad, 3 year old Clay, and a very pregnant Mom headed out from Tallahassee to the old farm in Madison where Grandma was preparing a wonderful country dinner (that comes at noon country time). We stopped by Monticello to pick peaches. When Sandi started having contractions, we wondered if we should continue on or return home. Sandi asked God for some help. Just as we were leaving the orchard she experienced a really hard contraction – we took that as the answer to her request and headed back to Tallahassee. On the way, we stopped by a phone booth and called Grandma and told her to pack up the dinner and come on over to Tally. That afternoon at 5:24 we were presented with our special little “peach” and named her Emily Suzanne. (Sandi was so convinced it was going to be a boy, she had trouble believing it was a girl!)

Being a girl was not the only way she differed from her brother – she had a temperament all her own, and she quickly made us aware of it. One day while she was being changed, she was objecting at top of her voice. Clay came in, checked out the situation and left. A second time he came and went away with a concerned look on his face. A third time he came, looked up at Mom with those big brown eyes and said, “Mama, let’s give her back to God!”  You can be sure Clay will tell you today he is glad that was not the case. They were buddies. She much preferred doing the “boy things” like climbing trees or playing football with the cousins.

She was very independent. One day when I was feeding her some baby food, I decided to show her how to do it herself. I wrapped her chubby little fingers around the handle of the spoon, dipped up mush, and we put it in her mouth. That was the last time I got to feed her. From then on it was, “I’ll do it myself.” Though sometimes it went in the nose or eye and eventually the mouth, she was determined to do it herself.

She was determined. She came home from 5K one day just incensed because the teacher had given them something to do, and some of the kids were fooling around when they were supposed to be working. When she was given a task, she really persisted in getting it done. This trait especially showed in her high school years.

I had encouraged Clay and Emily to keep a “Life Notebook” to record the most important events in their lives.  At this point, I would like to share Emily’s first entry, entitled “When I was Saved.”

“I was saved when I was 5 years old.  I remember my parents and my brother were saved, and I wasn’t.  My preacher talked about it and I was kinda scared about it and afraid to go to hell.  I knew a little about the Revelation and that also made me scared.  One night I was lying in bed, my dad was at the farm and my mom was still awake.  I felt so hot and uneasy and I knew I was not saved and that if I died I would go to hell.  So I got up and went to the bathroom.  I remembered what to do from what my teachers had told me.  I went and told my mom and she went over it with me.  I was so happy.  We told Nana and Clay, and we were all so happy.  We called Dad and he was excited.  I’ll never ever forget that night.”  We all did truly rejoice that our family was now complete in Christ! Emily was baptized at age eight in the waters of Little Bear Creek in Youngstown, FL where her mother had been baptized approximately thirty-five years before.

When Em was in the second grade, I noticed she had made some marks on her arm with a ballpoint pen. I told that was not a good thing to do and she should not do it anymore. Just a few days later Mom was helping her with a memory verse which was I Corinthians 6:19 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”  Mom explained that when we are born again, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us and that we should take very good care of our physical bodies.  “I know,” Emily responded as she held up her arm, “and don’t write on the walls!”

Around the first or second grade, she started saying she wanted to play the violin. We think it might have had to do with one of her classmates who already played the violin very well. We didn’t agree right away, thinking she was still quite young for violin and that her interest might pass. (Clay had started trombone.) We moved to Panama City in the summer after second grade; when we enrolled them in the Christian school, we learned that there was a violin teacher available, so we decided to give it a try as she began third grade. She took to it very well and before long she joined Clay  playing in the church orchestra. (Clay was taking lessons from the church music director who also played trombone.)

