New Preacher in Town

By Ernest Markwood Pritchard © 1986
Edited By Emily P. Cary

"The story takes place between 1893, when my father was born in Coleta, Illinois (his father preached on the Illinois circuit of the United Brethren Church from shortly after his marriage to my grandmother in 1887 until he received a calling to the West Virginia Methodist Conference in 1897), and 1905, when they arrived in Richwood. From Richwood, they moved to Wheeling, where my father graduated from high school in 1913, then to Clarksburg and West Union, where my grandfather retired. My grandfather died on the operating table in Clarksburg July 27, 1927, just two months before his 70th birthday.