Standing Up For Her Faith
Woman Recalls as a Young Girl Having to Struggle With Her Father Over Being Catholic

EDITOR'S NOTE: Our series celebrating the different ways in which Oklahoma Catholics heard and answered the call to serve the Church continues as we enter the Centennial year of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

By Billie Williams Greiner

OKLAHOMA CITY —  At the age of 86, I have a story to tell. The story is about the love of God. It is often hard to see God working out your salvation, but at my age, I can look back and see where He specifically gave me the gift of the Catholic Church.

When I was five years old, during the 1920s, our family moved from Oklahoma to California. My daddy owned cotton gins in Oklahoma and when hearing the cotton was as high as your head in California, he sold his gins and we moved to California.

As a girl of nine, I began to wonder what church was my church. I would hear my friends at school talk about what church they attended. So, in the simple way of a child, I asked Mama to what church I belonged. Mama told me I was baptized a Catholic but had never attended. Daddy, being a true Bible belt citizen, had exceptionally anti-Catholic views and had not allowed Mama to attend, although she was Catholic. Being a wife of the
old school, she obeyed.

Now I knew in what church I belonged! I had seen a Catholic Church from the street car window many times as I traveled to my music lessons. So, on Palm Sunday, 1926, I headed for that Catholic Church. I discovered the church had two doors and I didn’t know which one to enter! I saw a lady and asked which door I should use. She asked me if I was a Catholic. I said, “yes,” and she took me into the church and sat with me. I remember being pleased that I got to take something home...a palm. Mama weaved it for me later. After Mass, the lady asked me if I would like to go to catechism. I had never heard the word before, but I told her I would like to go. She took me, enrolled me, and I thus began my life as a Catholic. What a lovely woman - one I was never able to thank!

I had attended many protestant churches as my daddy had always sent us to the nearest Sunday school wherever we lived. He was a Christian man and insisted we learn to pray and learn about Jesus.

 I remember upon entering this Catholic Church that it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. God must live here because I could feel Him here. I knew I had found “my church.” I remember that feeling and wondered later if it was the beauty, the silence, the candles or something of that sort that led a child to think she had found “her church.” Now I believe it was the Holy Spirit and that I truly did feel God!

When it came time for my First Communion, Mama made me a dress for the special occasion, and Daddy still said nothing to me about my Catholic activities; however, I could overhear heated discussions with my mother. A neighbor lady and Mama attended my First Communion. When it came time for me to prepare for Confirmation, I was unable to attend the lessons. I didn’t think I had enough nickels for the streetcar to manage another weekly trip to the church. The priest offered to teach me my lessons. Circumstances later required us to make a move. We moved out of Sacramento, and it was 17 miles back to my church- I was quite upset. By now, I was learning how important it was for me to attend Sunday Mass. But, God wasn’t going to lose His new charge: the priest learned of my dilemma and asked me where I was moving. He could pick me up on his way to Folsum and take me to his mission church there, some three miles from my home. He took me three times when a young boy recognized me as the new girl at school. He told his mother, and she then offered to take me to church. For more than two years, I rode to church with that family.

When I was about 12, much to my horror, my father announced we were returning to Oklahoma so he could earn a better living. We had moved too far north in the state for cotton gins as it didn’t get hot enough for the cotton bolls to open. I was now in high school as I had skipped several grades. I desperately wanted to remain with my friends. But, it wasn’t to be, the family packed up and headed back to Oklahoma. By now my youngest sister, Warpha, was born and I grasped the squirming six-month-old on my lap and cried all the way. I remember my father saying, “Now we’re going back to Oklahoma, and this ‘Catholic business’ better stop. People in Oklahoma aren’t Catholic! They are all good Baptists!” This news only aggravated my disappointment over leaving all my friends. I was devastated!

Once we had arrived and settled in Oklahoma, times were really hard. My dad went to the cotton oil companies he had done business with before we left Oklahoma. He acquired a gin in Yukon. My dad went to the bank to make arrangements for his new business. As my father was leaving the bank, the banker, Mr. Kelly, said my dad would need money to get his family into school. He pulled his wallet from his pocket and gave my dad a $50 bill. He told him it was a personal loan to help him get his kids outfitted and ready for school. Upon returning home, my dad joyously proclaimed the goodness of the people of Oklahoma and Mr. Kelly, in particular. I saw my opportunity:

“Daddy? Did you know that Mr. Kelly is a Catholic?” I had learned this at school because Mr. Kelly had two daughters there. The next Sunday I went to church, and Daddy said nothing.

