Charlotte, Martha and Julia Zastrow (l-r)
1903
In November, 2006 I was preparing my portion of a eulogy for my father's memorial service. My father, a Methodist minister for nearly forty years, had been the person I admired most in the world and so I worked doubly hard in the days preceding the service to ensure that I had adequately captured what I felt was the essence of a life amazingly well lived. My eulogy included poignant memories, funny stories, a synopsis of my father's outlook on life; all the makings of what I believed to be an eloquent farewell to my dad.
A day or two before the service, my brother, sisters and I were at my father's house half-heartedly dividing up those family items that we would each keep. As we did so, I found myself holding an old tattered bible that had actually belonged to my great-grandmother. As I sat pondering the bible, I became aware that I was in essence holding a tangible manifestation of the very genesis of my parents' faith and ultimately, my father's ministry. I knew then that the message I'd written for my dad's service was all wrong.
Martha Leona Fielding, my great grandmother, was born in Alabama in 1875. She married Julius Hermann Zastrow, a German immigrant almost 30 years her senior and the owner of the massive depot and commissary at Guntersville landing. Julius died within just a few years of their marriage, but not before Martha had borne two daughters; Charlotte and my grandmother, Julia. Martha subsequently remarried and eventually move to Somerville, Tennessee. Following the death of her second husband, she moved in with her eldest daughter, Charlotte (Tua) and her family in Memphis. There she lived for the rest of her life, helping to raise Tua's children, as well as my mother and aunt Wini after Julia passed away suddenly at age 33.
My great grandmother was a devout Christian, as were my grandmother and my mother. My mother's own first experiences with Christ came as her grandmother would read to her and interpret the stories from her bible. From these first special moments spent with her grandmother, my mother's own spirituality would grow and develop into a tremendous faith that remained with her the entirety of her life. That faith would inspire my father, who was raised outside of the church, to become a Christian, and later, a minister. His own ministry would in turn inspire countless others in their own journeys of faith, and many of his parishioners would themselves eventually enter the ministry to tend congregations of their own.
The day I found my great grandmother's bible, I rewrote my father's eulogy completely. I chose not to dwell on anecdotes or even insight from his life, but rather on those tiny seeds of faith passed on to my mother from her grandmother all those years ago- seeds that would ultimately be passed on to my father and blossom into an incredible 39 year ministry. A true legacy, passed down across the generations through the strong women of our family.
