In the corner of my late Grandma Hillard's garage, under cobwebs, sat treasures I didn't know existed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeffrey Hillard, 44, is a poet, journalist, essayist, and editor who has taught at The College of Mount St. Joseph since 1987. He lives with his wife and daughter in Westwood, and plans to write a memoir of his grandparents.

        I found a huge box secured behind a rake, a shovel, and a two-by-four. The treasures, though, were not the typical collector's items: no coins or cash, antiques, or paintings.

        The dusty box contained remnants of Cincinnati history. My grandparents were involved in making that history, as their publications, manuscripts, and church records in that box attest.

        After Grandma passed away last April at the age of 96, I spent much of last summer in her garage, mesmerized by all the writing and achievements of my grandparents.

        Why did I sit on a backless chair in that claustrophobic garage? Why didn't I pick up the deep box filled with papers and go outside in the summer light, or upstairs to a table? I'd planned to, but I'm a reading fool, a brazen loafer when a narrative sweeps me into its pages, regardless of the subject matter.

        Once I started devouring my grandparents' words and fixating upon their Biblical scholarship and their rich accounts of their church and community, the hours passed. The sun would go down. I'd flick on the garage light. My backless chair became comforting.

        I had the key to the house. I set up a fan. I propped my feet on a tire.

        I always knew that they led the congregation at Lockland Baptist Church from 1933-1951. Harnessing the energy of their small congregation in the late 1930s, my grandparents helped generate a rise in attendance that peaked to almost 3,000 for many years, making the church one of the largest in Cincinnati and in the country.

        I knew how my grandfather pioneered an elaborate “bus ministry.” But, until I lifted articles dated 1945-1948 from the box, I could only imagine the oddity of a seeing a fleet of rented Metro buses parked fender to fender for two blocks outside the church on Mill Street.

        In my backless chair, in bad light, I read through stacks of the weekly newspaper — The Witness — that my grandparents wrote and published for nearly 12 years, rarely missing a week. Grandpa wrote much of the text and grandma set it on a linotype press. In addition to The Witness they wrote tracts, hundreds of letters, books of Bible lessons for adults and children, and manuscripts on Christian faith.

        When he wasn't ministering or traveling, my grandfather was writing and reading. The more I pulled his writings from the box, the more I realized why I'm a writer and teacher; why I count it a rough day when I don't write; why I urge my students to write fearlessly and with inspiration.

        Family members always say, “Jeff, you get that writing bug from your grandparents.” And I see it with Grandma's writings, too. The old box of yellowed papers bore it out.

        My grandfather's ministry ended when he died in 1951, six years before I was born. When I think how I never knew him, his papers yield stories of his love for God, humanity, his wife and family.

        Now, rescued from the spider webs in a dim old garage, I have those and thousands of words that my grandparents wrote over a lifetime, two voices ever clear in my mind, and a light I can always go to.

        Share recent moments in your life. Fax 768-8330; e-mail: mfuqua@enquirer.com. Columns submitted to the Enquirer may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms.

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