Francis Henry Gregory Perry was born Jan. 27, about 1868 [1865], in or near Bristol England. When he was one year old, his father died, and his mother, Matilda, took the baby & went to live with her parents in Ashley Down, Bristol.

When Francis Henry was ten years old, the mother married Tom Blacklock. As a boy, Francis sang in the boys’ choir in a large church in Bristol, and, as he grew older, learned to play the organ. When he was nineteen [1884] or twenty [1885] he came, with a young man friend and the friend’s parents, on a sight-seeing trip to America. When their sight-seeing was over, Francis Henry allowed his friends to go back to England without him, and he stayed alone in the new land.

For five or six years he went about the country, mostly along the Susquehanna river, holding evening ‘singing schools’ in the country school houses. During this time he was studying for the ministerial examinations; which he passed, and received appointment to the Nebraska Conference. He was made pastor of a little Methodist church in Creighton, Nebraska. Here he met and married the school’s Kindergarten teacher, Nellie Catherine Closs, Jan. 3, 1893 [1894].

At the end of that conference year, Frank Henry was transferred to Ponca, Nebraska. There a little daughter, Elsé, was born [Oct. 30, 1894]. At the end of that year he left the Nebraska Conference, & went to Rockport Mo.. Here a baby boy arrived & when a few months old, was taken to a Methodist Camp meeting where he was baptized by Bishop Bowman. So the little boy was named ‘Bowman.’

A few years later, the young Methodist preacher left the Missouri Conference and was given a church in Russell Kansas [1899].

This was when I had my first memory of him as a minister, and those times were very scarce, as I was still very young. One day I was sitting in my little chair in a roomful of women, the Ladies Aid, and my father came into the room and sang a solo, “The Holy City,” with some one accompanying him on the organ. I was very proud of him.

One time there at Russel, our parents left Bowman & me with some friends while they went to Conference several miles away. In the middle of the night, Bowman began crying for his mamma so vociferously that the good friends had to hitch their team to the buggy and take the unhappy little boy to his parents.

Soon after this, Frank Henry began to think that being a minister in a small Methodist church did not pay enough on which to raise a family, and decided to operate a lime kiln, in his spare time, which occupation he had learned in England.

I remember one Christmas Eve, during the program at the church, Santa came in wearing the long horse-hide coat a parishioner (back in Nebr.) had given my father. Tho he was wearing a mask I caught the twinkle in his eyes, and knew who Santa Claus was.

By the time I was eight years old, we were living in Rogers Ark., and Frank Henry was pastoring the Meth. church there. It was here that I, one Sunday morning, standing beside my father at his pulpit, gave my heart to Christ and joined the Church on probation.

From this time on he spent more time burning lime or writing insurance then he did preaching. Tho, everywhere he went he “filled in” for another minister when the occasion arose, or found someplace to preach the gospel.

At one place he walked across the fields on Sunday afternoons to preach to the students in a government Indian school.

When in Nebr., wolves often trailed along behind his buckboard as he drove thru a lonely, wooded area, usually wearing the long horse-hide coat.

One time, in northern Arkansas, he came to his usual crossing place of the White River & found it flooded from recent rains. He started across anyway, & soon the horse was swimming and the buckboard floating on the water. As they drew up on the bank, the harness broke.

When I was in my teens, my father was holding a prayer service once a week at a chapel in “Lime Kiln Row,” where he operated the kiln. I went along one evening, & during the service, felt inclined to participate in the prayers. The following day, one of the men at the lime kiln told Frank Henry that he should tell his daughter that women were not supposed to pray in public. This was in Virginia. As most of Dad’s preaching was done when I was very small, I do not remember very much about it, only incidents now & then which made a deep impression on me. I do remember that I was always happy to go with him wherever he went, and that he did so many things to keep the family happy.