Narrative Summary
Interview with Elizabeth Wingo by Kristin Gearhart
On April 22, 2011, I interviewed Elizabeth Wingo at her home in Missouri. Elizabeth
was born in the 1920s in Missouri. She has traveled, lived in, and lived around the Ozarks and
other various places in the United States throughout her life. At the age of 18 she married her
husband J. Wingo. The couple has five children, one of which passed away when Elizabeth was
only 23. She shares her story at the age of 84, with humble grace and with much wisdom.
To begin to understand Elizabeth’s religious life, one must know a little bit about her
upbringing. Elizabeth’s parents raised her in the Methodist church in their town, and instilled the
value of faithfulness in her. Her parents would regularly take the family to church services,
church activities, and Sunday school. At the age of 12, Elizabeth served as the substitute teacher
for the Sunday school class, and she took this responsibility seriously. She said the whole family
looked forward to attending church.
At the age of six, she had one of her first personal experiences with God. She shared that
one day, as she was walking to her piano teacher’s house, there was a barking dog at one of the
passing houses. She said that this was the first time she can remember praying by herself; she
was asking God to protect her from the dog. She said that since she grew up in a Christian home,
she just knew to pray to God in situations in which she needed help.
Elizabeth shares that the most important lesson that her parents taught her was
faithfulness. She says that her family attended church every time the doors were open, and
sometimes they were even the ones to open them. The only time she didn’t attend church was
when she was severely sick. Elizabeth quotes her mother by saying, “This house always goes to
church.” Then she added, “and we took company to church that didn’t intend to go when they
came.”
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Of course, as a woman who seemed to have such a solid upbringing into her Christian
faith, I was curious to ask her if she ever doubted her faith. When I asked, Elizabeth shared a
personal story with me. She spoke about when her daughter passed away. She died in an
automobile accident when a drunken driver ran into her car as she was traveling back home from
a long trip. Elizabeth said after her daughter’s death, she accused God of not loving her, but she
explains that through all the questioning and hurt, she still kept talking to God. Even though she
was angry and didn’t even think that God loved her anymore, she still talked to him about her
pain and doubt. At one point, however, Elizabeth decided to take her life. During her suicide
attempt, while contemplating jumping off a bridge, she said she saw an angel on one shoulder
and a devil on the other. It was at this point that she said she truly believed there was a devil out
there. She said that God stopped her by making the Devil leave her alone and go away. It was
then that she had to admit to God, “You love me and I will trust you.” She said that she realized
that God really did love her. This was huge to her, and she decided not take her life because of it.
As previously mentioned, when Elizabeth turned 18 she married J. Wingo, who was 21 at
the time. He had just returned home from four years in the Navy, and they married right after
WWII ended. It wasn’t until he was 30 that he decided to become a Methodist minister. They
had a loving marriage, so she supported him in his decision. She shared that she enjoyed their
ministry together. The ministry continued until his death in the late 1990s; however, Elizabeth is
still active in the church she attends as their piano player.
During their ministry, she was active in the church’s vacation Bible school and women’s
activities. She also played piano and helped with the choirs. I asked how she felt about moving
every four years (as Methodist ministers do). She said that sometimes she hated it because she
was leaving her good friends, but she felt that God always prepared the people in the next town
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for her family because they made more good friends and were accepted. She added that she and
her husband were always taken care of wherever they went. It was one day that she realized that
this was likely a result of her parent’s faithfulness during their years of being supportive and
always backing the preachers in their needs.
I wondered if Elizabeth had ever faced any restrictions in being a wife to a preacher or as
a woman in her religion. She shared that she feels that her upbringing prepared her for being a
preacher’s wife. She said that some women would divorce their husbands who were preachers
because they couldn’t stand the role and how everyone looked up to them, but she never was
bothered by this role. She did, however, share that the one thing that was annoying to her was
people trying to tell her how to raise her children. She shared a funny story concerning this.
Elizabeth said there was a man in the church who had a son about the same age as hers.
Her son had long hair. She said it wasn’t too long, and he kept it clean, so it didn’t bother her;
she knew her son’s new fad wouldn’t last long. But this man from her church said to her, “If you
would only make your son cut his hair, then I would be able to make my son cut his.” She wisely
told the man, “I am more concerned with what’s inside my boy than how long his hair is. You
can fix long hair in five minutes, but the inside would take longer.” Elizabeth said the man shut
up and left her alone about it.
I wanted to know if Elizabeth ever felt in the shadow of her husband. She basically said,
“No,” and that he made her feel equal, partly because he was quick to give her support in the
things she did. There was no competition between them. I found it funny that she said that they
would discuss the Bible at times, and that sometimes she would later hear things that she had
shared with him when he was giving his sermon. That was her way of knowing that he agreed
with her and really did value what she thought.
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There was also an interesting spiritual lesson that Elizabeth shared that I definitely
wanted to bring up. She said that through the years, she has learned that when you are in need of
help, you should ask God first. The times that she has remembered to ask God first always
worked out. She said the times that she tried to figure things out by herself, before asking for
God’s help, were the most difficult. Once she prayed for God’s help, he quickly worked the
situation out.
My last question for Elizabeth concerned her advice, as an 84-year-old Christian, for
someone searching for faith. She said to make a list. Write down on one-side “things working out
for you,” and on other, “things not working out for you.” She said to ask yourself, “Do I have
peace about things?” Then, ask God to help you see him. If you are serious about wanting to
know God, she believes he will let you know for sure who he is. Again, she brought up that God
made himself real to her when she was about to commit suicide. When God made the image of
the Devil leave her, it made her say to God, “You do love me!”
Elizabeth has lived her whole life as a Christian, and she continues to get to know God
more each day. Her faith is serious and lives in a committed relationship. One quick story to
illustrate what Elizabeth’s faith is like in her life, is a story of her father and his evening Bible
and prayer times with her as a child. Every evening, her father would read a Bible story to her
and her other siblings and have an evening prayer with them before bed. She said as a child her
favorite story was about Stephen. Elizabeth instilled this same concept of evening prayer and
Bible reading time with her own children. The morals that her parents passed to her are still
alive. Being Elizabeth’s niece, I have witnessed her faithfulness and know that she believes that
nothing else comes first but one’s faithfulness to God.
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