When I was about 14 I asked the priest if he would baptize my younger brothers and sisters. He asked me if I had sponsors. I didn’t know how to get sponsors nor did I know anyone who might be sponsors. The priest arranged for three couples to come as sponsors, and the date was set for the baptism. I told Mama that I had made arrangements for my brothers and sisters to be baptized. She said, “Maybe I should go with you.” And Daddy said nothing.

My religious education continued along with my high school career. One of my history books said that Christ founded the Catholic Church so then I knew I was in Christ’s real church.

I graduated from high school at 14, and became a college freshman the following September, attending pharmacy school at Oklahoma University. In the meantime, my family had moved from Yukon to El Reno.

El Reno had a Catholic school, and I wanted my brothers and sisters to attend. Daddy said, “No, I won’t pay tuition when there is a free public school!” My reply, “That’s the only time you’ve told me ‘no’ and I’ve always wanted to go to Catholic school!” The next morning Mama told me I could take my brothers and sisters to enroll them in Catholic school, but he wouldn’t pay any tuition. I went to the school and asked the Sisters if I could enroll my brothers and sisters and pay the tuition when I came home from college to visit my parents. The sisters never billed Daddy and my brothers and sisters went to the Catholic school. When I think back on this, I give Mama a lot of credit because if she had told me I was hurting my father, I probably would not have pursued my “new church” so vigorously. I’m wondering now how much of it was because I was “daddy’s little girl” and how much of it was the nudging of the Holy Spirit. My father was so anti-Catholic, I think it must have been the latter.

 I had decided years before that I wanted to marry a Catholic because of the problems in my own family. So, I joined the Newman Club on campus as a means to meet Catholic boys. I began dating the man who was to be my husband and the father of our eight children. He had finished his last year in law school and then returned to Stillwater, his hometown. I remained at school to finish my degree. My soon-to-be father-in-law now enters the picture. He wasn’t quite sure about this girl his son was eyeing. But, he askedhis son if he loaned him $500, would he want to get married. He said, “Yes.” The rest of this story is speculation, but I have often felt it was confirmed by a sly grin of my sister-in-law. Dad, my husband’s father, was a friend of the priest in El Reno. I always felt that, before his loan of $500, he checked out this Catholic girl from El Reno. The priest there didn’t know me or my family! I think he checked with the Sisters- They would have known me, the girl who paid the tuition for her brothers and sisters!

Our 7 a.m. wedding in the church in El Reno had a funny catch. Since there was little money, I had decided to buy no flowers for the wedding as well as to have no music. My aunt wanted to do the wedding up right-flowers, music and a wedding dress. I certainly didn’t and said “no!” When I entered the church, I saw the lovely flowers on the altar and, as I walked down the aisle, the organ sounded. Actually I was angry at my aunt as I had decided to do without those extravagances. Guess why it happened-the good Sisters!

My story is simple, yet some may find it powerful. I have always felt rather lacking in the history, rubrics, and formal education about the Catholic Church. My children and my husband had the gifts of a Catholic upbringing and Catholic schools. I was active in the Catholic school that my children attended. But looking back, I was the one with the direct gift from heaven. I wasn’t born into the life of the Catholic but was led to the life. And I think I was the lucky one because I “felt” God in church, and he led me to seek him out. Today, I live in a Catholic retirement home and am able to attend daily Mass most days. I still “feel” God in church and thank him every day for this gift from heaven!

 *A footnote I must add...Daddy was baptized into the Catholic Church before his death! He had a serious heart attack and, while in the hospital, asked to see a priest. The priest told him he had to learn his prayers and understand what the Church believes. Subsequently, he was baptized, and four days later, he died of a fatal heart attack.

**Another interesting post-story. I was visiting with my brother not long ago about his attending Catholic school. He didn’t know I was paying the tuition and during the conversation I told him that I had paid it. He laughed and said. “You didn’t need to okay it- Daddy took meat to the Sisters whenever he butchered beef or pork!” Was the Holy Spirit with him all along????