[Granville-Hough] 23 Jan 2010 - Remembering Rev Willoughby Sullivan

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:44:41 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Remembering Rev Willoughby Sullivan - 23 Jan 2010

 
Rev. (Cousin) Willoughby Sullivan and Finger Bowls:

GWH:  Within my Hough family and the Richardson family, everyone spoke 
of Reverend Willoughby Sullivan with respect and admiration.  He was 
among the first of the area to become a graduate of the Theological 
Seminary in Louisville, KY, then a leader among Mississippi Baptists.  
For us, he was the greatest of the preaching/teaching family.  He was 
the first of several Baptist ministers to be selected and encouraged by 
Rev. Dan Moulder.
    
My mother, Lizzie (Richardson) Hough, did speak of him as shy and 
awkward in his school days in old Salem Community on Upper Cohay.  He 
was a brilliant scholar, and my mother measured her days of success by 
how well she did relative to how well Willoughby Sullivan did.  When she 
did better than he, she was highly elated, and went home announcing to 
one and all that she had done better than Willoughby Sullivan.  That 
merited attention and encouragement.
    
There may have been Sullivan cousins who were jealous of Willoughby.  
One story is told among Sullivans that Willoughby was a young pastor in 
Natchez where social customs were old and rigid.  Willoughby was invited 
to some home or banquet where everything was laid out for a formal 
occasion, including finger bowls for each place.  (Now, finger bowls 
have long been relegated to the dust bin of history, but they were a 
little bowl for washing the fingers before handling food.)  It had been 
a hot day, and Willoughby was thirsty.  He had never seen a finger bowl 
before, but he saw it contained water.  He picked one up and drank it 
all, much to the amazement, or amusement, of the people who observed.  
This proves the adage that you can get a preacher out of the back woods, 
but you cannot get the back woods out of the preacher.  So, among some 
Sullivans, Willoughby was the preacher who satisfied his thirst from 
finger bowls.  

Certainly that was a step upward from a bottle of whiskey!  Granpa Hough.