When Emily began sixth grade, the school started a band program, but there are no violins in a marching band! About midyear I asked her if she would be interested in using my coronet to be in the band. She took me up on the offer, so I spoke to the band director who agreed to let her start in midyear; she even offered to give her some private lessons to help her catch up with the Sixth Grade Band. Well, that didn’t take long – about three lessons. But the coronet was too mild of an instrument – she wanted a trumpet so she could make it “scream”. We found a very nice one at a pawnshop, and she even pitched in from her savings so we could get it. In seventh grade she ‘challenged’ her way up to first chair trumpet. During concert band competition, she also played French horn for some of the numbers; that was her favorite instrument. That was the year they started marching at football games. (Clay, now well over six feet tall, was chosen drum major.) So we went to football games primarily to see the band. Clay’s height and Emily’s long blond hair flying around made them both stand out. (Pardon my bragging, please.)

Clay graduated in 1992 and went off to college. We decided to home school Emmie using a video program. She and Mom would start it off about the same time every day with devotions, then Mom, the speech and English teacher, would sit with her through the English class and then go off to her work. Em would then continue on with the rest of the day’s classes, sometimes doing two days of classes in one day. She was very self-motivated. She would shoot baskets in the driveway to satisfy the PE requirements.

After tenth grade we decided, through a series of events, to send her to Dublin Christian Academy, a boarding school at Dublin, New Hampshire. That’s a long way from home for a quiet southern girl from Florida, but there she excelled. She wanted to be in the choral but thought she might not make it – but she did. Another desired opportunity, to be a member of the drama team, opened to her mid-year. She did well in both those activities both years, even playing violin for some selections with the choral. In her junior year, Mr. Katka, her speech teacher, asked her to do her Original Persuasive Oratory speech for competition. She won first place in New Hampshire, which qualified her for National competition where she took first place with her speech entitled “The Myth of the Separation of Church and State”. She tried out for basketball that year and qualified for starting lineup on the varsity team but turned it down because she felt like she did not have the time to put into it because of her other activities. She did play on the varsity team her senior year. When the boys watched her shoot baskets during tryouts, they asked if she could be on their team!

In her senior year she narrowly lost a bid for Student Body President to a junior boy. She refused an offer for VP.  She then ran for Senior Class President and was elected. Some of her classmates told us later they had said, “She can’t be president. She doesn’t talk.” – just a testimony to her quiet, non-intrusive ways. When it was time to speak, she was up to the task.

Clay, Mom and I had driven up to New Hampshire for the week of her graduation.  Her birthday was June 3rd, which fell on Monday of graduation week.  It was an exceptionally busy time, but she choose to go out for pizza.  How thankful we were to be able to be with her on her eighteenth birthday! 

She graduated with a 3.92 GPA and tied for third place.  The school gives five special awards at graduation.  Of those, Emily received two: the Drama and Music award and the Christian Leadership award, which is the highest award given by the school.  We were SO proud of her!

After graduation on June 8, we packed up her things and brought her back to Panama City. It was great to have her home! I noted she seemed so much more mature spiritually.  We were confident that we had made a wise decision in sending her to Dublin.

Another example of her maturity came about when she and a classmate were scheduled to do a duet at church; something came up, and he had to leave earlier than expected. Mom volunteered to sing with her, but she declined and did a wonderful solo – her first ever. After church she hurried to the car and left Mom to accept all the compliments.

She finally landed a short-term job to help with upcoming college expenses. (Also, a wonderful older couple in our church chose to help out with college.) On July 9th she was on her way to work a little after six AM when a young man in a Jeep ran a red light and slammed into the side of her little Honda, the very one she had learned to drive in and had requested it might be hers some day. She was killed instantly. That little Honda became her chariot to heaven. A fireman at a nearby station saw the Jeep go speeding by, heard the crash and was on the scene in minutes. She was wearing her seat belt and not even doing the speed limit. The medical people told us later that if the best of doctors had been on the scene immediately, they could not have saved her. We earnestly believe this was God’s doing – a few seconds either way and it would not have happened. We are honored that God chose her, we believe, for something special.

As for God, His way is perfect: …  Psalm 18:30a

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and his ways past finding out. 
Romans 11:33



Emily's Life Verse
Psalm 73:24-26 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.