Hattie Schleigh

My Christian mother went home to Heaven when I was only nine years old. She had taught me from the Bible, but after she was gone, I drifted away from those teachings.

After I was married and had a family, my husband and I thought we were not doing right by the children if we did not take them to a dance every week or two. I loved worldly amusements.

One day, that all changed. Some people came across the mountains to where we were living and told us about Jesus. My husband was saved first. I remember standing in my kitchen and looking out through the back window. He was drawing water out of the well and pouring it into a trough for the cattle. He stood out there for a long time, and everything was quiet. Then, he jumped up and started on a dead run for the house. It was quite a distance, but he came running into the kitchen and said, “I got it!” I knew he had been praying. Then he said, “God’s been here and saved me, and I’m not afraid to trust Him with anything.”

He brought the wheelbarrow up to the back door and loaded up anything that he thought might hinder his faith. Then he took those things and buried them outside. I knew then that he meant business. I also knew that in order to have harmony in the home, I must be saved, too.

After he left the house, I got down on my knees by a chair and told the Lord, “If You will give me what he has and what these people have, and give me grace to go back and straighten out my past life, I will serve You as long as I live.” Suddenly, it was just like a heavy load lifted right off me. I was so happy!

It was a different life from then on. We started going, almost every night, to the meetings that the Apostolic Faith people were holding in Dorris, California. We would get into that old Chevy, go to the meeting, and then come back home and sit around with the kids and talk for hours about what the Lord was doing in our lives. We would cry and talk and pray. The kids were happy as larks.

Of course, troubles came along. The kids got sick often. We had smallpox and diphtheria—it seemed like we were quarantined half the time. But God never failed us. We gave God the glory for every little thing that came along, and God blessed us for it. My husband asked everybody whom we became acquainted with whether he or she were in the Gospel or not. It just became the center of our lives.

We raised seven children, and the Lord helped us through everything. He has brought me this far, and I know He can take me the rest of the way. I’m not afraid to trust Him—that’s what I have done down through all these years. Anything that came along that did not seem just right, I would turn over to the Lord, and He would take care of it. I never changed my mind or looked back to the things of this world.

My husband and some of my children have gone on to be with the Lord. I know they are safe in Heaven, and I am looking forward to meeting them there. I have this glorious hope today because some people went out into the highways and byways to tell the story of Jesus. I am so glad that I heard of His power to save and keep from sin. What a difference it has made in my life!

Hattie Schleigh lived to be 107. She celebrated her 105th birthday rejoicing in the wonderful news that her son, Clifford, who was eighty-four, had recently received salvation.