IN THE WORDS OF THE ORIGINAL RECORD
It seems like many times in my life I have felt the presence of angels directing me what to do and what not to do. When I was eleven or twelve, a friend of mine, Mary Beck and I were swimming along down in the canal near our home. Neither one of us are very good swimmers.
We generally played down by the bend where it wasn't very deep, but this day we decided to swim from the bridge to the bend. There was a place about mid way that we called the hole because we could never touch bottom there. Mary said she could swim so I told her to go first.
When she got above the hole she lost her strength and started going under. I thought, she is going to drown. I knew I wasn't a very good swimmer and as afraid to let go of the bar that I was holding on to.
Someone literally took my hand off from that bar and I started swimming toward her. She had gone under several times by then and when I reached her she grabbed a hold of my neck and we both started going under. I didn't know anything about saving someone, but being so scared I just hit her really hard and pulled her over to the side.
She is the mother of six children, and knows that the Lord wanted to preserve her for that purpose.
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Original wording and spelling retained. Paragraph spacing is adapted for reading. Family recollections reflect the accounts of their contributors.
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