Here is a rare and amazing photo of my great-great grandparents R.J. Bugbee and Mary Bugbee (seated) and my great grandpa Mark Bugbee (with the dark beard) and his siblings taken about 1880. Our eleven year old grandson Billy found this photo as he researched our family tree online. Two people in this photo I recall my mother speaking of many times. The first being Mark Bugbee who was a dear Christian man and greatly loved by my mother. In my living room I have two mission style chairs that belonged to him. Also a familiar name from this picture is Jay Bugbee (standing second from the right.) Despite being born with club hands and feet, he went on to be a professor of penmanship at a college in California. Can you imagine the hard work such an accomplishment would require?
I have a great fascination with the lives of people who lived 100, 150, or more years in the past. Although their daily lives looked very different from ours, two things have remained constant since the beginning of time. The need for happy relationships between family members as each has a loving concern for everyone else has always been the building block for well lived lives. However, rarely does this happen without the second essential; lives that love and honor God out of great thankfulness for His great gift of eternal life. From all that my mother told me about my great grandpa and grandma, these two essentials lived in their lives.
I am blessed to have my great grandma’s Bible and as I have looked through it, here are some wonderful verses she marked as dear to her over 100 years ago. On December 3, 1899 she marked this: “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:30-32 On March 26, 1899 she marked: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8
The Bible has brought good news for thousands of years to those who read it and believe it.