A JOLT FROM JILL: EASTER AS A RUMBLEY!

by Jill Rumbley-Beam

First of all, I’ve always said being a Rumbley is FUN! Fascinating, unusual, and never a dull moment. My brother and I always looked forward to Easter. We wouldn’t get the traditional Easter basket, filled with goodies, we got a big Easter bucket. After we took all the goodies out, we would go to the backyard to find the eggs mom had hidden. They were those colored, sugary eggs, that were wrapped in plastic. We loved it. Then off to church we would go.

Mom started teaching at Dallas Baptist College, now Dallas Baptist University in 1966. Phil and I became very acquainted with her students. There were some that we really liked. My grandmother thought Phil needed a dog. My grandmother and granddaddy took Phil to the pound. Phil came home with the ugliest dog and he named him Ray, after a student at DBC, who we both adored named Ray Campbell. It was time for Easter again and this time mom and dad gave Phil and I a baby duck. We named him, James, named after another student we loved, James McCandlish. James was able to roam around the backyard freely. One Sunday morning, daddy locked Ray,the dog, up, and we went to church. Well, when we returned from church, Ray had apparently got out of his pen and there were feathers everywhere. In case you didn’t know, duck meat is full of amino acid and protein. I guess Ray had a healthy feast that day!

Another thing mom got to do while teaching at DBC, was the was the director of the Laurel Land Cemetery Sunrise Easter Pageant in Oak Cliff. She more or less inherited the position from a man who had directed it forever, and he retired. In order to produce a pageant, you need a choir and the characters to produce the pageant. We were members of Cliff Temple Baptist Church. Mother told the choir director that he and the choir would be singing at the pageant. Then she told all of her speech and drama students, including me, we would all be in the pageant and she went on to say, you will get an automatic A in her class, whether we showed up for class or not, if we appear in the pageant. Two great stories from the pageant: The first year, it was a beautiful Easter morning and everything was going along smoothly, until, when it was time for the disciples to go into the upper room, for the Last Supper, a kid who was the 11th disciple noticed the 12th one was not behind him. He shouted to my mom and told her of the dilemma. Mother just grabbed another kid and told him he is now the 12th disciple. It was a beautiful moment until everyone started counting. There were 13 disciples in the upper room. As it turned out the 12th disciple that finally did show up was sick but had a miraculous recovery because he remembered he was failing biology and remembered what mom had promised about that automatic A, if you appear in the pageant. However it gets better with second year of the pageant. Another beautiful Easter morning and everything was going perfectly until right before Peter denies Christ, a rooster crows three times. The sound man raced up to my mom, before that dramatic moment and tells my mom that the cassette, with the rooster crowing, had a crack in it. Mother said, no problem, and she climbs into the sound booth and rooster was Rose Mary Rumbley!