Kaitlyn: This is Kaitlyn Toelke, I am interviewing Gloria Venable. We are conducting
this interview in her home in Springfield, Missouri. The date is April 6, 2010. This interview is
for the Religious Lives of Ozarks Women, Intergenerational Storytelling from the Older to the
Younger conducted through Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. Are you ready?
Gloria: Yes.
K: How long have you been a member of this church?
G: The church I’m a member of right now, I’ve been a member for 10 years.
K: And how did you get involved here?
G: We were members of the Church of Christ in High Ridge, Missouri. And when we
would come home to Springfield to visit my parents, we would go to church on Sunday morning
and E. Sunshine was then called S. National and we would go to church there because they had
an early morning service and we could still get back home in time to have lunch with my mom
and dad and then go to St. Louis and be home at night for church in High Ridge, so that’s why
we started coming to S. National. And then when we moved down here, S. National had moved
to E. Sunshine and our daughter, who had come here to go to college, had placed her
membership here at E. Sunshine, with her husband and her family.
K: Have you been involved with other churches or religious organizations?
G: Well, the other churches-I started with church in Bonne Terre,MO. And then I wentmoved to Springfield and I went to N. National Church of Christ for several years until I moved
away, and moved to High Ridge in I was a member of House Springs Church of Christ until they
built the High Ridge Church of Christ, which was about 5 years, and then we moved our
membership up to the High Ridge Church. We went there for 32 years before moving to
Springfield. We felt comfortable coming to E. Sunshine to go to church because we had visited
so often and had gotten to know some of the church members before we moved here.
K: So, what was the role of religion in your home when you were growing up?
G: When I was growing up, religion wasn’t really strong in my house. When I was very
young, my mom and dad and the family would go every Sunday to church, but then that changed
about the time I was 4 or 5 years old and my parents stopped attending church because they
didn’t-my father didn’t like the church telling him how much he had to put in the collection
plate. That was in a Methodist church that we had been attending in Springfield, when I was a
child. But my mother was always very strong in religion, always read her Bible and always
taught lessons—as far as everyday life lessons—by referring to the Bible, and things that Jesus
would want us to do and how he’d want us to behave. So, really we didn’t go to church until I
was about 12 years old and we started going to church with-I started going to church with
neighbors.
K: So, what’s your strongest childhood memory related to God or religion?
G: I just think that my mom had a really strong, strong faith. Her mother, who lived to be
100 also, was very strong in her faith and read the Bible a lot and she believed in God and
always talked about God and how God had helped her in His life, and it was just something that I
accepted and believed in and then as I went to church with friends and volunteered I started
learning more about God and Jesus. When I first started going, I thought God and Jesus were the
same person, and then I realized God was the father and then Jesus was the son, so it was just
something that I accepted and I can remember as a child when my dad an ulcer attack and almost
died, praying to God and Him answering my prayers by saving my father and restoring his life.
K: Do you recall any times as a child that things were different for you in your religious
world because you were a girl and not a boy?
G: I don’t think I really thought about things being different for me because I was a girl
opposed to a boy, I just was-felt that there were roles that God had for women and roles that God
had for men, and that was just something that I felt was right because that’s what the Bible said
and I didn’t feel anything was wrong with the fact that I could not do things that boys could do in
church. I just felt that was their role and not mine.
K: So, what challenges or struggles have you faced in your religious life?
G: I haven’t faced a whole lot of struggles in my religious life. I think the only real
struggles are-at one point when my husband and I were having difficulties, and contemplating
the fact that we might divorce, and praying strongly to God for Him to help us, I just really
wondered why He brought this-or allowed this particular problem to arise for us, and the
realizing that I’ve always felt the God has a plan you just have to sit back and wait for that plan
to work out, and having trust and faith in Him to do so, and at one point I was really very
stressed and I just didn’t know how I could even make it through the night, I didn’t think I would
be able to go to sleep and because of the problems and difficulties and as I lay, praying to God,
all the sudden I realized it was morning and I had been asleep and I was so very, very rested that
next morning and I knew it had to be God’s hand that was upon me at the time.
K: So, what person has most influenced your religious life and how?
G: Well, I think other than my mother as a child growing up, as an adult I had my best
friend Beverly who came to our church in High Ridge and was preaching-was a preacher’s wife,
and her example that she set, and really helped me to see more of what my role as a Christian
mother and wife was to be, and I think that was something that the churches didn’t talk that
much about at that point, and-but she was one who was very quite willing to talk and just in her
example set forth things that I realized that that’s what I should be doing and needed to be doing.
K: So, how do you think that religious life is different for kids today than it was for you?
G: I think life for children in total is different for me-or for kids today than it was for me
when I was growing up, because we were taught respect and we were taught respect for parents
and elders and others and I don’t know if that’s as much-especially our society and T.V. and
movies and so forth, they don’t talk about respect and respecting others and they talk about more
“I-I-I, me-me-me, and what I want is more important than anyone or anything else.” And I think
that may have something to do with some of the religious part for the children because to live a
life in Christ is not focused on me-me-me, and is focused on Christ, and for children I think that
it’s-unless they have that example in their home and in their family it’s very hard for them to see
how God plays such a big role in their life and being accepting of the things God wants us to do
and how he wants us to behave.
K: So, final question: how would you like this church to remember you?
G: I don’t know. I would think I would want them to remember that I was a friendly
person and I always tried to do God’s will and that I was a very loving person and that I was
somebody that people could call upon or look upon and-if they needed help and I guess that’s
how I’d want to be remembered.
K: Thank you very much.
G: You’re welcome.